DC Comics Rebirth Spoilers & Review: Green Lanterns #14 Shakes Up The DC Universe & Justice League With A Shocking Ending!

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DC Comics Rebirth Spoilers & Review follow for Green Lanterns #14!

The book’s opening framing pages are good at getting readers caught up on who Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz as Green Lanterns are and what the threat of the Phantom Lantern, Frank Laminski, is.

He’s now an Indigo Lantern of Compassion after going through the emotional spectrums other lanterns in previous issues.

At the same time Rami, The Rogue Guardian, fights Volthoom, the First Lantern who sees himself as a god and acolyte of the emotional spectrum. Volthoom preyed on a weak-minded Frank Laminksi into becoming the unpredictable Phantom Lantern.

The compassion imbuing Frank Laminksi as an Indigo Lantern due to the Phantom Ring makes him regret all he has done with this new ring as well as go back further and acknowledging he was a terrible son, etc.

With these preceding pages we end the free preview / teaser pages DC released prior to the issue hitting stands as a way to entice readers to pick it up. This book is worth picking up BTW.

Anyhow, with that, onto the meat of this piece.

The compassion he is feeling is so overwhelming that Frank Laminski chooses to remove the Phantom Lantern ring as an atonement. He defeats himself essentially.

Frank is shocked when the compassion is gone and presumably would have put the Phantom Ring back on, but Simon Baz knocks him over and Simon encourages Jessica Cruz to put it on as a way of keeping it away from Frank Laminski.

She does and goes through the emotional spectrum landing on…

…the will of the green spectrum as a Green Lantern…

…to her surprise! Jessica’s fears, doubts and inhibitions are gone and it seems she has now been able master her Green Lantern ring’s powers. I don’t fully understand how this McGuffin works, but its not a distracting development and continues Jessica’s character progression.

Jessica Cruz gives the Phantom Ring to Simon Baz who seems tempted by it, but before that seduction can take hold Simon’s train of thought is broken by…

…two neighboring Green Lanterns – the cranky Isamot Kol and Vath Sarn – who were responding to Simon’s distress beacon.

Rogue Guardian Rami joins them and Kol and Sarn – who are surprised to see a Guardian on Earth – insist that he should come back with them. In response, Rami says they are in position to commend him and he’ll stay on Earth to train Jessica and Simon because no one else is. Kol and Sarn tease a future issue return by them and their commanding officers to deal with a Guardian isolating himself on Earth.

At the same time Simon makes plans at the Justice League Watchtower to imprison the Phantom Lantern, sans ring, Frank Laminski.

Plus, Jessica reaches out to Rami to ask about how he defeated Volthoom and imprisoned him in a blue orb.

However, in a flashback we learn that in fact Volthoom won and…

…its Rami the Rogue Guardian’s essence in the orb while Volthoom has taken over the Guardian’s body!

One of the greatest threats to the universe is training two Justice League Green Lanterns! Plus Frank Laminiski looks to be imprisoned at the Justice League Watchtower. What could go wrong for the Justice League and DC Rebirth?

So…

Another amazing issue on story by Sam Humphries with an art style of Eduardo Panscia that isn’t always for me, but it suits the story. Great covers for the book as well. The final two pages revealing Volthoom’s new status quo should have ramifications beyond this title. Plus the way compassion impacted Frank Laminiski worked for me, but does beg the question that if the Phantom Lantern didn’t effectively defeat himself, could rookie Green Lanterns Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz done so? An intriguing issue with big and small impacts going forward in this title and others hopefully. 8 out of 10.

John is a long-time pop culture fan, comics historian, and blogger. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Comics Nexus. Prior to being EIC he has produced several column series including DEMYTHIFY, NEAR MINT MEMORIES and the ONE FAN'S TRIALS at the Nexus plus a stint at Bleeding Cool producing the COMICS REALISM column. As BabosScribe, John is active on his twitter account, his facebook page, his instagram feed and welcomes any and all feedback. Bring it on!