Green Lantern Corps #62 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Daniel HDR (penciller), Keith Champagne (inker), Nei Ruffino (colorist)

The Story: Love hurts…love scars…love wounds…and mars…

The Review: Boy, nothing quite like romantic squabbles to make for cheap yet reliable drama, huh?  A dose of it in can definitely spice up your fiction from time to time, though some people can handle far more than a dose.  I suspect for most of us, however, that kind of thing gets tiresome pretty fast.  As in real life, relationship craziness is often best left between the lovers, sparing bystanders from the awkward helplessness of something which ought to be personal.

That pretty much sums up the tense situation between Kyle and Soranik, a couple who have gone through plenty of turbulence together before, making their current rough patch seem forced.  It certainly does nothing for Sora’s credibility as a Lantern.  Personal issues have swayed other Lanterns’ behavior before, but in this issue, her lashing out (somewhat unjustly so) at Kyle in the middle of a firefight comes across unprofessional and borderline childish.

Since the animosity in their relationship seems entirely one-sided on Sora’s part, it makes sense Bedard would attempt to give her something worthy to get mad about with the revelation that Kyle lied about seeing her as his true love in Miri’s gem, some months earlier.  While deceiving Sora certainly wasn’t the wisest choice, Kyle’s reasons for doing so were reasonably, sincerely, even lovingly motivated, which should be as obvious to her as it is to us.

Green Lantern Corps #32 – Review

By Peter Tomasi (writer), Patrick Gleason (artist), Rebecca Buchman (inker)

The Story:  As a part of the “Faces of Evil” event running through DC comics this month, this issue finds Kryb battling Kyle and Saranik Natu, so that she may rip Amnee Pree’s baby from the womb and protect it from the evil of the green.  If they hope to stand a chance against Kryb though, the Green Lanterns must put aside their differences with Star Sapphire Miri and fight together for the greater good.

The Good: Three words: Miri and Kryb.  The more I learn about these various, emerging Corps and their members, the more impressed I become with this incredible mythology the Green Lantern creative teams are weaving.  Miri is an interesting character, so similar to the Green Lanterns in bearing and methodology except for a slight twist: her ring communicates to her entirely in terms of love.  Whether the ring is tethering her to the heart of an individual in order to facilitate interstellar travel, or warning Miri of an impending disaster to eternal love, Tomasi does a great job of setting up little details like these make the Violet Lanterns as a force every bit as dedicated and powerful as their counterparts.  Also, I think Kryb is easily one of the most horrific and visually terrifying villains I’ve seen in a long time.  The cover to this issue alone is enough to induce nightmares. I especially loved how she dealt with KT-21, which was just memorably gruesome.

The Not So Good: I love Kryb as a villain, but I was disappointed by how quickly she was defeated.  Being a “Faces of Evil” issue, I was expecting Kryb to be more prominently featured here, or at the very least be more of a threat. Instead she was used as a punching bag by the Lanterns, seemingly so that Rayner and Miri could have more time to argue over who gets to imprison her.

Conclusion: Although this issue was a weak installment in the “Faces of Evil” event running this month, it is still a solid and completely satisfying story.

Grade:  C+

-Tony Rakittke