Written by Tony Bedard
Illustrated by Tyler KirkhamKyle Rayner has assembled the most powerful team in all the universe, selected from the full spectrum of corps. But can he even keep this volatile group together?
Kyle Rayner is the first DC character that adolescent Brian really felt drawn to after years of reading primarily Marvel. Rayner was my ticket back into the DCU that had dominated my childhood, and set me on the comics reading course that I’m still on today. Despite DC’s tendency to replace legacy heroes with their Silver Age counterparts (Wally West, Ryan Choi, Connor Hawke), Kyle Rayner has somehow escaped this plight and is still one of the major players in the Green Lantern universe.
And now, he is starring in Green Lantern: New Guardians along with Bleez, Saint Walker, Fatality, Arkillio, Glomulus, and Munk, representatives of the Red Lanterns, Blue Lanterns, Star Sapphires, Sinestro Corps, Orange Lanterns and Indigo Tribe, respectively. Will this spectrum of light provide a fun counterpart to the Green Lantern titles, or will it be a temporary rainbow that will fade away quickly?
Find out after the jump, but be warned that spoilers are discussed.
One of the difficulties in reviewing so many of the “New 52” is that so many of the titles share similar qualities. For the Bat and, especially, Lantern books, things are mostly the way they were pre-relaunch, so many of the negative comments are about being “tough to jump onboard.” For other books, people complain about the focus on origins and having to hold the reader’s hand before jumping right into the story. Somehow, this combines the worst attributes of both schools, and yet still sort-of works.
The book opens on Kyle Rayner’s origin as a Green Lantern, something longtime fans don’t need a refresher on. However, here we see the first real change to the Green Lantern mythos in the DCnU; when Rayner was originally given the ring by Ganthet, the last Guardian of the Universe, he was told “You will have to do.” Here, Ganthet almost instantly is impressed by Rayner’s skill in creating constructs. So much of Rayner’s original journey was based on being untested, scared, and unsure of his abilities. It took quite some time before he was able to truly be confident with his ring. This scene doesn’t ring true for that very reason, and somewhat damages the hero’s journey Rayner embarked upon to get where he is now, an Honor Guard Lantern. I know that a lot of origins are being streamlined and changed, but this serves no purpose and dehumanizes a character with the most powerful weapon in the universe on his finger, who has already struggled with becoming too detached and god-like.
From there, we are thrown into the Rainbow Lantern circus, seeing members of various Corps being relieved of their ring duties, and the rings flying towards Earth. For every new fan that was brought up to speed by the retelling of Rayner’s origin, someone got very confused by these pages. We see a Sinestro Corps member and a Red Lantern die after their rings are removed, and a Star Sapphire escape a similar death until Fatality steps in and saves her life. A small description box for each character would have been very useful, and caught readers up on how these powers work.
Eventually, we see the entire gang on Earth, trying to retrieve the rings that have been taken from their corpsmen/women. This plot could be a lot of fun, but I don’t know how this will carry on as an ongoing series. I am assuming that the “New Guardians” part of the title is not only a reference to the story in Green Lantern during Brightest Day, but instead a true partnership that will form between these characters. If that is the case, the cast of characters are interesting enough to make this a book worth reading. However, this a review of the comic itself, not its potential for growth in the future, and so the story seems slight for an ongoing book.
Continued belowTony Bedard’s writing for the Green Lantern books has always been good enough, if not great, and certainly not up to the standards of Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi. He does some nice things here, specifically paralleling dialogue from the first encounter with a Guardian (Ganthet) to his first meeting with the New Guardians at the end of the book. He also gets Rayner’s voice pretty well, and seems like a good fit for this book. Perhaps here, where he isn’t following someone else’s cues and beginning a story new, some of the exciting and fun stories he brought to R.E.B.E.L.S to this book.
The artwork by Tyler Kirkham is strong throughout, and this book continues the recent improvement in the quality of the constructs Green Lanterns make (although to be fair, Rayner, as an artist himself, has always had the best constructs). There is an especially nice shot of Kyle making an anime-style Ganthet to show that he understands how to use the ring. Later on, he saves a falling crane by creating a team of giant workers to catch and support the crane, another creative use of willpower. We don’t get to see too many constructs from the other Lanterns, but the yellow constructs we see are truly fear-inducing. However, one thing that Kirkham did on his run on Green Lantern Corps and continues here is to give Rayner the worst hair in all of comics. Why should the youngest Lantern have ashy grey-ish hair that always looks greasy? C’mon Kirkham, let Rayner have non-terrible hair!
Overall, this book has potential, but this first issue falls flat for me. I don’t think it particularly served me, a seasoned GL fan well, nor would it serve a new reader much better. Perhaps DC would have been wise to double size a lot of the first issues to avoid conflicts like this; instead, I fear many people won’t be back next month because of this lacking first issue. I’ll keep checking it out, and hopefully my patience will be rewarded.
Final Verdict: 4.2 – Skip for now.
