8, going on 9, years ago, DC did something radical. No, not in the slang 90s way but in the major, seismic shift sort of way. They took their entire line of comics, cancelled every single one of them, and rebooted their entire universe. Not only did they reboot it, they reset it, making a pseudo-Ultimate Universe where heroes were near the start of their careers, without decades of story baggage. The Wildstorm and Vertigo universes were folded back into the main DCU and an overarching threat was teased during the final pages of “Flashpoint,” the event that birthed the New 52. It was a promise of more interconnected titles, a greater coherence within the universe and 52(!) titles to start, with more on the way in subsequent waves.
Gone were the JSA. Gone were all but one of the Robins (not really). Teams that once had hundreds of members and rotating casts were reduced to their core membership. The Teen Titans existed, but didn’t. It was a weird time.
It was a bold move and while, in theory, it could have worked, the practicalities and execution fell flat on its face and gave us nearly a decade of material to shake our collective heads at and ask: what the hell happened?
Well, that’s not what we’re here for! To celebrate the end of the decade, we here at Multiversity thought it’d be a neat idea to go back to the start of the New 52 with fresh eyes to see if things were better, if things were worse, and how well these books have stood the test of time. Over the next two weeks, we’ll be covering every single title of Wave 1 of the New 52, divided up by the “imprints” they spearheaded, an idea I, Elias, genuinely wish they had kept.
These titles were meant to be an entry into a simplified universe — let’s see if these #1s accomplished that goal. Yesterday, we covered ‘The Dark’ and the day before the ‘Superman’ quartet. Today, we invite you into another quartet, one exploring the bounds of the universe, and what it takes to police it against the dark with ‘Green Lantern’s’ light.
Green Lantern #1
Written by Geoff Johns
Penciled by Doug Mahnke
Inked by Christian Alamy and Tom Nguyen
Colored by David Baron
Lettered by Sal Cipriano
Reviewed by Brian Salvatore
Of all the New 52 titles, the Lantern books had the least amount of changes affect them. Sure, some of the ‘old’ history was lost, but the story from the prior volume to the current continued unabated. Because of that, “Green Lantern” #1 is not exactly the new introduction that most of the other books were. Due to that, revisiting it required a little bit of googling and/or memory jogging.
Doug Mahnke’s art is splendid when dealing with constructs and aliens; he is able to give the characters a truly alien look. His detail adds so much visual language to the story, and doesn’t do so to the detriment of the storytelling. However, his humans also look odd and alien-ish at times, and can somewhat be distractingly rendered.
But the real story here is Sinestro as the titular Green Lantern, though Hal Jordan is still a big part of this title. Geoff Johns has always been really great at Sinetstro’s characterization, and this issue is no different. Principled but cruel, focused to the point of fascism, Sinsetro is the near-robotic Lantern that the Guardians think they want. But, of course, being Sinestro, he also kills a Yellow Lantern without remorse.
Final Verdict: 6.5 – A need for prior knowledge somewhat belies the New 52’s mantra.
Green Lantern Corps #1
Written by Peter Tomasi
Penciled by Fernando Pasarin
Inked by Scott Hanna
Colored by Gabe Eltaeb
Lettered by Pat Brousseau
Reviewed by Brian Salvatore
John Stewart and Guy Gardner are the focus of this iteration of “Green Lantern Corps,” and the book asks an important question from the get go: how Lanterns have a normal life while not being Lanterns? It is a specific question to these characters, as 2814 is the only sector with this many ring slingers. But this can easily be adapted, ever so slightly, to police, soldiers, and first responders. How do you turn off your responsibilities to be ‘normal’?
Continued belowIt is a question that is a legitimate concern for thousands of people, but it is a question that is asked, but never really answered sufficiently here. The answer seems to be, “You can’t, so don’t!” That’s fine for a comic, but is a bit insulting to real people. Peter Tomasi has written stories about the military over the course of his career, and this seems like a simplistic solution from a writer who is usually more thoughtful.
Fernando Pasarin’s artwork is still a cornerstone of DC in 2019, and here he shows the skills that had led to most of a decade in DC’s employ. There are a few pages where mystery is required for the full effect, and he constructs pages that dole out information bit by bit, and lead to effective reveals. Scott Hanna is a great match for Pasarin’s inker, and the two of them, along with Gabe Eltaeb’s coloring, make pages that are more cinematic and bold than a lot of Lantern books.
Final Verdict: 6.1 – Visually impressive, but simplistic storytelling.
Green Lanterns: New Guardians #1
Written by Tony Bedard
Illustrated by Tyler Kirkham
Inked by Batt
Colored by Nei Ruffino
Lettered by David Sharpe
Reviewed by Kevin Gregory
Y’all remember when we had all them “Green Lantern” books a few years ago and the Corps was a really big deal? You may not you might’ve slept since then. And you might’ve slept on this book.
