To sum it
up, it's almost exactly the conclusion we'd expect to see
after the last issue... and it's a little more.
Without
losing a beat we pick up right where we left off last issue
in Sterling Gates' first GLC offering, the first part of the
two-parter "The Curse of the Alpha-Lantern." Well, sort of.
As we begin, we're actually treated to a very effective 3
page redux of that fateful scene from Green Lantern Vol. 3,
#49, part two of the controversial "Emerald Twilight." I
love it, and it even fleshes out a sequence that was only a
minor footnote in that original issue. There's additional
weight and dialogue given here... though what kind of
puzzles me is the retconning of the actually spoken dialogue
in that issue.
The
original, actual dialogue from #49:
Boodikka: "You brought me into the Corps, Hal. Don't force
this."
Hal:
"The Corps is a joke! The Guardians use us up and throw us
away! Have enough sense to back down, Boodikka. I'm going
down to Oa... and I'm going with your ring."
Boodikka: "I am a warrior! This ring is my weapon! I earned
it! It's as much a part of me as my hand!"
Hal:
"Yeah. I kind of thought so." *thwack* he cuts off her
hand.
The new,
retconned dialogue from GLC #22:
Boodikka: "The Guardians have sent me to stop you, Jordan --
and unlike the rest of the Corps, I will not fail!"
(a new line at the beginning, spoken before Hal's line in
#49 so this is fine)
Hal:
"The Corps is a joke! The Guardians know it. Thousands of
Green Lanterns at their fingertips, and you're their
last line of defense? Why not send an army of Lanterns?"
(the first sentence is preserved from #49, the rest is
new/changed dialogue... and Hal should have known back then
that at that point in Volume 3 of GL, the GL Corps' numbers
were still quite low as they had only recently began
re-recruiting Lanterns, the Guardians themselves only
recently returning)
Boodikka: "Because they know I'll get the job done."
Hal:
"I'm going to Oa, Boodikka. Give me your ring and let me
pass."
Boodikka: "This is my ring, traitor. You'll have to cut it
off me before I'll part with it."
Hal:
"As you wish." *thwack* "This is what being a leader
is, Boodikka. Willing to make change for the better. It's a
road others are too weak or afraid to go down. So even
though we don't want to sometimes we walk that path alone."
(the "as you wish" replacing GL #49's "Yeah. I kind
of thought so" notwithstanding, the rest works because he
would have said it after the scene from #49 ended, actually)
With all
of this in perspective, I like the scene as Sterling has
written it better than it was presented in GL #49. If I had
never read GL #49 this scene would actually resonate a lot
truer than there... but the trouble is, I have read GL #49,
so I feel somewhat obligated to play continuity cop in this
instance and weigh the pros and cons of the changes here.
I'll
first say that the paneling, art, and all that is top notch,
miles above what was presented in #49 -- in fact, we see Hal
chopping her hand off this time around in a quite grisly
fashion... in GL #49 it was left implied, the actual
dismemberment happening off panel. The changes in
dialogue... in comparing what I've detailed above... I guess
I'm left going, "Well, 90% of that was pretty needless. Why
did Sterling change so much of that?" I get the idea
and purpose of the flashback scene itself (and
readily appreciate its inclusion), particularly in the way
it ends -- it's supposed to drive home the idea that
Boodikka is walking a path alone, kind of dovetailing into
her current situation/dilemma as an Alpha-Lantern with her
sister and all that. My problem is... if Sterling could have
taken that existing dialogue from GL #49 verbatim, he still
could have just interjected new dialogue before, after, and
in-between the real dialogue... why did he not do so? I
don't want to pick at nits, but this strikes me as a case
where things are retconned just on a whim. To Sterling's
credit, though, on a first read-through, I didn't even
notice the dialogue was so different... just, a light bulb
went off above my head going, "You know, let's dig up GL #49
and see if all of this was the same" and here we are. So
yeah... for the casual reader, pretty much who cares; for the more
diligent GL reader... kind of a, "Huh? Why,
Sterling?" moment.
Moving
on, sorry to dwell on that.
We cut
back to the present, Boodikka's dilemma with her sister Zale
and the other Bellatrixians that had seemingly incapacitated
her in the last issue. For a couple of pages we get a little
bit too splashy for my comfort -- big, huge panels to show
the action on the page with minimal storytelling -- before
we see Boodikka doing the Manhunter face-flip and sucking
the juice out of her sister's power ring.
At a few
points here I felt a bit of emotion drummed up, her former
compatriots calling her "robot" while attempting to beat the
shit out her. Eventually they produce some cannons powered
by Manhunter skulls (never mind where they got them) before
Zale goes turncoat on them, defending her sister... before
she and Boodikka are recalled to Oa. In one particularly
touching moment (to me) Boodikka suspects the leniency shown
to her sister is as a result of her relation to her. In the
end, Boodikka is given her second ring and her sister is
officially made her sector partner... but on probation --
whenever she needs her ring charged, she'll need to see
Boodikka and cop a charge directly off her chest, which I
thought was a nice touch. They say their respective oaths
together then -- Boodikka the Alpha-Lanterns' and Zale the
standard GLC oath (and speaking of the GLC oaths... whatever
happened to the deal in the 80s/90s where the GLCs were
allowed to create their own oaths and say them? haven't seen
much of that lately, but this has nothing to do with
Sterling's story) before closing their story.
The
closer is two pages dealing with the direct aftermath of
last week's Green Lantern #28. Hannu surviving in Laira's
now-wrecked transport ship -- barely -- and reporting to
Tomar and Graf that Laira was taken by "a red ring." In the
grand scheme of this two-parter the inclusion of these two
pages is completely unnecessary and seems somewhat
tacked-on, but I have to say it strikes me as cool to see a
follow-up to those events this soon after GL #28 (and I
myself was really wondering what would happen next there...
would Laira freak out, would Laira just bolt, would Laira
kill Hannu... we now know the answer). I won't knock it and
I did enjoy it, but I will point out that it feels somewhat
extraneous.
No trace
of Boodikka's mom this issue as I had been hoping in my
review of GLC #21, but I
don't hold that against the issue. Would have been neat (and
seems like a missed opportunity from what we saw in GLCQ #6), but
what we got here was pretty solid. All in all, this issue
and the two-parter is good GL entertainment. I do mourn not
seeing Guy or Kyle for two issues/two months consecutively
so soon after the big changeover but I look at it like this:
fuck, now we have the perfect explanation for
where/when Kyle went to do his gallivanting around with the
Challengers -- he moves/settles into Oa, bang, the Guardians
send him on his mission to find Ray Palmer, finishes that
up, and returns in GLC #23. Right, DC?
Hope to
see more of Sterling Gates on GL, as he really does seem to
"get" the universe and the characters. I'm not sure whose
idea it was to focus a two-parter on Boodikka specifically,
but I do applaud the bravery in the decision -- it's great
to see a character piece on her. I mean, after months and
months and years before that (aside from the Legacy graphic
novel) we really get to get inside Boodikka's head...
perhaps more than ever before, even in her beginnings in
Vol. 3 and GLC Quarterly... it's a nice treat for a longtime
GL fan. If Sterling were given carte blanche to do a GL
story unfettered by whatever big storyline(s) is going on, I
am curious what he would come up with.
