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There are more than enough problems to go around in the conclusion of Emerald Eclipse, as things start wrapping up for the emergence of Blackest Night. Just as the Alpha Lanterns were able to provide the final push in quelling the riot in the sciencells, the Green Lanterns look up to their beloved Oan sky only to see that it is beginning to fall apart. Trouble is on the way!

Soranik Natu (still on Korugar) is having trouble dealing with her daddy-issues (what child of Sinestro’s wouldn’t?) while Arisia and the newly empowered Daxamites are able to finally kick the last of Mongul’s faction of the Sinestro off of Daxam. Most of the issue however is spent on Lanterns Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner standing up to the Guardians’ execution order of the attempted sciencell escapees.

Over the past few months, I have given Peter Tomasi and Pat Gleason a pretty hard time for their (in my opinion) shortcomings on the Emerald Eclipse story arc. I didn’t care for Tomasi’s seemingly short attention span, nor for Gleason’s stretched out character faces. The strengths of these two as a team seemed to be action. In this issue (and the past couple), I have noticed that I do like how well Gleason can draw a large scene like the outdoor execution and argument sequence.

All in all, Emerald Eclipse was an ambitious story with quite a bit going on and simply not enough space in each issue to address it all. I am still fairly new to this title, so that might just be how it has to go. Maybe someone could point out to me the reason I preferred Sins of the Star Sapphire over this arc.

(3/5)

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Last month, the Green Lantern Corps 35 cover was all about Sinestro (the cover shown below is a variant), and this month it’s all about the word “riot”. As far as I’m concerned, the covers should have been swapped, as we don’t get to see too much of the riot and we see a whole lot of Sinestro. Are you excited yet?

The past few issues of GLC have been all about buildup, which all boiled to a head last issue when the prisoners broke free from the sciencells and Sinestro uttered the word “daughter” to Soranik Natu on the final page. With issue 36 we are finally getting some considerable bits of action, information, and excitement. Luckily for me personally, the Guy Gardner aspect is toned down as he only appears on one page and speaks not a single line. Goody! Not so good for those of you who are fans of Gardner.

At the outset, Sinestro explains the claim he made on the final page of issue 35 to Soranik. It doesn’t quite equal the emotional impact of the similar moment in The Empire Strikes Back, but it certainly does pack a hearty punch. From there we get a flyby of the riot taking place on Oa. Not a whole lot of information or action to be gained here, but it does look pretty dope, especially seeing Kilawog stomping on baddies with no regard for the enemy latched to his back. Finally, we are placed on Daxam, where I guarantee you will see one of the coolest battles you have seen in comics lately. Amazing!

With this issue, I am really starting to get some hints at Peter Tomasi’s visionary style of story-telling. When I say visionary, I don’t mean prophetic but am referring more to fore-sight. The bore of the last few issues really came together in this one and blew my socks off. I won’t take back what I said about the previous issues though, because an issue should be able captivate its readers each month. All of the captivation is densely packed into this issue and probably will overflow into next month as well. Unfortunately the predecessors didn’t get their share.

Another aspect of this series that is coming to light for me is the placement of Pat Gleason as the artist. His work with emotions isn’t exactly his strong suit, but I’ll tell you what is. Action! The type of action sequences that the Green Lantern franchise demands are high-energy, fireworks type of scenes. Now that I have read this issue, Pat Gleason is going to have a special little place in my mind reserved for those who depicted the best battle sequences. A Green Lantern running shoulder-first into a herd of bright yellow rhinos is truly a sight to be seen!

All-in-all, I really appreciated this issue for what it finally brought to the table. Reading this story arc from issue to issue has really been a roller coaster, but with the inclusion of this issue and probably the next one, the TPB is sure to be a blockbuster.

(4/5)

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Those of you who read my first two reviews of Green Lantern Corps may think that I have it out for Peter Tomasi and Pat Gleason, but you should know that I don’t. I said in my review of the last issue (34) that even though this arc was getting convoluted, it was surely building up to something. With issue 35, we finally get our first taste of that something.

At the outset, there is some devastating stuff happening on Oa. The guardians are gone with Hal Jordan in the Vega system, leaving the second level Green Lanterns to deal with the Red Lantern that has broken free from the sciencells and the yellow ring that are beginning to find their way back to their formerly imprisoned owners. Meanwhile, Lantern Arisia and Ion Sodam Yat have made their way back to Daxam to attempt to save the planets natives from the invading Sinestro Corps that is still led by Mongul. That’s right, Mongul won the power struggle for control of the Sinestro Corps on Daxam and Arkillo now has his own tongue hanging on a string around his neck. Harsh! The final pages of the episode display Lantern Soranik Natu on Korugar speaking to her fellow Korugarians on ways that the planet can recover their identity from the collective memory of Sinestro, but the final page displays the most exciting thing about what is to come when Natu gets a surprise visit from a not-so-secret guest.

Overall, this issue is a big step up from the last two issues. We aren’t getting all of the one or two page scenes that don’t really link to the rest of what’s going on. That means that you won’t see a Star Sapphire in this issue, but if you just have to get some Star Sapphire stuff, you can still dig into Green Lantern. The art is still what it was before however, and it still isn’t my favorite. The colors are awesome (Randy Mayor), but it seems to me that the eyes of Pat Gleason’s characters are a bit too bulgy and weird, and the faces just aren’t drawn to my taste.

