Review: Green Lantern #35
“Part II: Dead Worlds”
Published by DC Comics
Written by Robert Venditti
Art by Billy Tan (Rob Hunter, Batt, and Mark Irwin)
Coloured by Alex Sinclair
The Plot
The story begins in Deep Space with a lot of maimed and dead Green Lanterns floating around. However, this is the near future and everyone is still currently on Mogo dealing with the fallout of the New Gods’ actions. The computer alerts them about the attack on Aydin (most populous planet in Part I) and meanwhile, Saint Walker is pondering the loss of his ring and the true power of Hope. Over at the Source Wall, Highfather and Metron are figuring out why their weapon did not work properly on Aydin. Orion and the Divine Guard are tasked with assisting to find the Life Equation. Metron begins accessing the Green Lantern’s records and Hal decides to spring a trap for him. They confront the New Gods and things don’t go as planned. Afterwards, they seek to rendezvous at an unexpected place.
With the attention given to Saint Walker, perhaps there is a chance he will regain some power. He is an interesting character and his perspective on things makes for a good read. Despite what the New Gods claim their intentions to be, Saint Walker disagrees. I did like that Metron was able to determine what went wrong with the weapon Highfather created. He’s super intelligent and nothing should really stump him for long. He knew that a trap was sprung for him and he simply did not care…classic Metron. I am kind of glad that Kyle is the key to the New Gods plan, I’m still a fan and I like it when he’s at the forefront. I’m not up to speed on anything GL, but it was good to see Hal actually making a well thought out plan of attack. I’m tired of the “Hal’s a loose cannon” or “Hal’s so impetuous” thing that’s been going on for far too long. I like that Salaak continues to have a larger role and isn’t relegated to such a minor role as he has been for years. There were some good spots with the art and the change of inkers didn’t really phase me at all while reading the issue. I liked how Orion’s suit was drawn by Tan and there were some pages that had some great detail in them. The action scenes in this issue were also much more coherent too. Tan was also able to get some good expressions out of Salaak, which is difficult considering how he is designed. Sinclair’s colours have a lot of depth, which really complements cosmic-based stories.
Having the Green Lanterns getting punked yet again is really old. A big threat comes in and is able to dismantle their defenses, etc. with great ease. This has been done too many times to the point where it has lost all significance. This isn’t just on this creative team, but this particular cycle continued with the shift in writers. Like I’ve said before, I pulled out of Green Lantern during Lights Out. So I really don’t know where the Guardians are at, but I thought they would’ve come back for this crisis (and perhaps they will). However, they seemed to be so childish and out of touch with the times that they almost seemed incompetent. The first page had no impact whatsoever when I was reading it because this scene is also becoming too common. The threat level was high enough to warrant a lot of Lanterns getting killed, but the scene of dead ones floating in space has been so overdone over the years. It’s supposed to be the most powerful weapon and yet its users couldn’t use it to save their lives. There could be an interesting storyline that could come of that, but I’m reviewing this issue and not writing fan fiction. If you are familiar with the episode of Modern Family where Cam goes out of his way to set up a joke with a lame punchline, which causes Mitch to make this “wah wahhhh” sound, then you’d know the sound that played in my head during one of Orion’s lines. He made a crack about lanterns and rings and it just fell flat. Anytime Darkseid tastes defeat is a pretty big deal you’d have to assume. Highfather has had a lot of trouble with Darkseid and you’d also think that he would be fascinated by anything that could stop him. I’m sure he’ll be interested once Metron reports this information to him, but it’s just the fact that they didn’t already know about this is what bothers me. I’m unsure as to how I feel about the cliffhanger. It just seems like too much has returned to the status quo with this character and I’m not up to speed on the GL-verse so this may not be on the creative team at all. It seems as though Kyle will be returning, but it’s how he died that really irks me. He died stopping Relic who wanted to extinguish the Corps because they’re draining power from the universe. This is a rant that I’ll save for another day, but it was enough to get me to walk away from GL after buying it religiously for a couple decades. There still isn’t enough going on in this issue to convince me that I made the wrong decision. Walking away from it was something that I questioned myself about doing, but it’s like I got some closure by coming back and reading it. I’ll give this arc another issue or two out of curiosity of the New Gods, but I’m not convinced that this title will be turning into anything I’ll enjoy in the near future.
Shelf Read It. It’s not really worth borrowing it and reading the whole thing for me. There are some decent parts and they can be seen by a quick one minute scan at the shop or if you know someone that has a copy. I still like the design of the covers for this arc because the quotes are a nice touch. Reading this issue was like seeing an ex-girlfriend that comes to mind every so often. However, now she looks rough, miserable, and has a skinny crackhead boyfriend that makes you seem like a 10. In that instant you move on 100% and you realize how right you were in walking away while being thankful about the bullet you dodged.
