By: Peter J. Tomasi (writer), Fernando Pasarin (artist), Cam Smith (inker), Gabe Eltiab (colorist)
The Story: War of the Green Lanterns, Part Six: Mogo, the Green Lantern who also happens to be a planet, has a lot of fire power to unload on the last four free Green Lanterns, who, to avoid the corrupting effects of Krona in their green rings, have donned red, yellow, blue and indigo rings. Adventure follows.
The Review: Okay. Gotta say, this was pure fun. Emerald Warriors #9 offered no pretenses of literary greatness or deep human revelation. But in terms of old school adventure, danger, spills and thrills, this book had what I wanted. Each of our four favorite lanterns is wearing a ring from one of the other corps, and making their way with the different powers and motivations as best they can. To turn up the heat, Tomasi and the art team throw the entire GL corps at them, as well as Mogo, the lanterns’ heavy artillery (remember that Mogo is the same Green Lantern that swallowed up a thousand Black Lanterns during Blackest Night). So this sounds great, right? But was it my favorite part of the issue? Not by a long shot! I am a sucker for ancient mysteries and Tomasi takes us on a trip through the Oan equivalent of Gandalf’s basement. Pretty cool ancient mysteries abound, more than enough to suck me in.
So, how did the character work play out? So-so. Guy Gardner is almost the easiest personality to write. Give him a chip on his shoulder and a smart mouth and he’s hard to miss. John, Kyle and Hal were a little blurrier. To be honest, there was so much action that I don’t think Tomasi had the space to make me feel like these characters were real. John was briefly distinguished by his mad-on against Mogo, and his failure to get at what really powers his indigo ring, but that was about the most of the insides we saw on anyone (I’m not counting the brief anti-buddy dialogue between Hal and Guy as characterization, by the way).
The artwork by Pasarin, Smith and Eltiab also had some hits and misses for me. There were some great action sequences (like Flash’s oldie but goodie trick, the History’s Mysteries splash page, Shedd the Loyal Servant, and when Hal and Guy get to their target). On the other hand, the people felt plastic and the shadowing seemed to be off in a few spots giving oddness to their proportions. And while some action sequences were really clear, the more epic ones were cluttered and occasionally unclear. This took away from my visual experience, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from enjoying the raw adventure on offer.
Conclusion: Ever want to see your four favorite Green Lanterns wearing different color rings and going up against the entire Green Lantern Corps? Now’s your chance! If you’re a lantern fan, you shouldn’t miss pure adventure fun.
Grade: B-
-DS Arsenault
Follow DS on Twitter.