“Green Lantern: New Guardians” was the Kyle Rayner book of the GL line, like the main title was the Hal Jordan book and “Green Lantern Corps” was the John Stewart one. Guy would vacillate from “Corps” to “Red Lanterns” about halfway through its run. In this book we got a look at what made Kyle Rayner special as he assumed his Chosen One-esque status and became a White Lantern. The seeds for that development are planted here by Bedard and Kirkham who take this book about halfway through its run before Justin Jordan and Brad Walker take us home.
But that’s all what is to come. This first issue looks back. Way back. We get an extended look at Kyle’s origin story for half the issue before a few one page vignettes of the current day as Lanterns from all the various corps lose their rings suddenly and they fly off to find…you guessed it: Kyle. It’s a fun look at what’s to come, though this issue would have benefited so much more from giving us more of the new. With ten pages spent on learning who Kyle is, we get almost no look at the stories of these other corps that this book is based on.
Perhaps there was a mandate to introduce Kyle to new readers here at the beginning, but this seems a missed opportunity to hook people on what makes the Lanterns interesting. The art evolves after this first half of the book as Kirkham, Batt and Ruffino are given room to breath and cut loose a little bit. The different aliens and locales showcased in the back half are fun and exciting, with the double page spread and the full page of Kyle and these new rings being real highlights. Part two of this issue looks bright and colorful and exciting, and sets the mood for what’s to come.
Final Verdict: 5.5 – A good second part of the issue is held back by the need to recount origins.
Red Lanterns #1
Written by Peter Milligan
Penciled by Ed Benes
Inked by Rob Hunter
Colored by Nathan Eyring
Lettered by Carlos M. Mangual
Reviewed by Erik Hyska
Coming into the ‘New 52,’ almost every title felt somewhat accessible as a new reader, but the Green Lantern family of books always seemed intimidating because it was well known that they were continuations of their pre-‘Flashpoint’ stories. Rather than jump in and try and figure out who all these characters were and parse out which Green Lantern was which, I stayed away from DC’s space police and looked elsewhere for sci-fi comics. Fast forward to today and I decided to try out “Red Lanterns” #1 mainly because Peter Milligan is my favorite writer and I’m honestly shocked with how much I like this book.
Continued belowConsidering the works Milligan is most known for (“Shade, the Changing Man,” “Enigma,” “X-Statix”) it’s easy to forget that he cut his teeth on 2000 AD telling bizarre sci-fi stories with eccentric characters like the cast of “Bad Company” or the more recent “Counterfeit Girl.” “Red Lanterns” #1 fits well in this latter batch of sci-fi comics.
In fact, the first sequence in the comic feels straight from the pages of 2000 AD. On the first page, readers are introduced to a nameless group of lizard-like aliens torturing a poor humanoid for the fun of it. The designs of the aliens and the grimy setting of the spaceship they’re aboard is so evocative of 2000 AD that it really drew me in. (There’s even a lizard casually posed in the background smoking something which got a laugh out of me.)
On the next page we’re introduced to Dex-Starr who (I guess) is the Red Lantern cat who wears his Red Lantern ring on his tail. Dex-Starr sort of floats on board the lizard-aliens’ ship and begins to slash, bite, and take on the entire crew. When Dex-Starr is overwhelmed and it looks like the lizard people may have a new subject for their violent games, Atrocitus, leader of the Red Lanterns, enters the scene in a full splash page asking, “What are you doing to my cat?” Admittedly, the whole scene is pretty silly, but I love it.
The rest of the issue continues this tone with a handful of heartfelt moments as we learn the origins of Atrocitus and meet the rest of the Red Lanterns on the planet Ysmault in Space Sector 666 (of course). Ed Benes’s style is big and boisterous and is frankly more Jim Lee than Jim Lee which works well with this kind of book. I never felt like the over-muscular rendering of Atrocitus or the close-up panels of characters’ grimacing faces felt out of place in a book about characters who worship rage. The pages are also very full with most panels having some sort of background illustrated demonstrating proper techniques of scale and perspective which is a nice subtlety for a book that attempts to forego indirectness. However, it needs to be noted that Benes annoying illustrations of Bleez is purely for the heterosexual male gaze as to indicate that she is in fact the female Red Lantern of the group.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – All in all, I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed this comic book. Milligan flexes his sci-fi chops with well written characters with distinct voices and sci-fi setting that’s fun and reminiscent of the best of 2000 AD. Benes art fits well with the tone of the story, however, I hope his depictions of Bleez improve.
