Geoff Johns has
fucking done it! I
figure I'll just go ahead and get that out of the way right
off the bat rather than make you skip down through my review to
figure out my bottom line on it. And do excuse the
obscenity, but I'll argue that it's warranted in this
instance. I'll be honest... I'm selling him short even if I
say he's done some excellent some work in the past,
but I didn't think he could do it here. I didn't. Hell, I
didn't think it was even possible -- the sheer amount
of balls juggled in the air so far in this massive arc
(balls still juggling in the air, right up to the beginning
of this issue for the most part), concluding things in a
single issue here to anything resembling a satisfactory
manner seemed an uphill battle by any stretch of the
imagination.
Nevertheless,
he has, and Mr. Johns deserves every bit of credit he gets
for it.
In the
beginning we pick up where things have been left off in the
various previous installments of the War, most recently GLC
#18. This is the kind of issue, the kind of story you
absolutely don't want to look at from a summary point of
view... you need to pick it up and read it, experience, let
it sweep you away. For all intents and purposes, it's as
much an event as it is a single issue, or a story on
its own (in a similar sense to the original Sinestro Corps
War special was, but here it's multiplied by about 3). I
don't know how to explain without using buzz words -- so I
won't try not to -- but it's literally a nonstop thrill ride
that doesn't abate until it's over... and then you're left
wanting more. Not in that, "Um... that was cool, but where's
the ending?"/cliffhanger kind of left-wanting-more way, but
in that sated, "What an awesome conclusion, and perfect
endcap to an awesome story arc!" sort of way. Pretty much
every plot thread and character was given appropriate
attention to. It feels right.
Minor
quibbles: 1) The Anti-Fuckin'-Monitor. We can speculate at
his intentions and motives as we read the Sinestro Corps
War, but at any time were they ever really made clear? In
Crisis on Infinite Earths he wanted to annihilate all of
positive matter existence... here he's buddy-buddy with lots
of positive mattered folk being given Earth as a present to
him in GLC #17. Was he planning to annihilate New Earth to
create a cascade effect that would also take out the 52 in
one fell swoop? We can only speculate. 2) With so many GL
comics released on one day, I'm left like a little kid on
Christmas after opening his last present peering under the
tree and seeing nothing there anymore... and knowing it's
gonna be an effing long time until next Christmas.
The art was
fantastic as well. Everyone involved seemed to take this
issue absolutely seriously. I need not sing the praises of
Ethan (his work speaks for itself), but as consistently
fantastic as Ivan has been as well, I was really blown away
here. The guy is pound for pound, page for page totally on
the money and consistent as hell here. And a particular
thing I'm grateful for... after issues of pancaking Kyle's
crabmask, here he pays careful attention to it and nails it.
So many
memorable moments. Superman Prime inevitably turning on the
Anti-Monitor (had to happen), the Hal and Kyle chemistry,
the two-on-one ringless slugout with Sinestro. The second to
last page (before the epilogue of a sort) with Hal, Kyle,
John, and Guy in Hal's brother's place just hanging out...
totally refreshing and seemed, tonally and otherwise, a
totally perfect note to end things on. I would love nothing
more than to see more rare moments like these as the current
volume of Green Lantern continues.
Now your
regularly scheduled rant...
Splash
Pages: Two pages in we see our first double splash page,
the GLs versus the Sinestro Corps again. Big glory shot and
beautiful art (and hey, is that the Predator again, this
time with a mask? and an Alien?) to be sure, but I'm already
going into this issue quite wary of Geoff and Ivan's
tendency towards lots of splash pages and this is a shaky
start. I turn the page. Uh oh, another double splash
page.... more of the same, GLs versus Sinestros, only here
with other DCU heroes sprinkled in. More beautiful art, I
can knock the loss of potential story in the overuse of the
splash page, but I can't knock the quality of art, attention
to detail, or the way I can stare at a double splash page
like this and find so many intricacies... but just the same,
I'd rather get the most story for my buck. A couple pages
later, we get the big reveal about the 7 different ringed
factions... now here is a double splash page that most
definitely is deserved -- we get our very first look at the
Red Lanterns (demons of Ysmault? another
Controller-creation? hard to say, but I'm sure these are the
kinds of questions we're supposed to be asking), the Blue
Lanterns, the Indigo Lanterns, the Orange Lanterns, and not
just a look at them... we see them in action, as if this
double splash page is showing us an actual battle from the
story to come in 2009. An excellent piece. A few more pages
later we get another double splash page (6 pages so far
taken up in splash), this one with Hal and Kyle soaring
upward together. It works for its simplicity, and the
genuine camaraderie that's shown between Kyle and Hal... but
this didn't need to take up two pages to do it. The very
next page is a single splash page with Sinestro knocking
them back. A few more later, we see an eighth page taken up
in splash for the Guardians frying (or attempting to) the
Anti-Monitor. Fast forward a good number of pages
splash-free, we see one more with Superman Prime
(apparently) getting fried. Heading to the end, we get a
group shot of all 4 Earth Lanterns heading towards us...
this I can forgive it because we're closing the story and
it's a good bookend. Then we have the last page... another
splash, this one showing the Black Lantern Central Power
Battery rising up -- it's all right, it's something new to
us and the splash page here is used to eerie effect.
Still... we're still looking at 11 panel-less splash pages
in a single comic, folks. Because it's a "super-sized" issue
(and it is, at 64 pages minus ads) we can look the other way
on this, but I'd challenge the powers that be to give a
little bit more care to what sacrifice is made to a story
with each splash page... the attention that could be paid to
this character, or maybe what that character is
thinking/doing, or such.
Going off on
a tangent here, forgive me.
The Sinestro
Corps War has proven to be (and asserted itself as) the
ultimate, perhaps definitive Green Lantern story arc from
start to finish. There's simply nothing to compare it to, no
Green Lantern story arc fit to scrub its boots (and not
because there haven't been good or great GL story arcs...
there have -- but of this scope, this length, and the level
of villainy vs. superheroics involved in a strictly
Green Lantern story? never before). Everyone involved has
been at the top of their game from Geoff, to Dave, to
Patrick, to Ivan, to Ethan -- the result of this recipe has
been nothing short of magic. Mr. Johns (with credit to Mr.
Gibbons, Mr. Marz, Mr. Woods, Mr. Burnett, and Mr. Tomasi)
has reinvented the wheel in giving us the first truly, truly
epic and self-contained Green Lantern story arc. I think
ten, maybe even twenty years from now, this will still be
remembered and looked upon as a building block of Green
Lantern as Green Lantern can be on the grandest of scales.
Well done,
gentlemen. Well done. Here's looking to the future.
