Sinestro #3 – Review

By: Cullen Bunn (story), Dale Eaglesham & Rags Morales (art), Jason Wright (colors)

The Story: As with most former dictators, it’s hard to wring an apology out of Sinestro.

The Review: So I saw Transformers: Age of Extinction last night, the first Transformers film I’ve ever seen beyond the trailer. This isn’t really the time and place for a fully-fledged review of the movie, but for those curious, I’ll say that it’s extremely distressing to see how much money could be spent to produce something so soulless and utterly lacking in redeeming quality other than visual spectacle. Clearly very little of that $210 million budget was expended on the writing.

More than anything else, I’m angry at myself for actually paying money to see the film and thus indirectly supporting such wanton lack of integrity. That’s the upside of reading comics; even if you feel like you’ve wasted your money on some bad issues, you can take comfort in knowing the profits aren’t terribly encouraging anyway. And with that, I think I’ve successfully brought us back to our real topic of choice, Sinestro #3, which might not be exceptional, but at least it has characters with dimension, which can’t be said of certain works with a gajillion times the resources.

I’ll say this about Cullen: he’s not the craftiest of dialogue writers, being capable of such excruciating lines like, “Family…friends…hopes…dreams…worlds… It all gives way to dust. In this way, the universe mocks us all.” But at least beneath the excessive drama, there’s some interesting development going on, as Sinestro—because of course, it is Sinestro who’d say such things—concludes, “To all things, death must come. But…if I have my way…to all things—rebirth!” This goes beyond Sinestro seeing himself as a hero or visionary; this is messianic language he’s using, and it just goes to show the extent of how proud/deluded his self-image has become.

You suspect, however, that this can’t last forever, not with both Natu and Umaraal Jarta, a woman who speaks for the recently freed Korugarians, trying to give Sinestro a good dose of reality. Umaraal, unlike her fellow citizens, is not unconscious of what they owe him for their lives and freedom, but she sensibly doesn’t see his actions as excusing of his past evils either. “Those of us who survived the destruction of our planet did so only because we fled in secret from your rule.” It’s a sharp observation, one Sinestro will find hard to ignore, though not for want of trying.

Certainly, his people and his own daughter aren’t the only ones experiencing the frustration of dealing with a man who pays so little heed to anyone else’s counsel except his own. Despite a decisive victory over Arkillo (and Arkillo’s subsequent gear-shift back to simpering loyalty), dissension begins to brew among the Yellow Lanterns, some of whom would rather continue fear-mongering rather than do anything productive. Even supposed loyalists like Dez Trevius don’t seem entirely reliable, garbling Sinestro’s rule of law if not undermining it outright.

With things mostly unstable in Sinestro’s life, it seems a little early for him to face a direct confrontation with the Paling. But I’m all for it, especially if that means the Paling will be a less diverting set of antagonists than they were initially made out to be. I haven’t minced words about the sheer derivative quality of the Paling, who seem even more so here as they chase after the Yellow Lanterns for the sin of inciting emotion in others.

Although Morales and Eaglesham both fall into a category of artists I like to call the Rockwellians, for their neat, wholesome, slightly old-fashioned approach to art, they couldn’t be more different stylistically. Morales has a softer line, more prone to erratic figures, and he definitely favors close-ups beyond any other shot. Eaglesham offers a smoother, sleeker, tighter experience, with characters often posed as elegantly and forcefully as Greek statuary. Wright adjusts accordingly to each artist, giving Eaglesham’s art a glossy sheen, while Morales gets a more matted, thus duller, look.

Conclusion: The character dynamics are fun, and our protagonist is, as always, a compelling figure, but there’s nothing terribly surprising in the issue.

Grade: B-

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – Instead of wearing cloaks, can’t the Yellow Lanterns just temporarily remove their costumes? But that wouldn’t be nearly so mysterious and dramatic, would it?