By: Geoff Johns (story), Dan Jurgens (layouts), Phil Jimenez (finishes), Doug Mahnke (art), Tom Nguyen, Keith Champagne, Mark Irwin, Christian Alamy (inks), Alex Sinclair & Tony Avina (colors)
The Story: Like any good mentor, Volthoom points out every mistake Ganthet has ever made.
The Review: So, after nearly ten years of dedicated work, the reign of Geoff Johns on Green Lantern ends at last. Can you believe that he’s been working on the series for so long that you’ve forgotten what it was like for it not to be written by Johns? I don’t know that we can accurately call this the end of an era—he is after all still going strong on Aquaman, Justice League, JLA, and Vibe—but it has all the bittersweetness of a finale.
The timing couldn’t be better, either. Green Lantern remains near the top of the heap in DC’s offerings, and it’s always great to go out on a high note. Besides, while I’m sure Johns still has more ideas left in his brain, I think we can safely say that he peaked somewhere during Blackest Night and has been stretching further and further for new arcs since. If you think about it, the emotional spectrum has been the basis of Green Lantern’s stories for a long time, and I think we’ve started scraping the bottom of the barrel where that concept is concerned.
Much as you appreciate Johns’ willingness to extract every last possibility out of the concept, you do get the sense that he may be reaching a little bit in having First Lantern Volthoom use the emotional spectrum as a way to alter reality. For all his talk about “life constellations” and “chronal reverb,” it still feels a little ridiculous that he can exploit people’s emotions to change history as he sees fit. But you know what? It’s Johns’ swan song and we might as well give him as much suspension of belief as he needs; he’s earned it, I think.
The only remaining concern, then, is how permanent any of Volthoom’s reality-mucking will be. For now, he remains incapable of truly altering anything, but once he regains that power, how much of DC’s squeaky-clean continuity will be rewritten? Can we realistically expect that no permanent damage will be done from this fiasco?
At the same time, it’s not clear if Volthoom’s changes might not be for the better—within the context of the story. He first attempts to restore the Guardians’ tether to emotion, and that doesn’t sound like such a bad thing in my book. Sure, he’s a megalomaniac for using his power that way, but it’s not evil-intentioned at first glance. On the other hand, undoing the Guardians’ loss of emotion would render moot the newfound freedom of the Hidden Ones, whose innocence gets emphasized a bit too much in this issue (“Oh, I hope [our fellow Guardians have] finally come to their senses!”).
As this is Johns’ farewell arc, it makes a lot of sense that at the same time he re-explores the very beginnings of the Green Lantern mythos (Krona’s doomed witnessing of the universe’s creation), he’s also setting up its future in Simon. First day on the job and Simon has to face off against one of Hal’s most lethal and powerful villains, which he handles with as much aplomb as can be expected. And then the past and future collide within Black Hand’s ring, where Sinestro and Hal meet their successor for the first time.
Jurgens and Jimenez belong to the same, earlier era of art, and though no longer quite as fresh-looking as back in their heyday, their work still has plenty of life and energy now, especially on a flashback to the Oans’ earliest years. But it’s Mahnke who delivers the bulk of the issue, and as always, he provides some of the most dynamic superhero art in the business. Volthoom’s Maltusian home looks amazingly cosmic and futuristic, beautiful, strange, and menacing all at once, all due to Mahnke’s creative mind. With every color of the emotional spectrum in play, Sinclair and Avina work overtime to make them coexist, and surpass themselves.
Conclusion: Already, you can feel nostalgia set in, knowing this issue brings you one month closer to Johns’ departure. Still, it is only a solid expositional issue, with little action or major plot development to speak of.
Grade: B
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – Geez, I hope the Hidden Ones don’t get screwed over by Black Hand just moments after they finally get free from their wrongful imprisonment. I like those blue hobbits.
– And seriously, when is Simon going to actually use that gun? Even Black Hand disses it.
Grade
Conclusion