Review: Green Lantern #65/Green Lantern Corps #59

Written by Geoff Johns/Tony Bedard
Illustrated by Doug Mahnke and Keith Champagne/Tyler Kirkham

GL#65: The “War of the Green Lanterns” takes a shocking turn! With the entire Green Lantern Corps against them, the four Earthborn GLs make a choice that will rank among the most memorable in GL history. But not all of them agree on what has to be done and what lines are to be crossed. Plus, the countdown to the live-action film continues with another exclusive look at the upcoming GREEN LANTERN movie!

GLC#59: As “War of the Green Lanterns” rages, Hal, Guy, John and Kyle fight on–but standing in their way is Kilowog, Salaak and all their comrades. Are they prepared to hurt their friends in order to save the Corps?

I don’t think I’ve been very shy with my general dislike of the output in the Lantern realm of DC as of late. Blackest Night through Brightest Day has been a disappointment in my eyes, and I haven’t really cared for any of the storylines in any of the three main Lantern titles. However, I’ve read them all for so long that I might as well keep plugging along, right? At least for a little while longer anyway, depending how this storyline wraps up.

So with that in mind, take a look beyond the cut to see some thoughts on this week’s Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps.

Let’s be perfectly upfront about something: no matter how good The War Of The Green Lanterns may end up being, the deck is most certainly stacked against it. The Sinestro Corps War is largely regarded as the pinnacle of the title’s greatness in terms of crossovers, with Blackest Night and Brightest Day both ending up – at least at this site – rather critical failures in the end. The days where Green Lantern represents the best that DC has to offer is behind us, and as much as I (let alone other members of this site) want to root for the Corps and their various adventures, it’s just not as easy as it once was. Now everything is taken in with caution, because after the intense build-up and eventual let down that was Blackest Night, we don’t exactly want to get burned again.

With that in mind, the latest War to enter the pages of Green Lantern (this being the third), we find ourselves with two parts this week, both of which end up fairly decent when read in succession. In truth, one of the best parts about reading a story when it’s finished is that you get it all at once. Yes, part of the dramatic tension is lost when you don’t have to wait a period of time between installments, but a comic story’s strength needs to be measured both by it’s stand alone nature and it’s collected. Thanks to a convenient (and not surprising at all) delay from Green Lantern, we’re given a bit of a glimpse at the collected version of the story – and honestly, these two read much better together than they do alone.

That’s generally both a plus and a minus. If a story has no redeeming qualities whatsoever then obviously it’s easier to snub in the long run, but reading the two issues back to back actually helps the story flow much more organically. The big “twist”/cliffhanger of the finale of Green Lantern is that our four heroes are now members of other corps, and to be honest it feels pretty repetitive of every “major twist” (or what have you) from the War of Light, in which Hal joined every single Corps in the universe (except Indigo, if memory serves). The idea that Green Lanterns can become Yellow, Blue, Red, Orange, etc. is extremely nothing new, because we’ve seen it happen now with Hal too many times. The idea that this is the only way to beat a Green Corps gone mad is clever in that the person reading sees what happens and says, “Oh, yeah, duh!” – but it’s not explicitly clever that you can’t see it coming (and I’m not talking about the cover reveal for the following GLC issue).

Here’s the thing about the Green Lantern part of this story – I don’t mean to pick on Geoff Johns, because I really do respect him as a creator and a writer, and his legacy at DC so far is an impressive one. However, with the recent issues of Green Lantern, they mostly just feel like Johns is trying to get it out of the way so he can do something else. Johns isn’t pushing the Corps or Hal in new directions anymore, but simply rehashing story bits that he’s played with before – the Lantern swap in particular. Further more, the issue generally feels like an issue with little depth that plays off as a filler issue to just get Hal, Guy, John, and Kyle their new rings. We open with the revelation of the Green House, which is then lost in about a page with no further explanation to be replaced by this “totally sweet and awesome spaceship”, which is then destroyed a few pages later. This is the kind of issue that, if the Green House and the spaceship had ever been mentioned or shown before, would feel like a pay-off. Since they’re both new elements that are then thrown away, it just feels like a deus ex machina form of a filler to help Hal and Guy get from point A to point B, and generally uninspired. Again, not to rail on Johns, but it doesn’t feel like he’s really trying anymore with this title.

