Turn On Your Heartlight
Writer:
Robert Vendetti
Penciller:
Rafa Sandoval
Inker:
Jordi Tarragona
Colorist:
Tomeu Morey
Letterer:
Dave Sharpe
Cover:
Sandoval, Tarragona, Morey
Editor:
Mike Cotton
Assistant Editor: Andrew Marino
Group Editor: Eddie Berganza
Cover Price:
$2.99
On Sale Date: February 8, 2017
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE
BOTTOM**
Hey Hal?
Where ya
goin’?
With that
lantern and domino mask?
You say
what’s that light?
Comin’ out
of the crown of the ring
You say
what’s that light?
Comin’ out
of the crown of the ring
You say
what’s what light?!
Comin’ out
of the crown of the ring…
It’ll beat
your ass
Explain It!
That last issue left a bad taste in my…brain, but I
believe every issue is like the dawn of a new day, except that I don’t have to
choose between coffee or slicing my wrists open. Two issues ago, we saw John
Stewart and Soranik Natu shaking hands, agreeing to merge the Green Lantern and
Sinestro Corps into a new group I like to call the Greenestro Corps. It rolls
off the tongue! Well, I guess that was just the preliminary agreement, because
now the two of them have to appear on Mogo before all of the Corps members and
plead their case. Everyone is fairly well in agreement, so John further adds
that their first order of business is finding those other Sinestro Corps
members, the ones that fled Warworld before it went kablooie but didn’t join up
with Soranik, and either get them to join up or arrest them. Yeah, this doesn’t
seem like the oppressive entrapment the Green Lantern Corps used to practice at all.
Hal and Kyle aren’t there because they’ve been tasked
by Ganthet to head on out to some molten planet of death to find hope. Since
Saint Walker is on the cover, I can only assume they mean to find the literal
Blue Lantern in question. They poke around lava world, which also has dragons,
so that’s a wrinkle in the mission. At just that moment, Guy Gardner comes back
to Mogo with Cabbie—here’s a character I haven’t seen in a long time—who has
some information he picked up from the streets…of outer space. Namely, he knows
where the rest of the Sinestro Corps members are, though they aren’t all in the
same location. Well isn’t that convenient?
Back on Planet Magma, Hal is beating up some dragons
while Kyle uses his white ring to search for Saint Walker. Eventually, he finds
him, barely holding his own against a bunch of beasties and baddies, oh my!
Even though I was able to run through this issue
pretty quickly, it was okay. Nothing incredible, but I would like to see Saint
Walker come back into the fold and I appreciated the base ground rules set for
the Greenestro Corps (this will become a thing!) though I don’t expect they
will cover every contingency…or be observed by all Greenestro Corps members (I
used it three times! Now it’s a real word!) Still, the part on Mogo really
dragged, and I’m not really looking forward to the Lanterns falling victim to
their most fascistic impulses. Eh. It looks pretty great, as would be expected
by Rafa Sandoval. I think this warrants a read of the next issue.
Bits and
Pieces:
The details of the Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps alliance we saw a couple of issues ago gets hammered out, and some old characters are reintroduced to the series. Plus: dragons. You could do worse for three bucks.
7/10
It is obvious that given the title of this comic that it involves an entire "Corps", and so my criticism will probably sound absurd, but..... this comic has waaaaaaay too many characters in it. Every issue is like a rainbow of colors where after awhile all the colors just blur together into pointlessness.
ReplyDeleteAnd now cue Kyle Rayner.
This title has no direction. And the plot lines continue to revolve around different colored lanterns bickering between each other and circle-jerking for attention.
The number one failure of the Green Lantern concept in DC right ow is that they have lost touch with what the Corp is supposed to be; namely an army of ONE Lantern per sector of the galaxy. It has yet to be explained how the Green Lanterns can effectively patrol various sectors of the galaxy when they are never, in fact, patrolling anything. They are always just flying around together in the same sector of space and fighting other coloured ring-bearers. Clearly, they have lost their way. It's gotten so bad it ought to be the primary plot point that allows for bad guys to flourish all over the galaxy. And since there are only 3000 Lanterns (or am I wrong about this number and imagine it?), how can they possibly do an effective job patrolling a galaxy, let alone a solar system?..... The answer is supposed to be that each individual Green Lantern is an ARMY of ONE! And a Green Lantern ought NOT need "training" because the ring chooses ring-bearers that are already pre-destined and pre-disposed and special enough that they are GOD-LIKE in power the moment they wear the ring. I use the analogy of Thor: If Mjolnir chose someone worthy, would that person be incompetent and useless and require years of training? Of course not. Otherwise it would make the Hammer look stupid and pointless. I think the ring should be the same. If the ring chooses you, you are already great and powerful and the "training" does not lie with how to get the ring to function or getting it to work, but rather in the choice on how specifically to wield it.
DC has stripped away the "special-ness" and "unique-ness" of being a Green Lantern. This title consists of a series of losers being trained by Hal, John, Guy and/or Kyle etc, who themselves do very little actual patrolling of the galaxy and precious little protecting of the innocent in the universe. They need to get of their high horses and remind themselves that the word of their oath involve making sure that "no evil" escapes their sight. Bluntly put, the Green Lanterns of Rebirth, like their nu-52 counterparts, are blind to their oath and have lost their "sight" of actually saving the little guy in the Universe.
BUT hey, I get it, DC wants this title to be the "Star Wars" of the DCU. But the Jedi are special and spend most of their time helping the downtrodden and protecting various planets from evil and the occasional Sith lord. They don't bicker among each other and compare dick size.
Bah.
Rant over.
I agree!
DeleteIsn't this army of lanterns thing just temporary ? They just came from limbo so ... If this continues forever then I agree ; not good . But I assume the story will revert to one lantern soon .
Deletethis is a Corps book, so I think you should expect Guy, John and the gang to be around with Hal and Kyle for the duration
DeleteBy the way Shiva...awesome rant!!!
DeleteSilly me , I forgot about the title . Anyway , this book rocks .
DeleteBut , on the other hand , did not this group just come back from limbo ? So they are kind of entitled to be together at least for a while . I am not familiar with the entire history of lantern comics so these things you are saying did not occur to me ... All I can say from my perspective is this is the best written and entertaining series coming from DC . But you do raise some valid points I did not think about .
ReplyDelete