Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Green Lantern Corps #16
DC Comics
Gibbons, Gleason, Rollins

The Sinestro Corps War continues with Part 7 of the saga in Green Lantern Corps 16, picking up right where issue 15 left off. This issue continues battle of the big guns: Mogo and Ranx along with the other side battles between various members of each Corps.

This crossover has had separate storylines in both Green Lantern Corps and the Green Lantern main title. Characters found in one title are not generally found in the other. This is both good and bad. If you only read the Green Lantern Corps you still get a complete story, however the overall Sinestro War arc is not advanced much. This issue changes that.

There are two big developments in this issue that is generally a giant battle with lots of blood.

The first being the Ranx and Mogo battle ends. It’s not a surprise ending necessarily, but it frees up the Corps who had been fighting on Mogo to head off to Earth to meet up with the characters in the main title. Essentially the two stories are finally merging.

The second plot development is the revelation that Sodam Yat is some type of descendant of Krypton. For a couple of issues now there have been references that Sodam Yat is in some way a big player in the grand scheme of things and now we have our answer it seems.

This issue has a lot of ups to it, for example, Kilowog continues his battle with the Sinestro Corp’s answer to Kilowog (He has a name but it's not given in this issue). The art is stunning. It captures the chaos in a way I’d expect in a solid space war. The colors are also outstanding, especially the yellow versus green glows from the opposing Corp’s rings.

There are some downsides though. This issue has very little backup or re-introduction of the story or the players in it. I have the memory of a gnat. I can’t remember all the names of the second tier Green Lantern Corps let alone the new players from the Sinestro Corps. I understand there is a choice that all writers have to make where they either waste page space telling readers stuff they already know or they basically alienate new readers (or forgetful ones) and just hope they figure it all out. Name captions and a one paragraph synopsis would have been enough for me.

One other disappointment is the lack of the main villains. From reading the other title we know about Anti-Monitor, Cyborg Superman and Superboy. And from the name of the actual chapter we have a sense there is someone named “Sinestro”. How about throwing a bone and showing one of them in one panel? Even just a wallet sized portrait would suffice. Anything!

All in all I liked the issue a lot, but then again I have been picked up all the titles (including the one-shots) so it was probably a foregone conclusion I was going to like it. Can someone just buy this bad boy and “get it”? I don’t see how. But they might be pleased enough with array of colors and art work in the issue to care about the fact that they don’t know anything that’s going on.

4 out of 5 geek goggles.


Green Lantern Corps #16