Green Lantern #60
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Doug Mahnke
I think the most awesome part about this issue is that it totally lives up to the image on the cover. We’re given a visual promise of Hal facing off against a Parallax infected Barry, and that’s what we get! There is a lot of good in this issue, a lot of action, a lot of plot….to be honest, Johns should look at what he’s doing here and apply it to Brightest Day, because GL never suffers on plotting or pacing. This book hasn’t missed a beat since….jeez, I think the last ‘bad arc’ of this book was the Star Sapphire arc before the Sinestro Corps War, and even that I blame on Daniel Acuna doing interiors. Johns has truly been at his best with this book, I mean, reading this issue I’m seeing threads he’s been working in since Rebirth, and seeing Hal face off against Parallax now is a much different situation than their split during Rebirth, or even the recombining during Blackest Night. It’s a creepy fight that is handled perfectly.
It’s a big fight issue, and the way it’s handled on Hal’s end is very clever. On one hand, he’s fighting the fear demon that ruined his life, but on the other, it’s sitting cozily inside of his best friend. So Hal is not only fighting against an extremely powerful, extremely dangerous monster, but it can also travel at Flash speeds, and he doesn’t want to hurt his friend. This forces a unique method of fighting as Hal tries to save his friend without hurting him, which leads us to a very dialogue heavy fight between the two as Parallax tries to use Barry as a way to strike Hal with fear, and Hal tries to break the entities confidence. Very clever, especially for Hal who isn’t exactly known for talking his villains into submission. It was nice to see the hot head keep everything leveled long enough to do what he had to do, and if anything, it made him look smarter in the process.
We are also given an expanded look into the mysterious being that has been gathering the various emotional entities, complete with an identity reveal. Without giving away too much, however, we also discover some of the beings capabilities. Like that having Ion in his possession gives him control over the green energy that Hal uses to fight him. Whoops. he’s ridiculously powerful, but it’t really not overly obvious who he really is. I mean, once the reveal happened I was hitting my forehead for not thinking about it, but the dude was just totally off my radar. A great use of continuity by Johns, especially when creating a character that hates the Green Lantern Corps, and would be obsessed with having all of the entities.
Sinestro gets a page in the issue, just one, but it’s spent setting up his upcoming appearances in Green Lantern Corps, as he’s given another update on the Weaponer and Kyle Rayner’s group of Lantern’s that went after him and Sora. This is not important to the review, at all, but it gives me an excuse to mention that Johns is actually making note of Green Lantern Corps in the book even without an inter-title crossover. Huzzah.
Doug Mahnke is awesome. Seriously, the man is just awesome. I’m hard pressed to think of artists who could make the book look as good as he has (Reis aside, as you can’t replace a replacement with the guy he replaced by the rules of confusing people). Flash as Parallax is creepy, as is the keeper of the entities. The scenes with the entities are especially creepy with the style, and the amount of detail we get is perfect. He’s a great hand to have on for this book.
Green Lantern really is the best superhero book being put out by the big two these days, and it’s entirely because of Geoff Johns ability to weave the crazy stories in his brain onto the paper. The concepts sound silly, but when they actually get put into action they execute much closer to awesome. This is one of the most consistent books on the market, and it’s biggest flaw has to be that it’s only once a month. This is a well crafted superhero story, and a lot of writers could learn from it. In fact, Johns himself could learn from it for Brightest Day.
Overall?
9/10
