Green Lantern #3
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Keith Champagne, Mark Irwin, Tom Nguyen, and David Baron
So this book is a mesh of good idea and bad idea. Seriously, there are some great ideas here. Sinestro as a GL, Hal under his thumb being forced to learn how to be better at his job, stuff like that. Then there’s the bad idea like creating a way to shift the focus to Sinestro as the main character but not fully pulling the trigger and leaving it as Hal’s book. Really, that’s my biggest problem with Green Lantenr out of the relaunch. Hal is back to being Hal right out of the gates and it just seems too soon.
Now, Hal and Sinestro working together is a great dynamic that Geoff does a great job exploring. These two have been friends, comrades, and arch rivals, so seeing them as partners who actually depend on each other again after all of this time creates a unique relationship between them. Hal is just happy to have his ring back, and Sinestro is willing to look past the fact that he hates the weapon on his finger so long as he’s able to free his people from atrocities done in his name. Yes, he was the leader of the Lantern Corps based around fear and murder, but he is not a monster and will not allow his home planet to view him as one. There’s mild hypocracy there, but he was a dictator, a fear monger, but never a mass murderer of his own people.
Sinestro is still in charge of the situation, and thankfully that hasn’t changed as his holding Hal’s leash is really the only upside to Hal having a ring again. It creates a new conflict for a character who, while not boring, has really lacked a hook other than “he is THE Green Lantern” since Blackest Night. Sinestro has been a much stronger character with actual motivations. He wants to save his planet, he wants to know why he’s wearing the green again, he wants his people to not attribute his name to mass murder. Hal…wants to be a Green Lantern and maybe get back with Carol. If Johns can use this opportunity to give Hal some more drive, then it will all be for the best. The fact that Sinestro pulled a move out that I’ve never seen in a Green Lantern book, and provided a good explanation for why Hal has never heard of it, is reason enough for the pairing. Sinestro will make Hal a better Lantern or he’ll leave him doomed to a normal life.
I can’t really explain why this book needs an army of inkers, and I can’t really tell the difference between who is doing what. Maybe that’s a good thing, because the art doesn’t suffer for it. Doug Mahnke turns in his usual awesome work, David Baron does an excellent coloring job, and the army of inkers does their job excellently. There’s only so much I can say without being a broken record, but Green Lantern has consistently been one of DC’s better looking books since Mahnke came on board a few years ago, and the fact that he’s still going strong and hasn’t been moved to another title goes to show just how important he is here. I don’t miss Ivan Reis on GL anymore, and haven’t for a while, and I really hope that with DC’s current stance on not doing another big event for a while that Doug can just keep turning in great looking issues of Green Lantern for a long time to come.
So what can I say? Another month another really good issue of GL. The book isn’t reinventing the medium, and Geoff Johns isn’t going out of his way to create some brand new unrecognizable status quo. It’s the same book it was before the relaunch, and even the addition of Sinestro is just a logical progression of where the book was heading before it rolled back to number one. There’s good characterization, an interesting plot, and quite a few questions raised at the end of the issue that I can’t wait to see answered. Also, there’s a scene where Hal and Sinestro’s bridge save from last issue is on the news, and the handling of the Lanterns by the media is interesting. Guy and John are celebrated by the broadcaster, while Sinestro seems a new entity that you can just feel the lack of trust towards alien in the description of.
Oh, and a last page that could either truly reinvent this title, or be worked around by the end of the next issue. Seriously, something I completely did not expect.
Overall: 8/10
