Peace has broken out in the DC Universe. Well, the outer space bit that concerns the Green Lantern Corps, anyway. The war with the forces of rogue United Planets President Thaaros had been won, the world of Oa is being rebuilt and there’s time for Hal Jordan to enjoy a sandwich.
Now there’s a thought guaranteed to jinx things.
But not immediately, as Hal joins his Corps colleagues to restore power to Oa, the world that was for so long run by the Guardians of the Universe. Now, the Lanterns are in charge.
Giving the speech to rally the Corps for a fresh era is Jessica Cruz, newly promoted to head of department.
So, remember Hal’s optimism around all that peace and quiet? Bring on the party crasher.
But what does the boyfriend-of-Carol-Ferris-turned-depressed-supervillain want? After he takes off with The Book of Oa, Guy Gardner speculates, first revealing he has a hobby – studying the history of that very tome.
Having also nabbed the crystal with which to super-read the book, Gloomy Gus – sorry, Sorrow – is surely planning to build his own Central Power Battery. And that, advise some very Smurfy Guardians, would lead to the fracturing of the colour spectrum and possible doom for all.
NOOOOOOOOOO!
Jeremy Adams brings us a breezy script, from an amusing opening at the Library of Forever to an ending that’s deadly serious but oozing optimism. The sheer number of Lanterns from Earth remains ridiculous but everyone bar Simon Baz gets a line (hopefully his fan will be forgiving). I was surprised to see the GL Amazo from Absolute Power Task Force given a role on Oa – I don’t trust anything created by Amanda Waller – but it’ll be interesting to see what Adams has in store.
Super Sad Sack Sorrow has a terrific look, fascinating power and a good reason for wanting to whup Hal’s shiny ass, so why he attacked Guy first I have no idea. I’m sure he’ll be back soon, gunning for Hal.
V Ken Marion’s good-natured art has the dynamism this issue needs. He won me over with the cuteness of the librarian on page one…
… and we get more fun aliens later. Hal’s spiky hair is a bit out of character, he looks like a gel-happy Manga fan, but let’s assume he went through an inconvenient cloud of space dust. And Marion does well with such traditional constructs as a giant axe and fans.
The colours of Romulo Fajardo Jr and letters of Dave Sharpe as as excellent as I expect from them, and Fernando Blanco’s cover is an eye catcher… literally when it comes to Hal. The image does, though, give the impression that Hal is the bad guy here.
Nope, the problem is the emotional spectrum. The stupid emotional spectrum, which Geoff Johns extrapolated from that well-known emotion, ‘will’. This is what had me drop the book years ago, I don’t want entire Crayola Corps – there are enough Green Lanterns without tying dozens more villains to them. I want to see Sonar, the Shark, Dr Polaris, Fatality, Lamplighter… even the Crumbler would be better than more people with the same gimmick, only in a new colour.
Hal spending all his time in space means that as well as villains, appearances by Tom and Terga, his pilot pals, and his brothers and their families are rare as hens’ teeth. Hopefully Adams has plans to have Hal spend more time on Earth after this new reality-threatening epic, because his Flash run showed he’s blooming great with families.
Anyway, this special spins off into Green Lantern #19 and a new Green Lantern Corps series, and fingers crossed I’ll enjoy the Fractured Spectrum serial. Even if I don’t, this is still an entertaining slice of DC Cosmic. Give it a look.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
I’ll give it a look. I liked Adams GL stuff (I checked the tie ins to the last Event since it wasn’t as boring as DC’s Snyder ones or hell, almost every other TBH) but what followed bored me. I just can’t stand Hal.
Oh and what do you think is worse? The emotion of will power or the avatar of the Star Sapphire Corps, the corps fueled by love, being the Predator? Willpower being accepted as an emotion is stupid but I’ve always found the Predator thing stupider AND borderline offensive.
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I think the Predator is indeed very offensive – the ultimate embodiment of love is, at best, a cosmic stalker? The original Predator story should have immediately been Mopeed and forever after ignored. The will ‘emotion’ is stupid and has made for a greater number of annoying stories, but the Predator bit is just horrible on every level.
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Took a look and I’m taking a pass. Unless we get a story with Korugar or some other planet having limitless GLs, the army of Earth GLs is just too much, especially if the perfect Hal gets ninety-nine percent of the attention. (I figured out my modern dislike of Hal is that they violate the show don’t tell rule. He doesn’t do anything to deserve the title of best GL. Guy, John, and Kyle have regularly though). Thanagar being destroyed is still a problem for me too. Adams writes as well as he can with this set up but it just doesn’t work for me.
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One thing I did like about this issue is the reminder that while Guy can act like a lunkhead, he WAS a teacher and is a pretty intelligent guy. It’s refreshing.
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Guy’s brain damage gives writers an in canon reason to surprise us with facets of his personality that might have been missed by writers in the interim.
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Excellent point! He should go back and do some substitute teaching, oh, the fun that could be had
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This is just a gut thing, not an official survey, but it seems to me like since the 1980s every or at least many of the “Green Lantern” writers seem to have a “tear the Corps down and/or rebuild it” story. I think maybe Steve Englehart was the first, but his approach to reducing the Corps made sense because it was a tie-in to “Crisis on Infinite Earths” which greatly impacted the Guardians/Oa. And Englehart, successfully or not, did try to introduce the New Guardians concept and evolve the idea of the Corps/The Guardians further. Next I believe was Gerard Jones. And he took on the task of rebuilding the Corps, only to have DC editorial mandate that Hal Jordan go nuts and destroy it all again. I thought Jones’ run was pretty good up until those final few issues where he lost control and clearly was not happy about it. And then his successor, Ron Marz, at times would toy with the idea of bringing the Corps back. And then Geoff Johns (and Dave Gibbons/Pete Tomasi I think…) finally brought it back and then made the Rainbow Corps and then it seemed like those different groups were at war with each other for a while. Maybe so far only Grant Morrison has avoided the “tear down/build up” storylines? I really liked his run. Not sure what happened during Robert Venditti’s lengthy tenure during the New 52 and Rebirth, but his successor, Geoffrey Thorne, then blew up the Corps again. And now Adams is rebuilding it. I wish DC would just leave the Corps alone and tell some cool sci-fi stories about this police force in space. – Brian
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Thanks for laying out the various ‘end of Oa’ storylines, talk about exhausting. I’m certainly down for a long period of the GLs working for/with a group of Guardians who don’t have feet of clay. Comics companies can no longer assume the readership turns around every five years, so stop recycling precious big stories.
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