"I
hate long trailers -- gives the whole damn flick away."
- Guy Gardner
Ah good,
the continuation! Another month, another issue of GLC and I
eagerly tore into the pages of this one.
Apparently -- and it's all my fault -- I assumed that
RingQuest was a 3-parter. I'm not even sure where I got that
idea. In any case, it seems that we are now on Part 3 of
what is actually a 5 parter... which is A-OK by me. Part 1
was a bit of a slow-burn, Kyle and Guy getting settled a
bit, Mongul moving into position, Part 2 the shit beginning
to hit the fan... and now we are at Part 3, where the pieces
are all in place and now the shit hitting the fan is in full
swing.
I love
how Tomasi is able to change gears creatively, and even at
high speeds... from character moments to flashbacks to
characters' origins to in-your-face action, I can't find
much fault in anything I've read so far.
The art
is again in true form, a well-rested Gleason and... wait,
two inkers again. But Drew Geraci and Prentis Rollins'
styles mesh well and I'm not even sure I can tell where the
Rollins inks end and the Geraci inks begin, or vice versa,
so obviously it's not a problem.
This is
one of those cases where you really didn't wholly realize
you missed something until, not so much when it was gone but
rather... when it finally does come back. I really did enjoy
Sterling Gates' two-parter with Boodikka -- I think it was a
solid yarn and great that so much attention was afforded to
a somewhat maligned character. The timing of the two-parter
kind of makes an exclamation mark go off in my mind a tiny
bit, but not too much... when you really think about it,
when/where else could have that two-parter gone?
We begin
right away with Kyle, Guy, Stel, and the others entering the
fray head-on, the rescue mission on the Black Mercy world in
full swing.
This
issue we see a little bit less of Kyle resolving himself as
the military leader type, and more of Guy assuming this
role, which is fine... the two of them kind of tag-teaming
the role as the series/story arc goes forward makes sense --
they're both Honor Guard and I think it's important
to really give readers a strong impression of what that
means and how important that is. As we go forward in this
arc, I'm really hoping Kyle gets a big moment in the action
later on... a moment that will make fans go, "Ahhh, OK, this
is why Kyle rocks in the GLC!" The character buildup so far
has been great (and I look forward to more after we cool off
a bit following this arc), but I'm ready to really see Kyle
shine here when the rings are a slingin'.
We get a
bit of a Mongul redux, telling Mongul II's father's origins
and dealings, concluding with where Mongul II is now. 3
pages afforded to bringing folks up to speed about the
Mongul lineage/history makes sense to me... apart from
popping up in the earlier Black Mercy arc a couple of years
ago in GL and his (basically) cameo in Infinite Crisis, I'm
sure most green fans (no pun intended) that haven't bothered
to dig back don't know much about him.
Without
giving too much away, we really begin to see some great
chemistry with our selected team of GLC members here. The
banter is here, the ball-busting... it works.
We see a
bit of Sinestro in his ScienCell... which surprised me, and
as we see what he's doing (which is biting open his finger
and drawing the Sinestro Corps symbol on the door -- which
is drawn in such a way that I literally cringed, in a good
way) here I have to wonder if there's a reason he's showing
up here, in GLC, now, and not in GL (and not just because GL
is currently exploring Hal Jordan's past). If I had to
speculate, I would imagine we may be headed toward first a
jailbreak, then a Sinestro Corps civil war... Sinestro with
his loyalists, Mongul with his. Or maybe not, but I'm
certain something big is developing here and I can't
wait to see what.
The
glimpse into Sodam Yat and Arisia while under the influence
of the Black Mercy was fascinating. We see, for Yat, a
modified version of the final events prophesized in Alan
Moore's Prophecy of Blackest Night... the demons cutting at
him, ripping at him, killing him as he professes "Don't make
me be the last. I won't be the last. Alone in the dark.
Alone with the light." Very chilling, and depicted eerily.
The Arisia side to it is a little bit more puzzling, more
obviously directly the product of the Black Mercy than her
own mind's fears coming out literally. Though finally, for
the first time since even before she was resurrected (and I
still say that it is criminal that it has taken this long
for any attention being paid to her... she's
resurrected/rescued by Hal over in the "Lost Lanterns"
arc... and then relegated to a cameo character, no catching
up with Hal, no "This is what's going on with me," nothing),
we actually get to explore her thoughts a little bit. It
reads true, her resolve and lease on life being reaffirmed
after her death at Major Force's hands (I like the nod to
that, too).
The
seedlings being shot into space is certain to pay off over
the next couple of issues. No clue where that's going but
I'm sure it's leading to something big. I loved all the GLC
team here going balls-out, batshit crazy when they start
torching everything the moment they realize that Yat and
Arisia are being literally digested. And at the end, we get
our first glimpse at Mother Mercy. It's not Audrey II from
Little Shop of Horrors, but it does seem pissed. My
first thought was, "Hm, could this be one of the entities of
Light?" but there doesn't seem to be any way for that to be
possible... unless the entity has possessed a plant somehow.
It's a cliffhanger on that, so we'll see what Mother Mercy
does next ish.
And on a
sidenote, our colorist, Guy Major... kudos to him, I can't
find any white boots this issue aside from one panel on the
second to last page (and it's a long-shot, so it's hard to
see anyway).
This GLC
fan is ready for Part 4!
