In which John Stewart is offered a job, Mom Shirley returns to the big city and a rather nasty bunch of aliens come calling.
Again. Because if you caught the debut issue of the latest Green Lantern series you’d have seen Varron of the new United Planets GL Corps turn up at John’s family home and demand he hand over his energy ring. As it turns out, John no longer needs a ring to sling, and he has a lot more experience of wielding green power, so Varron leaves with his Durlan tail between his legs.
As this issue begins he’s plotting his revenge with some pals in the Amazon jungle, where a run-in with the inhabitant of a downed rocket puts him in possession of enough power to challenge John to a rematch.
John, meanwhile, has taken his Mom along to an informal job interview – at Steelworks.
While John (Stewart) is there to talk about an architect’s position, John (Henry Irons) has an instinct he has more to offer than his considerable design skills. And so it proves, as John offers an interesting way John can move ahead with one of his visions for a brighter, cleaner Metropolis.
Later, while he’s showing Shirley how Metropolis has advanced since she lived there decades previously, she gifts John some wise words.
It’s a lovely moment but one sadly interrupted by the arrival of the all-new, all-zombified Varron.
And if you missed what happens next when this issue came out a few weeks ago – as I did, but I spotted it at DC Infinite today – then seek it out. Because Green Lantern: War Journal is shaping up to be a great series. In John it has one of the DC Universe’s most charismatic heroes, and it’s fascinating to find that despite how able he is with his gifts – both natural and Oan-given – he may consider himself second tier.
I love his relationship with his mother, who’s living with what seems to be a mild case of dementia – she gets by living alone, but benefits from having John around not just to help out, but to bounce off. Yes, she can forget that her other child, Ellie, is dead, but this Civil Rights fighter who raised a hero is lucid a lot of the time. The tenderness between Shirley and John is joyous, something I’ve not seen in a DC book previously.
The prospect of Steel being a supporting character – his current mini-series is about to end – makes me very happy, John Henry Irons being another A-list hero who isn’t treated as one. He has Jon Kent’s boyfriend Jay Nakamura with him, and Johnson makes him more likeable in one panel that he was in an entire Superman series. I’d happily see the Steelworks communications guru as a regular… and maybe Jon’s fiancee Lana Lang could drop by occasionally.
I haven’t yet got a handle on the Revenant Queen, the animating presence of revamped Verran, but back-ups in Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern book position her as the big threat. Hopefully she won’t be around too long as she comes with an alt-universe back story I’ve found confusing, and zombies are never my favourite.
The illustrations of Montos are once again a dream – smooth, attractive, inviting to the eye. The storytelling is first-rate, the fight sequences sing, the aliens fascinate and horrify by turns. The facial expressons of Stewart Sr and Jr are sublime, adding extra depth to Johnson’s already nuanced script. And Montos does a fine City of Tomorrow.
Alex Guimarães lays down the colours with sympathy and vision, balancing the everyday and the extraordinary. And letterer Dave Sharpe makes every word balloon, every caption, thoroughly inviting.
Taj Tenfold’s cover is impressive but John could stand to look a little less bored. And is that shirt his new look for this series? It was on last month’s cover too, and it looks like a fast food uniform. And while I’m sounding like the world’s biggest moaner, that logo is seriously drab.
The title of this series is off-putting, recalling a famous Punisher run over at Marvel, implying that this will be John Stewart, Green Marine. Happily it’s anything but, it’s showing the different sides of John – soldier, yes, but also son, architect, friend. And those are the things that make this spotlight special.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 