Sunday, October 25, 2015

Green Lantern: Lost Army #5 Review and *SPOILERS*


The Lost Army Redemption


Written By: Cullen Bunn
Art By: Jesus Saiz, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: October 21, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

I think that most people are just reading this book because they don't want to be out of the loop about how the Green Lanterns escape their fate of being transported to the Universe that existed before our own because there really isn't any other reason.  Just issue after issue of our heroes flying through space, having a brief space fight before doing it all over again.  No answers, no developments, just space fighting...... and I guess the occasional flashback to John Stewart's time in the Marines, but none of that really does anything for our story besides show us that John's seen some shit.  In the previous issue though, something finally happened and we saw our Lanterns locked in a light stealing prison and now it's up to B'dg to squirrel his way through the air vents and find our heroes some rings so they can break out of prison and probably end up in a space fight.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

Explain It!:

As we've all learned from this series so far.... John Stewart has seen some shit and we get to see more of that shit when we begin this issue with another flashback to John's time in the Marines.  I'm sure that this is supposed to be used as some sort of explanation or way of understanding what kind of character John is, but it's getting really old and doing nothing for our story.  We know John is a bad ass, simply have a placard next to him when each issue starts saying his name and underneath it "Bad Ass" and move along.  Anyway, John lays down the plan of attack as long as Bd'g comes through on his end of the prison break and squirrels his little ass down the air vents and into the armory/scientific study room and gets our heroes their rings back.  Well, there's good news and bad news.  While Bd'g did get a hold of some rings, he was only able to grab a few...... with low battery charges to boot.  With their rings back on their willful fingers, our heroes begin to break out of the light pirate prison.


So the fight is on and our Green Lanterns free all their friends and even the other light smiths of this Universe as they try to make their way out of the prison and........ well, just out of the prison I guess because there isn't a lot of places to go when you're trapped in a Universe that isn't your own.  The coolest part of this....... and pretty much the coolest part of the whole comic is when a group of our heroes go to get more rings for everyone to light up the place and we find out that a lot of the rings have been destroyed due to reverse engineering from the Light Pirates trying to figure out how they work.  That's not the cool part, but hold on a second because that was just the setup.  After Salaak determines that the prison acts as a sort of battery itself, he figures out how to siphon out the power to give our heroes a chance with their escape........ and for those not lucky enough to get a ring back, he provides them with staves to act in their place........ pretty much just Kilowog gets the shaft here, but it's pretty cool to see........... Also, it's kind of fucked up that Kilowog has to get the shaft at all because there's Guy Gardner rocking a green ring and a red ring.  Selfish fuck.


In the end, our heroes break free and thanks to Relic and Krona coming back with the ship, they make a pretty decent escape, while distancing themselves from the light smiths of this Universe, who they fear will double back and come to kick a little future Universe ass.  It's a pretty successful escape all things considered, but sadly Jruk falls in battle, but I don't foresee a lot of people losing sleep over this Lantern death.


As the issue closes, Relic figures out how to focus in on the Green Lantern's frequency and has determined where their power battery is and with that, the whereabouts of Mogo.  It's just too bad that Mogo is having the holy hell zapped out of him by this Universe's crazy ass pyramid power batteries.


That's it for this issue of Green Lantern: Lost Army and I don't know if it's because we only have one issue left and I don't have to worry about where this series goes, but I found myself liking this issue a little bit more than the rest of the bunch.  For one thing it was different because of the prison setting and we actually saw our heroes use their heads and their rings to get something done and do it well.  With that though, this issue does continue the flashback, fight, space flying theme that we've seen in every damn issue and it's just getting so damned tired.  With that out of the way, the art continues to be top notch in this series, but I just wish that we could get some backgrounds to look at because I love Jesus Saiz's art and I'd like to see him cut loose and wow the shit out of everyone.  Not a great issue, but one of the best that we've seen from this series and it does get me at least some what excited to see the conclusion next month before we start it all over again with Edge of Oblivion.

Bits and Pieces:

Lost Army is almost over and with that in mind, I think I was able to enjoy this issue more than the rest because I didn't have to worry about this series continuing to let me down.  That's some harsh shit I know, but this series has been ridiculous with the amount of nothing that it's provided.  So while this might be a bright spot in the darkness that's been this series, that's not even saying much.  The most you can hope to really get from this issue is a decent prison break and the fantastic art by Jesus Saiz.

5/10

1 comment:

  1. Is Jruk really dead... ? I say no. And the ending was worth the admission fee. Free Mogo and it's on!

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