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Review: The War Of The Green Lanterns – Parts 7, 8, and 9

By | May 26th, 2011
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Written by Geoff Johns, Tony Bedard, and Peter Tomasi
Illustrated by Doug Mahnke, Tyler Kirkham, and Fernando Pasarin

Green Lantern #66
The blockbuster “War of the Green Lanterns” takes it toll! Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart and Kyle Rayner fight on against their fellow Lanterns — and the carnage escalates to savage heights. And how will the other New Guardians capitalize on it?

Green Lantern Corps #60
John Stewart and Kyle Rayner figure out their roles in the coming end the “War of the Green Lanterns” — but what that means will rock the Corps to its core!

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #10
“War of the Green Lanterns” continues! Guy Gardner has seen the deadly prophecy of Krona — but what can he possibly do to stop it?

It’s a triple threat with the Green Lantern titles this week, as we get the penultimate episodes of the War of the Green Lanterns. And of course, I read all three issues one after the other in a single sitting so that I can review the latest parts of the War. Given the impossible standards set by the Sinestro Corps War, as we reach the “events” breaking point, how do the recent twists and turns play-out in this short crossover? Is this multi-colored battle worth the purchase, or are the days of the Corps’ supremacy in the DC line-up gone?

Check out some thoughts after the cut. As a note, spoilers are discussed, so you are encouraged to read the issue first.

Before we get explicitly into the review, I feel like it would help to set a tone. Immediately after I read these issues, I talked to fellow site writer Walter Richardson about my opinions on the book. It looked a little something like this:

Me: I don’t neccesarily think this stuff is BAD… it’s just not exciting.
Walter: I haven’t read it for a while, at this point.
Me: You’re not missing much. Used to be that I’d buy an issue of GL and I couldn’t WAIT to read it. And it was always awesome. Now I’m incredibly apathetic to the Corps and their plight. Mogo is dead? Alright. The most exciting thing of those three issues was one page that had a construct of Bzzd.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but after all the build-up and the eventual let down of Blackest Night I no longer find myself that excited about the current adventures of the Corps. The current crossover is no exception. I read it out of dedication as a reader to the ongoing story Johns and Tomasi have been telling, out of loyalty to the character and brand, and because I’m more curious than both of my cats put together when it comes to plots. Green Lantern has gone from the book that made me want to read a wider ranger of DC books outside of books everyone reads (i.e. Batman books or Superman books) to that book I simply have fond memories for while I focus my attention elsewhere.

So now we look at the latest Green Lantern threesome. Between the three books, we have Krona trying to turn Hal Jordan into a new Guardian (officially?), the supposed infinite trapping of Sinestro within the Book of Black, the bombastic death of Mogo as John Xanshi’s it up, various empassioned arguments, and Guy Gardner kicking a serious bit of ass before the Corps is restored and we get the final stand-off between Krona and his Guardians/Entities and the full power of the Green Lantern Corps. So, in a few words, what happens is pretty much what you expect would happen: someone dies, the Earth lanterns “save” the day, and we get prepped for a big fight. I’ve certainly taken issue with how telegraphed the book seems in the past, and now is not an exception: this book is moving through the motions. The things that should be surprising aren’t, and the things that are supposed to have an impact on the reader don’t. At least, for 2/3rds of the story anyway.

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That, to me, is the biggest problem of this entire storyline. If we compare it to the Sinestro Corps War (as unfortunate as that comparison might be), a lot of what made the Sinestro Corps War amazing is null and void here. For starters, there was no build-up to the War. We were told about it in solicits, yes, but in terms of plot development we were just thrown a curveball. When we thought we were reading a story about the New Guardians during Brightest Day, it turns out that at the last second everyone but Hal Jordan is taken out of the picture, and the diversity that the title had built – no matter how you ultimately felt about the various colors – was taken away. While Johns’ Green Lantern issue this week attempts to add some color back, he just as quickly takes it away as Sinestro’s brief attempt to break free is viewed as nothing more than an itch that Krona scratches away (and, as a side note, I am fairly certain a deus ex machina is around the corner, because there’s no way Johns is going to kill every character he created for the title). Instead, we’re given a book with the four Green Lanterns of Earth – who are not so much fighting each other as they are just being impossibly heroic, impossibly awesome in their endeavors, and fighting off an entire Corps that should for all intents and purposes hammer them into the ground and be done with it. We’re talking about a Corps made up of thousands of members, with more being inducted by the second thanks to Mogo’s temporary insanity – are you really going to try and tell me that four heroes from Earth can withstand that awesome power just because they have new rings? It’s a plot point that doesn’t sell. I get it – Earth rules, and it’s apparently the true center of the universe. But I can’t even count how many Green Lanterns are currently in the Corps, and last I checked 4 doesn’t beat âˆž.

