By: Peter J. Tomasi (writer), Geraldo Borges (penciller), Scott Hanna (inker), Gabe Eltaeb (colorist)
The Story: With the Green Lantern Corps, you’ll learn all about the importance of teamwork!
The Review: While diversity is something we all like to promote in theory, the fact is anytime you have a lot of people with diverse backgrounds all together in the same place, you’re going to have conflict. The Green Lantern Corps serves as a perfect example. In the last five or so years alone this intergalactic police force has had major upsets within their system and plenty of strife among members and factions in between.
At the end of the day, though, the Corps stands together, and this issue displays that pretty positively. When Guy Gardner calls in an S.O.S., good ol’ Salaak, despite his crusty devotion to protocol, sends over thirty Lanterns to their aid. As he wisely notes, “If Gardner’s requesting assistance, the situation is dire.”
While all the Lanterns risk life and limb on this rescue mission, a few go above and beyond the call of duty. Teleporting has always been one of the “advanced” skills in the green power ring set, and Lantern Porter manages to whisk himself but a whole cavalry of corpsmen across light-years—twice. He pays a terrific price for the effort, however, and you can’t help feeling for the guy when he whispers exhaustedly, “Please…tell me the truth…is everyone all right…?”
It’s a credit to Tomasi’s character writing that he can get you to empathize so quickly with a brand-new character such that you actually miss him by the end of the issue. But he really needs to focus that skill into building up a core cast we can really get attached to. While he’s done an admirable job giving the non-human Lanterns some strong moments, they’ve still mostly acted in reaction to Guy and John, who continue to drive nearly all the important points of the plot.
During Tomasi’s original run on this title, he not only added depth to fan favorite Kyle Rayner, he took lesser-known and new characters like Arisia, Sodam Yat, and Natu, and turned them into next-gen fan favorites. By keeping the cast tight, he afforded each of them crucial roles in major storylines, which in turn elevated them from sidemen to stars in their own right. Tomasi won’t achieve that again if he switches up the cast as quickly as he seems to here.
The plot doesn’t take much of a step forward this issue. We start with a handful of Lanterns facing off an army of lantern energy-resistant warriors, and we end with exactly the same status quo, only with even fewer good guys. We learn nothing more about the enemy’s goals or abilities; the fact they have enough willpower to resist even the Lanterns’ we already deduced last issue. So really, the plot mostly stalls for this month.
Borges gives a good try at reaching Fernando Pasarin’s powerful expression and full-bodied art, but his pencils just can’t manage it. He clearly offers fewer nuances to the characters, and his rudimentary sense of perspective makes everything that much cartoonier—see the panel where all the rescue Lanterns first appear for an example of what I mean. Though Hanna’s glossy inks and Eltaeb’s rich colors bring out the best from Borges’ layouts, it’s obvious they’re working with slightly inferior source material.
Conclusion: In contrast to the explosive and electric events of last issue, this one seems more mindless and repetitive, though it flows well. A step down in art doesn’t help either.
Grade: B-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – I don’t know if this is Tomasi’s fault or Borges’, but it appears they forgot they had another Lantern along for the original investigative mission: Brik, the indigo female with a funky hat. I didn’t see her at all here, and she was never shown or mentioned as dead, so…
– Porter must take the award for most short-lived character of some importance ever: fourteen pages total.
Grade
Conclusion