I wasn't planning on reading this, but someone literally forced it into my hands.

I read about the first three years of Johns' Green Lantern all in one weekend last summer, just to see what the fuss was about. Overall, I liked it, understood why it was praised so much...but it just isn't for me. Or at least it isn't 'for me' on a monthly basis, to care about actively or whatever. That said, I guess this issue sort of almost begins something called "Darkest Night" or something, that I've heard about once or twice, talked about in cool calm collected reasonable terms during the past year?

This issue is pretty good. It's what I expected this series to be like, quality-wise, even though I don't read it anymore.

My only problem with the issue is what happens toward the end, when William returns home. WHAT happens doesn't bother me, but HOW it's portrayed does. You have this whole intriguing character study going on all issue long, then at the end you almost ruin it, in my opinion, by opting for the CHEAP SHOCK-VALUE FULL-PAGE of the guy committing suicide in the most gory way possible. Why is it cheap? Because he isn't really dead, because he gets reincarnated on the next page. I can see how committing suicide would logically be the final step William would need to take in order to become what he's going to become, but in my opinion the 'death' was handled in such a cheap way, a way that I think should be beneath the complex, relatively thoughtful story Johns is telling here. Moreover, the very idea that the guy goes home and kills his family...that in itself is borderline cliche, and Johns tells us as much with the line about "You hear about guys like this all the time, who go home and kill their whole family" (paraphrasing). First of all, admitting that what you're showing us is a cliche doesn't make the cliche any better. In other words, the end of the issue already feels borderline stale, so it really doesn't help matters to go all SHOCK & AWE with the full-page gore fest. Gore can be handled well--refer to Miracleman #15, for example (har har)--but unfortunately the gore towards the end of this issue of Green Lantern reminded me more of when Chapel blew off his own face, or when Chapel blew off Spawn's face, or when Spawn blew off Chapel's face.

Otherwise, though, the issue underscored how I really need to track down the issues of GL I've missed over the last year and read them. This is a good series. This story takes place on Earth but Johns as always does a great job of making the overarching cosmic nature of the storyline seem palpable, relatable and believable. It's not just, "Hi! I'm a little man who lives on Earth, but--gosh!--I've been given an object by COSMIC ALIENS, and now I really mean something to the WHOLE UNIVERSE!" No, the whole thing never comes off as corny or overblown at all. You could say that the awesome universal aspects can seem personal, to a degree, while on the other hand the personal aspects can seem awesome and universal. If you want to compare Johns' skill in this regard to literature, you could say that he pulls off something like what Tolstoy pulls off in War & Peace: he does the little everyday scenes about individuals' personal matters, and he does the bigtime war scenes where everyone's future is at stake, and shifting back and forth between the two theaters never seems awkward.

And what can be said about Manke's art? He's the perfect guy for this story. For his art alone, I almost want to pick up this series on a regular basis now. Maybe I will.