GREEN LANTERN #37

Review by: biftec

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Price: 2.99

This was the most trite, formulaic issue of Green Lantern since Johns took over, and I worry about the direction heading into Blackest Night.  Hal’s “rage” is unearned and unexplained, the smurf lanterns poorly written, the red lanterns formulaic and somewhat silly.  I have loved this series, but I wonder if Secret Origins was more about disguising the fact that Johns seems to have run out of ideas for Hal than about getting new readers up to speed or performing one of his trademark awesome retcons that totally illuminate the character in new ways, which is what we all assumed he was doing, because he has a pretty good track record.

There are also so many dropped plot threads that one can’t help but suspect sloppiness.  Carol Ferris?  Cowgirl?  Are they still alive?  Are they black lanterns?  We haven’t seen Hal’s brother’s family since the Sinestro Corps War.  None of these would be that bad if we were getting compelling storytelling and good characterization, but this issue, unfortunately, contains neither, and as such I found it dissapointing.  

Story: 1 - Poor
Art: 4 - Very Good
 

Comments

  1. Avatar photo Neb says:
    January 21, 2009 at 10:26 pm

    I appreciate your point of view, but completely disagree with you.  I think Hal’s rage definitely makes sense–Sinestro kills someone in front of him and then smiles at him.  Of course that’s going to inspire Hulk-like rage from him.  Add to the fact that he’s sitting atop the red power battery, and he’s definitely susceptible to the red powers.

    I think that to classify Johns’ writing as performing retcons that illuminate characters in an interesting way is selling him short.  Johns writes good comics, and in this case, he’s creating and adding to the existing continuity of the character.  If there’s anything that Johns will do, its that he will blow our minds with Blackest Night, and I’m sure all of thsoe plot threads will be picked up later on.  There’s only so much room in one comic.

  2. Avatar photo biftec says:
    January 22, 2009 at 8:28 am

    I don’t think that Johns is only good at Retcons.  I think he tends to write good, character driven stories, particularly on his Flash run and in Teen Titans and JSA.  As i said, i have loved this series and loved the sinestro corps war, but the last two issues have me worried.  Hal’s supposed to be a galoactic cop.  His prior relationship with Laira was not really established well enough for me to understand why he’d suddenly go all bloodbarfy.  As far as I know, the only tine we have ever seen Hal "fly into a rage" before is when he was possessed by Parallax…

  3. Avatar photo Neb says:
    January 22, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    I can see your point about Laira, but I think it could have been any GL Corps member that was killed.  His rage is not over her specific death, but over Sinestro continuing to kill and mess with Hal Jordan.

  4. Avatar photo peterporker says:
    January 22, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    what happened to sinestros daughter that was talked about last issue?   and everyone seems to luv saint walker i dont he reminds me of a pompus jar jar binx

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