DC's Green Lantern comics: Wrath of the First Lantern

GREEN LANTERN #17

Written by: 

Geoff Johns

Art by: 

Doug Mahnke

Christian Alamy

Cover by: 

Doug Mahnke

Mark Irwin

Variant Cover by: 

Doug Mahnke

Many years ago, when Grant Morrison was writing a brief successful title for DC Comics called "JLA: Earth 2" the antimatter Green Lantern's ring said a word echoing from ages past and total obscurity, which has now emerged, center stage and super powerful. Volthoom, the First Lantern. It feels weird knowing that Hal Jordan is so very unsuccessful in his own title. He's practically dying to get back into it, since he and Sinestro found their way into the space between life and death that house the spirits of the Black Lantern Corps, well... here's the thing. Our "First Lantern" Volthoom is a psychotic cosmic sadist. Conceptually possessing the power of a god, the ability to tweak reality via different individual's "lifeline constellation" and feed on the emotional spectrum that it triggers within each character. This will no doubt as the series continues (alternating between each title until it exhausts itself with Volthoom's inevitable undoing via his own hubris/sacrifice of one for the many/etc.) be an opportunity for the characters proper timelines (since the reboot) to be explored. Doug Mahnke needs more awards for his work on this title. Geoff Johns would appear to be heading out (leaving the Green Lantern title soon) with a bang or two.

9/10

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #17

Written by:

Peter J. Tomasi

Art by:

Fernando Pasarin

Scott Hanna

Cover by:

Andy Kubert

Variant Cover by:

Andy Kubert

Guy Gardener has gone through enough phases by now that the human centipede 4D creature featured on the first major splash-page of this issue is more freaky in some ways than any other of the First Lantern's visits. This all calls to mind the spirit of Grant Morrison, who briefly touched the Green Lantern mythos (which has for so long been Geoff's baby) with Final Crisis, years ago, and also in the aforementioned Earth 2, which mentions Volthoom in passing (certainly other instances of this name arising have occurred, but with this run of the Green Lantern books we really get to see what he does). But specifically, the end of Morrison's fantastic series The Invisibles reaches a point at which the main character Dane acheives a heightened awareness of dimensional superstructures. This runs parallel to the power of Volthoom the First Lantern. With this particular issue of GL Corps, he feasts on the emotional spectrum (he prefers pain and despair) of the oddly effervescent Guy Gardner. It's worth noting that this veers into his brief time as a Red Lantern and focuses on the red herring of death and doom (in store for Jon Stewart next issue). Overall, a pretty decent issue. Fernando Pasarin has a quality to his detail-work that serves the wordy but worth-a-reread script by Peter J Tomasi.  Story flow works, and this doesn't feel especially "tacked onto a crossover", which is the risk run with such events.

8/10

GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS #17

Written by:

Tony Bedard

Art by:

Aaron Kuder

Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

Variant Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

In the constellation of titles that compose the Green Lantern sector of the DC Multiverse, it is Green Lantern: New Guardians that tips the hand of the editors in terms of their long-term plans. Aaron Kuder's art is fantastic and fractured, and Tony Bedard clips the back-and-forth between Kyle and the First Lantern into something more natural than the concurrent GL Corps and also more intriguing. Since the reformat of the DC New 52, Kyle Rayner has been removed from the planet at large (barring a brief crossover with Blue Beetle, R.I.P.) and spends a good deal of his time galavanting about the galaxy willy-nilly or dealing with Artificial Solar Systems or the Rainbow Brigade of Emotion he's been gathering up and helping to develop a back-story/character(pointing to the title without explicitly labeling the group as such). Volthoom seems to have more trouble with Kyle than the other characters he's been poking with a sharp stick. Certainly this will all lead somewhere. Probably a near-miss on cosmic extinction and a heroic sacrifice. And probably new guardians. The old ones rotted through.

8.5/10

Reviews of Comics from May 16, 2012

Fantastic Four 605.1 is a testament of perfection in comics.

*****

With one single issue of Fantastic Four, Jonathan Hickman does wonders.  We're given a Nazi Reed Richards that ended up with an Infinity Gauntlet, one of the Council of Reed Richards that built Bridges to seek out other universes.  Yeah, the guy with a beard that a mad Celestial killed a little while back. This is set up for the forthcoming Doom storyline, which given Hickman's forthcoming departure for the series is likely to be grand.  Doom has the Nazi Reed Richard's Infinite Gauntlet now.  Great read. Buy it. Buy it forever. Or at least until Hickman has moved on to his next project. 

