Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Green Lantern #66
Green Lantern Corps #60
Green Lantern Emerald Warriors #10
DC Comics
John, Mahnke, Champagne, Alamy, Bedard, Kirkham, Batt, Tomasi, Pasarin & Smith
DC strangely decides to ship Parts Seven, Eight and Nine of their Green Lantern crossover on the same day, leaving just the finale of the crossover left to ship. With the three issues coming out the same day I think it makes sense to review them together as a triple threat, the trifecta or the triple lindy of story rollups. This review will invariable spoil the contents of at least one of the issues, if not all three. The spoiler-free review is that these issues contain a lot of action and a lot of flashy art. The army of artists brings an awful wide range of visuals, some of which are terrible. The story is paper thin and some of the usage of certain characters is really questionable. Overall, these issues are much more entertaining than the previous six issues of the crossover but still only give surface level pleasure and really don't offer much beyond the five minutes read time. Some folks will love the wall to wall action but this doesn't match the level of storytelling that Geoff Johns commands from his previous works.
This is the spoiler warning.
The issue of Green Lantern (Part Seven of the crossover) is mostly about Hal and Guy as they try to figure out how to free Parallax from the battery. This issue is the best of the bunch by a lot. This issue not only has a lot of action but it also revisits some of the characters that are stuck in the Blackest Night book. This issue opens doors for future stories about these character's pasts and where they might be headed. In that regard this comic book is very good. Overall it's more of the same problem solving we've seen in the previous parts of the crossover where Hal and Guy bicker and try to figure things out but at least it feels like this issue is leading to something.
The issue of Green Lantern Corps (Part Eight of the crossover) is about Kyle and John trying to stop Mogo from recruiting more zombie-like Green Lanterns. This issue is the worst of the bunch story wise. It's the best artwork wise because it has the least amount of inkers so it provides a consistent visual and it's a good one. However, the story abuses the character of John Stewart in an awful way. Now it's not just a case of a dreadful costume that makes him look like a cross between Roadblock from GI Joe and a character out of the movie "New Jack City", but he's also a killer of his own corps member. Yes, the editors decided that John should revisit the dumb story of how John destroyed a planet by, you guessed it, killing off another planet – the Green Lantern Mogo.
What isn't clear is how his ring of compassion allows him to even think about killing someone else, let alone how his ring can channel the green power to kill another character in the same green corps. This seems to violate a lot of rules about what the rings can or can't do. The real problem though is the destruction of a character that no writer can seem to get to work for them in the first place. Does this death of Mogo open up new story possibilities for John? Maybe, except we've already seen him blow up a planet before. The other aspect of this issue that just doesn't work is the lack of involvement that Kyle seems to have. He only seems to scold John after the fact (in a different issue) which leads me to think that this was written for trade first and chopped up into single issues later. To read this issue in isolation Kyle seems like a useless prop.
Finally, Green Lantern Emerald Warriors (Part Nine of the crossover) brings the four characters together as they manage to figure out how to free Parallax and they get some help from other characters. This issue is average at best simply because the usage of the rings is so unclear. At one point Ganthet even states how this is more complicated than simply aiming and shooting, but that really doesn't clear a whole lot up. This issue at least brings back the villain, Krona, who has been absent for way too long in this crossover. This issue is really about setting up the finale which hopefully will bring some of this all together.
Eleven inkers is all you need to know about these three issues. The consistency is a joke. Outside of the Green Lantern Corps issue you rarely get consecutive pages that have a similar look. The number of inkers ruins much of the pencils that usually provide a terrific visual story. The theory probably was that the coloring would cover all of this up and to a degree it does distract from the mess but this just doesn't look good enough. I can't believe DC let this crossover get out of hand like this with the movie coming up. It's possible no one really cares if the art is even or not but this seems excessive.
I'm a huge fan of Green Lantern and I don't want this series or franchise in anyone else's hands other than Geoff Johns, but I am not going to slurp up whatever is served to me either and this crossover is not good. Oh sure, these three issues are fun reads and have a lot of action but the story is non-existent where plot holes are filled up with more unexplained action or simply characters arguing with one another. However, the biggest injustice is the dismissal of John Stewart as a character. If you are fan of this Green Lantern I can't imagine you are enjoying this crossover. I hope the finale brings something to this all to make it worthwhile but I am not that optimistic.
2.5 out of 5 Geek Goggles
