By: Robert Venditti (writer), Billy Tan (penciler), Rob Hunter (inker), Alex Sinclair & Tony Avina (colorists)
The Story: The Corps lays down the law.
The Review: Lights Out proved to be an interesting diversion from Green Lantern’s standard fare, but thankfully it seems that it will play a larger role than that. Robert Venditti has done an excellent job of incorporating the events of Lights Out while allowing readers who jumped off for the crossover to feel right at home.
The larger than life tales of heroes and monsters have frequently led comics to be compared to classical myth. However, to the Greeks the word hero was fundamentally different from how we view it. Indeed, heroes were not good so much as they were god-like and gods were not so much just as they were grand. Their mythology celebrated exceptionalism and extremity, the good and the bad. It seems that Venditti is taking a page from their book.
Hal’s decision to police the other Corps is a drastic one, but one that makes a certain degree of sense when you consider Relic’s legacy and the decidedly unstable forces that lead the other Lantern Corps. It also gives us plenty of reason to see some Lantern vs. Lantern action, which fans will likely appreciate. Despite this, it’s clear that Hal’s decision is poorly thought out and dangerously hypocritical. He’s starting to sound a lot like the Guardians that he dethroned in order to get his new position, but I suppose such is the way of tyrants*.
It’s also fascinating to see Hal growing simultaneously more totalitarian and yet more transparent and responsible.
Venditti’s script does a fine job of highlighting the dramatic potential of this storyline, but at times it can read a little bit like it contains its own sparknotes. You can count on conflict being explicitly mentioned without any chance of resolution in this issue. Still, if Venditti can tone that down in future installments, I doubt that many of the readers that his honesty will have roped in will mind in the long run.
I also have to mention that despite the lingering effect of Johns’ War or Light, Green Lantern is still DC’s premier cosmic title. It would be a shame to see another run completely obsessed with the, admittedly crowd-pleasing, Lantern brawls, if it weren’t for the fact that Venditti has proven capable of bringing the traditional charm of a cosmic adventure to the modern GL without abandoning them. Fun as it was to learn about each Corps, we haven’t seen much to expand the depth of the DC universe in recent years and perhaps that’s what makes Venditti’s Braidmen so interesting. Admittedly they do seem a lot like a bunch of Dothrakki space cowboys, but the less we focus on Nol-Anj as an individual and the more we see her as the Prixiam of her people, the more interesting she becomes as an antagonist, especially for Hal and especially in this moment of his life. I hope she won’t fall out of use once this story wraps up.
Billy Tan’s artwork is still lovely, but it’s not quite as nice as it has been in previous months. Though it might be the inker or colorist’s doing more than Tan’s, a number of panels are noticeably missing a sense of depth. Sometimes characters look flat, lacking dynamic lighting or detail, while, other times, the detail is present but kind of looks as if it had been hastily sketched on after the colors were already done.
Whatever the reason, the issue’s flaws distract from some very nice linework, which is a real shame. The angles are strong and Tan’s choice not to constrain figures to the edge of their panels works well. Venditti provides a wide range of subjects, Tan realizes them with an impressive blending of classic comic form and 90s dynamism, and Sinclair and Avina continue to make this color-focused book shine.
The Conclusion: Venditti’s run finally begins to come into its own this month. It’s not a brilliant script and some will likely despair at the shades of grey approach, but it’s clear that this is a comic of ideas and visuals rather than literary power.
The art stumbles a bit, but between these it demonstrates that this is not an art team to underestimate. The colors also continue to be specialty of the book.
While one has to wonder how sustainable the new status quo will prove, it’s an interesting one that raises the question of whether such worries are the problem rather than the solution.
Overall, issue #25 is a slightly uneven read, but one that introduces strong concepts and will likely do much for the series going forward.
Grade: B-
-Noah Sharma
*Tyrants were originally defined as any monarch who came to power rather than inheriting the throne.