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Green Lantern: DCnU-style
Posts
Tomasi has a habit of overwriting scenes that he usually manages to keep in check. In this new volume of GLC he has failed to keep in check with every issue. It's bad dialogue.
It's just that it's been happening so much that it's totally lost impact and instead it just makes the human GLs and Kilowog seem totally and obviously invincible. Beyond that, there's so much gore that it's getting a little overplayed and dull. And these villains are just the shallowest so far, to the point where it's getting to be too late in the game to salvage them with an interesting backstory.
We also begin to see the Keepers back story ever so slightly and not much info is revealed beyond what we've already heard in interviews (they used to keep the batteries, now no longer), but it's now a bit interesting. Also, I feel like we saw glimmers of the Tomasi of old in Isamot Kol and Sherrif Mardin's character building scene. (Where Vath Sarn is alluded to but not mentioned by name. My guess is we never see him again because they wanted to eliminate any characters that looked like humans but weren't.)
But like I said the point about the lanterns just appearing out of nowhere but actually from somewhere is a new story idea worth exploring, as that always felt a bit like cheating, if you could run down the ring but just pull a lantern out of nowhere and you're back to 100%. Due diligence on the Corpsmen's part for recharging every morning before going on patrol.
Fantastic. I haven't been liking GL this much since SCW.
Steaaaaaaam
I'm interested by the plot here, but I'm also afraid it's not going to add anything into the overall mythology/story (which is kind of how I felt about the Weaponer arc, which seemed interesting and gamechanging at first, and then stretched out too long before it came to an abrupt non-ending).
I like these books a lot more when they're either expanding heavily on the same stories, a-la Tomasi's corps run, or when they're trying to blaze new paths and establish some lasting character developments and background, which Red Lanterns seems to be trying really hard for.
But GLC is in this weird, non-committal middle ground, and New Guardians looks like it's setting up something important but will probably turn out to be really stand-alone and disappointing in the end.
But there is that sense that the whole thing boils down to the Guardians being jerks. Again. Not less than two years after Blackest Night. At some point just let the villains get revenge on the Guardians, they deserve it. If you've read the Corps series since 2006, it feels like we've seen this before. There was also a mistake by Tomasi that wasn't picked up by the editor, where
5 issues in, it feels like this book we got came at the detriment of Emerald Warriors and the old GLC book. It's just weird having GLC actually feel like the #2 GL book at the moment, when it was the real GL book for so long.
Why is J'onn
I'm surprised the Guardians haven't been replaced yet with a new council. It's been building for several years yet nothing seems to have materialized. Is it a dropped plot?
As far as the Guardians, it felt like something might have changed had we not had the reboot, but because of the reboot and possibly the movie we now have to have a year or so of more "Guardians are jerks" stories just so those possibly brand new readers know what's up.
GLC 7 and 8 involve John finding out some secret about the new army, and then running from the Alpha Lanterns that are sent to make sure he doesn't reveal anything.
I've had problems with Pasarin in the past but, and this is assuming he did the designs for the Mean Machine group, now I hope he moves on to another book and does it soon.
I just want to point out something that I thought was hilariously ridiculous. And it kind of adds to what Rans is saying.
This issue really felt like the book was trying super hard to be the expendables. And the plot is still moving slower than a snail's pace.
Invictus was actually a pretty cool thing, instead of being just a bunch of cliches and coincidences all rolled together. I take back the not nice stuff I said about him.
GL books seem to be largely ignoring the new 52 stuff (yay), so it's a safe bet that you're meant to regard this Orrery storyline regards these worlds as the same places they were depicted as before the reboot.
Regarding the weirdness
Time will tell. But like my earlier post says - interesting stuff. Looking forwards to more (finally! Yay New Guardians!)
Re: the planets. We actually had a scene on the "real" Okaara in #5 as well as seeing the presumably "fake" Okaara in the Orrery. The scene with Larfleeze and Sayd seems to have been specifically written to show us that something is up with these planets.
I think Hadji made this point last issue, if they needed earth weapons, why didn't they just go there to get more, and in a much less ridiculous fashion? Pick up some tanks to really stop the Keepers from acting like Chinese soldiers?
