Since no one has offered a review of this issue, I may as well take a stab at it.

Let me state that after every Green Lantern book being tied into some event or other for the past couple of years, I think it is a breath of fresh air to have some done-in-ones offered now, at the cusp of the big DC re-launch.

The fact that I love done-in-ones may well add a point to my “story” rating of this review. 

Okay, all that said, let’s get to it:

STORY/WRITING: 4 out of 5

Very solid.  Nothing epic here, despite the build-up of the threat that GL Guy Gardner and a team of fellow lanterns have to face in this issue.  Good characterization on the part of Guy and Salaak.  There were a few cliches in Guy’s dialogue, as well as so-so humor, but we expect this from Guy.

There is one aspect of the story – the possible future impact of debris from Mogo’s destroyed body as it flies through the universe – that I hope will come up again from time to time in the DCnU.  That was an interesting twist, which was the impetus for this issue’s action.

The last few pages seemed a bit rushed, like Tomasi expected to have 22 pages, not 20 to write the script.  But in the end, the story made sense, the action was tight, and Guy was Guy.

ART/LAYOUT:

So-so.  Very serviceable, but nothing to write home about (to use a cliche worthy of Guy).  I liked the depiction of the various alien lanterns on Guy’s team, and the action scenes were usually pretty well-done.

At one point in the story – an Alien-esque battle with the monstrous threat Guy and his team must face – Guy says that the monster is “blinking out” (teleporting is how I took it).  But the art does not reflect that well, in my opinion.

But there is one double-page spread where we first see the monster the lanterns must fight full-on.  WOW, was that done well!  My eyes actually got wider as I turned to that scene.

So at times the art does a bang-up job portraying what is going on in the story and creating emotions in us.  At other times, not so much.

I think that for the most part, issues of on-going DC comics are muddling along until the big re-launch in September.

Other fans could feel the GL titles are in that same shape – just waiting the clock out.  But I think Emerald Warriors is giving fans of Guy Gardner in particular and of the Green Lanterns in general decent done-in-ones that are entertaining and good set-ups for what is to come in September’s crop of GL titles.

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Thank you for reading my review!  🙂