All that aside, the story is essentially devoid of actual emotion (pun slightly intended). Since John, Guy, Hal, and Kyle are pretty much an unbeatable team, there is no tension present in the plot. At no point in reading this book to you think, “Oh, hey, this might not end well.” Of course it will end well, and it doesn’t take talking to a Blue Lantern to figure that out. Sure, there will be some changes when the story is over, but this is four men against a world – and they win. I can’t honestly say that I’m worried about any of them not making it out alive at this point, and I don’t just mean because I’ve seen them all appear in future solicits. I’m not going to be entirely cynical and not cross my fingers about one of them maybe getting seriously hurt at the end of the story, but as I said earlier, the only time I felt invested in the title was when Bedard brought a Bzzd construct into the story. Mogo’s death had little to no impact on me as a reader, because it just seemed like the thing to do. While Kyle reacts negatively to John’s actions in the story, I as a reader can’t help but agree with John here; it’s not like he hasn’t blown up a planet to protect the greater good before, right? And it’s not like his destruction of said planet hasn’t been brought up a thousand times before in the title, right? When I turned the page to reveal John’s heinous and bombastic act, the fact that I shrugged this off as just another moment of the story was rather indicative of how minorly invested in the title I’ve become.

However, despite this complaint, the title isn’t terrible. While it’s not great by any standards, especially compared to how the Lantern Corps used to headline the DC racks, it’s good in the same way that a mindless action film during the summer is good. I believe I’ve said this in previous reviews, but you don’t go to see a movie like Fast Five because you think it’ll be an Oscar-worthy picture; you go to see it because you want to see cars drive fast and Vin Diesel blow stuff up – and you get what you pay for. Such is the case of this crossover – you want Lantern’s fighting, and you get Lantern’s fighting. It’s also Bedard’s story here that is surprisingly the best one. Tomasi and Johns have been working with the Lantern Corps for so long now that it seems odd to say this, but Bedard has the freshest take on the teamwork nature here. Tomasi loves Gardner, and Johns loves Hal, but it’s Bedard who really reminds the reader that the story is supposed to be about a group with no apparent favoritism. By focusing his story on the dynamic between John and Kyle, two characters who are rather at odds with each other emotionally, Bedard is the only one of the writers who really pushes the characters’ story anywhere. John’s decision to blow up Mogo might be rather unexciting, but it’s the only element of the story that has the slightest amount of tension to it because Kyle is there to offer the counter-opinion. If Hal or Kyle do anything, they just end up sassing each other, and while this can lead to amusing dialogue it is still exactly what you’d expect and nothing new; the character just continue going through their set motions. It just goes to show why Kyle Rayner is one of the better characters of the entire line-up, even if he is the one least recognized as such.

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And seriously – why couldn’t have Tomasi written that Bzzd scene? This is the smallest complaint I have in my arsenal here, but that was literally the best thing to happen in all three issues. Bedard did a fantastic job with it, but it would have been rather poignant if Tomasi, who is certainly no stranger to emotional storytelling, had been able to give Bzzd a final moment. Tomasi is the writer here who I have the most faith in, and while his Guy Gardener scene is pretty good, it’s such a shame that Bzzd only got a page of glory.

In a recent Newsarama op/ed by Graeme McMillan, he wrote about the rumored DC re-launch post-Flashpoint and what he’d like to see DC do. One of the things he wrote, and the point of his that really struck home with me, is that if DC is going to relaunch their books and put out Retro titles then they should go back to what works. More specifically, that Green Lantern – any Green Lantern, really – should go back to being a space cop instead of just battling against the Guardians and their oppressive rule that they’ve had since the dawn of existence, or getting into “shenanigans” with the other colors. That’s exactly why the War here is failing: in a book dedicated to emotion, there is no emotional resonance to be found due to the complete oversaturation of the various Lantern Corps. At least, none that I can glean. The various new Lanterns were fun at first when we didn’t know anything about them, but it looks like Johns is not so much interested in revitalizing old characters and making them worthwhile as he is just making the various toys in his toy box crash into one another repeatedly for no other reason than he can – and Bedard and Tomasi are along for the ride. The title has been so worn down from all that used to make it great that now it’s essentially just telegraphed storytelling that doesn’t illicit any responses from the reader other than, “Oh, alright.”

So exactly what are Parts 7, 8, and 9 in a few short words? Something like this: The War of the Green Lanterns is pretty much the DC equivalent to every Vin Deisel or Jason Statham movie you could ever see. You’ll cheer for the heroes as there is no reason to assume they won’t succeed in their mission, and the whole thing will look pretty great. It won’t be worth re-watching (or re-reading), but I suppose if you’ve come this far with the Green Lantern Corps, you might as well see it all blow up – literally.

(Averaged) Final Verdict: 5.0 – Browse


Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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