It’s not hard to miss where this comic’s going.

The cover’s in your face: this is going to be a decisive few months in the character development of Guy Gardner. There sits Atrocitus on one shoulder, ring-bearing Ganthet on the other like the angel and devil in old Tex Avery cartoons. An angrier than usual Guy challenges with burning red eyes and a strangely – well not THAT strange – glowing white ring.

As a lot of others have said, this isn’t a book for new readers unfamiliar with what’s been going on in DC recently. You really do need a pretty secure grasp of events over the last two or three years. Tomasi does an accomplished job of presenting this without the need to show any recap scenes (though there is a tendency for exposition – which is the only weakness of this issue).

Strengths are definitiely the beginning of the partnership between Guy and Ganthet. Atrocitus and Bleez (truly creepy when Bleez takes to the air as Atrocitus commands: “Fly, my red angel. Fly!”).

I’m unfamiliar with Pasarin’s art apart from Brightest Day 0 (which was inked by lots of different inkers and showed how crucial the right combination of inker and penciller is) but it’s forceful enough (if a little stiff) and Cam Smith’s inks are decent.

I think this is a title that’ll develop pretty nicely over the next few months. A future Pick of the Week I predict.