Avengers vs. X-Men delivers exactly what it promises and a bit more.

****

Avengers vs. X-Men 4 was a bit like a hectic hyped-up world tour issue, but the important thing is that it ends in the Blue Area of the Moon.  As ever, the fighting that is reserved for AvX is cut down to basics, here. Captain America's off-handed dismissal of Gambit is particularly disappointing comparatively, but perhaps that's understandable. The Avengers have won most of the battles, and the cover for the next issue indicates that the Phoenix, after brutally beating Thor into a crater, has arrived. And there's Hope. We'll see where all this macho posturing and plot twistiness gets us into, on a large scale.

Incredible Hulk 7.1 lets Hulk sow some wild oats.

***

Meanwhile, The Incredible Hulk 7.1 shows great strides in dealing with the serious heaviness of preceding issues.  The tortured soul of Banner lives on in Hulk, even though Hulk made a deal with Dr. Doom to separate the two of them in body and mind.  Banner went all Island of Dr. Moreau and ended up dying in Hulk's arms at the heart of a Gamma Bomb explosion.  But now Hulk is independent of Banner. And he spends weeks just cooking sharks and riding Triceratops in the Savage Land.  Good enough to be a point one comic, anyday.  But they cooked up something special for us, specifically Betty (Red She-Hulk) Ross beating Hulk down and sexing him in the wreckage they created in their fight, making an eyeball-hunting villain watch while they do.  It seems like Hulk writers always have had the dilemma of Banner, but just this once, Hulk, not Banner, got what he'd yelled for for years.  He got to be alone. Then he got to bone. Red and green Hulk baby, anyone?

JLA will get better soon, I should hope.

**

Justice League of America is a convoluted mess, in terms of plot, and the art still feels like the failed universe of Wildstorm got ahold of icons.  It seems bereft of years of DC history, and rather than adding to the myths of these characters we have a Steve Trevor subplot indicating the military's extreme role in the JLA's sanctioned actions, the old villain The Key in a confusing role with none of the brilliance exhibited, only the crazy, and a dying writer who apparently wants to get the JLA's attention. It feels like a lot is packed in, but it doesn't pull through, too clogged with splash page battles and pointless confrontations and demotivating motives.  The back-up storyline with Shazam! seems somehow bitter and mean, with no hint of the frivolity and gee shucks attitude that Captain Marvel once possessed.

Green Lantern Corps 9 just reinforces that the Guardians are scum.

***

 Green Lantern Corps. has recently seen shakeups, and out of all the Green Lantern titles it is the one that, until recently, directly addressed the fact that the Guardians of the Universe are complete scheming monster scumbags that must be stopped at any cost.  John Stewart, or if you like, the black Green Lantern, recently killed a fellow Corps. member that was about to divulge secret codes to Oa's power battery to save himself. Snapped his neck, only brief hesitation and fair warning. The Alpha Lanterns bring him in, and the truth of his actions come out.  Green Lantern Corps. is an intriguing continuation of the political and the military bounds that are part and parcel for the Green Lantern's mythology and position in the Universe. The Green Lantern titles as a whole show a certain stability of universe somewhat lacking from a few other titles in the New 52, approaching the Second Wave.

Captain Atom 9 is a very well composed work.

****

The storyline in Captain Atom continues to grow and pique interest, thanks to an stable writer J.T. Wells and an evolving artist in Freddie Williams III.  Arguably the most powerful superhuman in terms of potential, the character has come into his own since several attempts over the years to revamp him from his Silver Age roots have failed or been rendered moot. Currently, the Captain is meeting his future selves, and the world that they have turned into a virtual paradise.  To cultivate such a powerful hero is to often to court editorial disaster. When split open in Kingdom Come he took out the midwest. When transported to the Wildstorm Universe he heralded its imminent destruction. Cosmically, if he can expand beyond brainwashed militarism or perhaps even team up with Firestorm, his powers could prove most interesting, especially given that The Doctor of the Wildstorm Universe has yet to appear in the New 52. The Captain would have an interesting lesson to learn, there.