Another thing that still bothers me is Guy Gardner. I really don’t like him as a character (“This is not a drill! This is not a freaking drill!” Ugh!!), but I am starting to see that it is not Peter Tomasi’s fault that I hate this character. I am pretty sure that no matter who writes Green Lantern Corps –whether its Tomasi, Geoff Johns, or Samuel Clemons – I will always dislike him as a character. I am sure that Tomasi is just writing Guy Gardner in the way that Guy Gardner should always be written.

At the end of the day, this was a pretty good comic book and well worth my three bucks. Everything about it tells me that reading the last two issues was not a waste of time, but necessary filler to prepare me for what’s to come. I am sure that the next issue is going to get even better because it will undoubtedly have some cool scenes featuring the infamous you-(should)-know-who.

(3.5/5)

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Last week, I gave Green Lantern Corps 33 an unfavorable review, and my complaints are all still the same. Green Lantern seems to be where all of the beef is going, while GLC is like the hub for everything else that needs to happen to facilitate Blackest Night. Am I enjoying Green Lantern Corps right now? Sure. Is it exciting me? Not in the slightest.

I said before that the reasons I love GL and GLC are pretty much the same reason I like movies like Die Hard. The plots are straightforward and the action is super cool. Sure, the storylines of the Green Lantern world are actually quite complicated and technical, but it’s never really difficult to know what the author wants you to know. Once again, I find myself disliking the abundance of things going on in Green Lantern Corps 34 and the lack of time spent on each individual thing.

Ion Sodam Yat is pretty angry at the Daxamites for his messed up childhood, he and lantern Arisia are off to Daxam to help them against Mongul and the Sinestro Corps, Mongul and Arkillo conclude their power struggle for now, lanterns Rainer and Natu privately express their love for one another as she takes off to Korugar to quelm the unrest following Sinestro’s escape, Kryb is starting to feel some love in her heart, and lanterns Gardner and Kilawog drop off one of the Red Lanterns in the sciencells. Go over that again. It’s all one sentence! A little bit of a run on isn’t it? And that’s exactly how this issue and last issue feel. They’re just a mess of things happening with no real connecting theme. I’m sure it’s all going to come together eventually, but right now it’s really annoying. Writer Carlo Tomasi doesn’t seem to appreciate that we are buying these comics from month to month. And whatever happened to the lonesome lantern Saarek?

Also, I enjoy Tomasi’s use of humor in the Metamorpho character in Outsiders, but something is wrong with the way he writes Guy Gardner. It may not be his fault though, because in my opinion Guy Gardner is the lamest character this side of Oa. Humor is good, but I’m not diggin’ the Disney and whiskey jokes.

Patrick Gleason’s artwork here isn’t exactly my favorite. I don’t know if other readers enjoy his work, but I personally don’t like the way he draws human faces. They’re too saggy or elongated or something. They just rub me the wrong way. My favorite part of the issue as a whole is the coloring done by Randy Mayor.

Don’t get me wrong; the series isn’t ruined or anything. Most of the story for these past two issues seems to be setup. The quality of the writing and artwork still have the potential to conclude this storyline with some fireworks. I’ll keep buying the issues, I just hope they can tie up all of these dangling loose ends that seem to be spawning and spawning with no ending in sight.

(2/5)

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Because of my new found fondness for Green Lantern, I made the decision during the whole “Faces of Evil” event to delve into Green Lantern Corps. So far I haven’t really been disappointed with my choice, but it has yet to exceed my expectations as Green Lantern has.

I picked up starting with the “Sins of the Star Sapphire” story line, and so far I have liked that one much better than “Emerald Eclipse”. The events of SotSS introduced to me what seems like a well-known concept among GL readers: the detachment of the Guardians from the Green Lanterns they order around. As of yet, I am not so sure what the point of this arc is. Maybe there is no point, and DC just needs an A-to-B vehicle to bring the GLC to Blackest Night.

Green Lantern Corps 33 picks up right where 32 left off, with the extremely powerful Sinestro Corps member Mongul descending on the peaceful planet (and home to Green Lantern Ion Sodam Yat) Daxam. Immediately following is a conversation of the events of “Sins of the Star Sapphire” between lanterns Kyle Rainer, Guy Gardner (my least favorite lantern), and Natu. Basically, there is some tension in the Corps 1-because of the amount of recently retired lanterns due to the Guardian’s no-love-rule and 2-Kyle is a bit depressed because of the violence lately and might only be cheered up by the prohibited love of Natu (his “one true love” according to the Star Sapphire’s sapphire). Meanwhile there is something going on with Green Lantern Saarek in deep space (don’t ask because I don’t know), and a power struggle on Daxam between self-proclaimed Sinestro-Corps leader Mongul and rival Arkillo.

So now I have done my duty as far as representing the content, but I feel the need to make a couple of complaints.

Firstly, why is Tomasi feeling the need to include so many plotlines into this story? While swine flu ravages the southwest, a bad case of Morrison flu is attacking DC headquarters. I think I would enjoy this story more if it focused on just two or three plotlines, so that I can devote some brain power to other endeavors.

Secondly, if we are going to have so many plotlines, can we make each scene in a single plotline consist of a bit more than two or three pages? Sure, a one-page scene for a unresolved ending is pretty cool, but if you are going to bring this Saarek guy into the equation, I would like to have a bit more girth than his obvious lonliness.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Peter Tomasi as a writer (his work on Robin made me love a character I used to absolutely despise), and the artwork by Patrick Gleason is amazingly deep and rich with detail. I just don’t see the point of this issue other than staying in the loop for Blackest Night.

(2.5/5)

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