The fear bomb worked, I liked that, but the ending, it just seemed off. Having the Keepers really be just a few people like the Guardians, and the rest of the race be slaves to power a machine, lessens the impact of showing just how big of a jerk the Guardians are in screwing over a planet. And digging graves for all your victims would work if the number wasn't so laughably huge, on top of those manatee people probably being all decaying and rotten. If Tomasi was going for a scene similar to that in Band of Brothers, he did it wrong.
I haven't been this disappointed with Tomasi since issue 4 of The Mighty.
It's the only one of my books I've read so far this week, but I just had to see how that awful storyline wrapped up.
Yeah, the
The GL writers say we're headed into another crossover between all the books at some point, probably with the Third Army story that will likely end up being the first year two GL story. I'll keep reading these books until then just out of loyalty, but I have really not been impressed by any of the sister titles enough to stay on for the long term, although New Guardians has been getting stronger each issue and Red Lanterns has occasional flashes of brilliance and madness.
However, I would encourage everyone to stick with New Guardians. It has had consistent improvement with every issue and has actual interesting mysteries and storylines. Wash the bad taste of GLC #6 out of your mouth with this preview of New Guardians #6: http://io9.com/green-lantern/
I write news there. It is fun.
I really, really like Kirkham's art and Batt's inks, and this is the best it has been since the Weaponer stuff. The difference is that the Weaponer arc had a pretty weak resolution and felt like an incomplete story that made no lasting changes. This book actually has some forward momentum, and I think Kyle is the only one of the actual GL's that Bedard ever got the voice of.
Beyond that, this is really four color cosmic fun. I'm starting to have a ball; Invictus is kind of a 90s archetype still, but I'm hoping his backstory will have even the littlest amount of surprise or depth.
It will be interesting to see what the GL books all do in the second half of the year. I've liked Red Lanterns as it's shown Attrocitus deal with other planets and other stories of rage, including the flashback origins of some of the Reds. All of that stuff brought me back to the 80s Tales of the Corps stuff; the planets and alien designs were all really far out there and varied and interesting. But I'm afraid that it will shift focus and move on to different things, and we'll lose that exploration and variety.
My least favorite thing about Johns's run is that the entire universe and all the world building has been really homogeneous: nearly everyone is a bipedal humanoid, his ring mythology obviously needs a level of symmetry to work, and many of the worlds that have been shown in GL and GLC are very primitive and fantasy oriented rather than being crazy Sci-Fi, high-tech places. New Guardians, Red Lanterns, and even the most recent issue of GL with Starstorm have finally been stepping up the high-concept cosmic stuff, and I dig it.
If Invictus did make a copy of Okaara, Larfleeze probably got angry about having his planet devalued and they got into a big brawl.
Which was another good point. Nowhere this month did they call him by the awful Rankorr name, just "Red Lantern" and he referred to himself as "Jack Moore". Which makes sense with how the Green Lanterns refer to themselves. Abysilmus or whatever it was says to me that Milligan's strength is not in coming up with new noms de guerre.
The scenes with the rest of the Red Corps were all pretty good.
Stewart covering up the death of the GL isn't about trying to cover up his own guilt, as I read it. He's trying to protect the dead GL's honor. The GL died because he was about to betray the Corps and for whatever reason Stewart feels like he needs to prevent anyone from finding out and in order to do that he has to lie about how the GL died, lest everyone will know he was a coward and a traitor. Tomasi doesn't let us know WHY Stewart feels the need to protect this random GL so much, so the story falls kind of flat.
It's not well written, but it's certainly not as offensive as you seem to think it is.
Edit: and, like last month, I'll add: wash the taste of GLC 7 out of your mouth with a preview of GL:NG 7: http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album.php?gid=4141
Never realized there were so many worlds in the Vega system. Crowded place.
Also, the next Green Lantern event has been sort of announced in response to the March sales figures. It will center around the Third Army and the next Green Lantern story arc after Secrets of the Indigo Tribe is The Revenge of Black Hand starting in #11. The Third Army event is supposed to be a "Night of the Owls" style event. Newsarama interview with Johns can be found here: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/geoff-johns-green-lantern-third-army.html