Even Doug Mahnke’s work isn’t all that impressive here, and he’s the one that usually creates the most redeeming elements of issues. There’s a lot of big “movie moments” here that have an obvious cinematic feel to them and are meant to literally create emotion within the reader with a sense of “oo” and “ahh” over the scenes. Hal’s revelation that he has all the rings is one pig splash page of Hal’s face and hands, and the way the scene is played so that the page turn reveals the rings is obviously supposed to be a power moment where the audience cheers. While I’m not sure what the script told Mahnke to do specifically, the close-up of the hand and the rings really have little emotional impact from the visual, because the page ends up feeling tight and cramped. And when the issue ends with a splash page of our newly costumed heroes, Mahnke’s usual powerful visual storytelling is just left with a shrug as the scene plays out extremely telegraphed and typical for a comic – any comic. It also doesn’t help that Kyle in his Blue Lantern costume looks exactly like Invincible in his. Mahnke’s line work isn’t bad, especially in comparison to other titles, but when holding it up against his own work it – like Johns’ storytelling – just feel like he’s getting through the issue until perhaps the big finale.

However, the redeeming factor of the story is Bedard’s issue with Green Lantern Corps. The thing that works in favor of Bedard is that Johns got all the big things out of the way. Kyle, Hal, Guy, and John switching corps? That’s the “big” thing here, because now the Green Lanterns are really falling apart. Bedard instead gets to just play with the heroes in their new digs, with Kyle’s inability to fully channel his hope and Guy ready to make new bloodvomit chainsaws. What I’m getting at is: this is the issue where things really happen. While it’s revealed that Bedard threw out a red herring with his previous issue and that Ganthet didn’t actually die (which was off-putting at first, but becomes a bit more clear as the issue begins with a flashback to the second Kyle and John left), Bedard manages to help push things to their climax in a fairly satisfying way. Reading it immediately after Johns’ issue also enhances it not only by comparison, but in that we are essentially reading a double-sized story where the “OMG, they’re different colors now!” isn’t the major story beat. Instead, it’s (redacted), which is an odd note to end on but kind of a cool one, in an “all hope really is lost” sense.

The Green Lantern Corps issue also bodes well for Kirkham’s career, as he really manages to cram as much as he can into the page without it looking excessively cluttered. To a small extent, Ganthet’s swarm scene is a bit odd because Kirkham is clearly trying to fit as much in as possible, but he manages to make it just clear enough with as many various Lanterns that the focus on Ganthet’s struggle isn’t taken too far away. That, and the final scene – made up of a two-page splash – ends up having the emotional power that Mahnke’s art from Green Lantern missed. To pull a (hopefully) not too obscure reference, it’s the same kind of feeling given when The Empire Strikes Back ended and you really got the feeling your heroes might not win the day anymore – at least not with all of their hands (sorry Ganthet).

I suppose part of it has to do with the depressive “all hope is lost” theme that played through this issue as opposed to Green Lantern’s “we can do it if we believe!” attitude, but Kirkham and Bedard really create the better story here. I’ve been a fan of Bedard for some time thanks to REBELS, and Kirkham coming in with the last arc of GLC was definitely for the better (and it certainly helped that the Weaponeer story was better than the Cyborg Superman one). Bedard and Kirkham make a good team, and with time could probably hit all the same great moments that Tomasi and Gleason did. It still feels like Bedard is standing in the shadows of Tomasi and Johns, but with Bedard being the writer of the Aftermath story, it seems that Bedard really might get the chance to shine as a writer with the fallout of the War. Having Kirkham with him as an artist certainly bodes well for the title as well, and I can honestly say that just like when Tomasi and Gleason were on the book, I now look forward more to GLC than I do GL (or Emerald Warriors, for that matter).

The War of the Green Lanterns isn’t ostensibly bad. It really isn’t. While it doesn’t feel fresh or exciting in the same way that any other previous storyline did, especially when the new colors were being introduced and earlier, it’s an entertaining enough read to keep following to it’s conclusion. Some parts are better than others, but the closer we get to the finale the more the title is shaping up to try and feel as boundary breaking as Sinestro Corps War was. WOTGL will never reach the same highs and lows as the Sinestro Corps War for obvious reasons, but depending how the story wraps up it could be remembered in the same gist. There’s only a few more chapters to go, and if Tomasi keeps the same pace that Bedard did as opposed to Johns, then it’ll hopefully make up for Johns’ rather uninspiring lead on the title.

Final Verdict: GL: 6.0 – Browse/GLC: 8.0 – Buy