Review: Green Lantern Corps: The Weaponer hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Tony Bedard's Green Lantern Corps: The Weaponer is an improvement over his previous volume, in large part because of this story's more interesting villain. Weaponer is shockingly similar to Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns in terms of overall plot, however, and suffers from some of that book's same difficulties regarding characterization and decompressed storytelling.

[Contains spoilers]

"A villain kidnaps a member of the Corps, and the other Green Lanterns must foment a revolution on an alien planet to free their comrade." This is the plot of both Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns and Weaponer. Kidnapper? The Cyborg-Superman on one side, the Weaponer on the other. Kidnapped? John Stewart and Soranik Natu (one for the purpose of luring Ganthet, the other for luring Sinestro). In the former, the Green Lanterns inspire the robots of Grenda to rise up against the Cyborg; in the latter, the Lanterns lead the Qwardian Thunderers against Sinestro. Both stories are five issues long, with a similar structure -- the kidnap, the rescue, a third party intervenes, and then the denouement.

Weaponer was of great interest to me in large part because of the Qwardian Weaponer himself, who forged Sinestro's original yellow ring and has now kidnapped Sinestro's daughter Natu in revenge for Sinestro's perceived neglect of the Qwardians. Similar to the history of the mystery villain at the center of the upcoming War of the Green Lanterns (I won't spoil it; see Green Lantern: Brightest Day), continuity in regards to the Qwardians is a tad shaky in view of what still did/didn't happen in Crisis on Infinite Earths. How Qwardian history coincides with the Sinestro Corps War is a story that's been waiting to be told for a while now, and I was pleased to see Bedard tell it. No great surprises, but some welcome mentions of the Anti-Monitor and so on.

Unfortunately, a lot of that history comes in the form of the Weaponer simply telling it all to Natu in this book's second chapter. That second chapter is a notable indicator of the rest of the book -- it involves eight pages of Lantern Kyle Rayner and Sinestro fist-fighting in Greenwich Village, two of Kyle rounding up other Lanterns to rescue Natu, and sixteen of Natu speaking with the Weaponer. Ordinarily I'd praise a single issue that bucks the need for a hero/villain fight to make that single piece complete, except that fairly little occurs in the issue, and that's true going forward, too. The Lanterns fight the Qwardians; the Sinestro Corps shows up and also fights the Qwardians; then finally Sinestro arrives and fights the Weaponer not once, but two different times.

In all of this, there's no great revelations about the Qwardians, no twist as to the nature of the Weaponer and Sinestro's conflict. The story is a series of battles, cliffhangers (usually the arrival of a new combatant), and more battles, all leading to the end where, most surprisingly, there's no real fallout from the story. It's unclear to me whether the the other Lanterns realize that Sinestro is Natu's father, but no one remarks on it -- even as it's a big deal and one would think they'd wonder why the Weaponer kidnapping Natu would summon Sinestro. The Weaponer leaves with Sinestro and the Lanterns are immediately drawn into the War of the Green Lanterns conflict, making the Weaponer's threat seem like mainly just something to bide the time between Green Lantern crossover stories.

Indeed, while I have enjoyed this period between Blackest Night and War of the Green Lanterns in which Green Lantern, Corps, and Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors have all been interconnected, so little happened in either of the tertiary series that DC could have just published Green Lantern only, and simply had the events of Corps and Warriors as subplots. The Weaponer has an honorable dignity that I enjoy in a villain, but the Warriors antagonist Zardor was entirely forgettable, and I don't sense the conflict with either will actually tie in to War. Warriors was a considerably better book that Weaponer, but entirely this was another case of DC Comics publishing three different series when they could have told the same story with just one.

I do hope, however, that Bedard is able to show more of Sinestro and Kyle's conflict in the Corps chapters of War of the Green Lanterns. With all the difficulty DC is having lately in regards to their representation of women, Kyle and Sinestro's conflict is something of a guilty pleasure -- on one hand, they're disappointingly fighting over who gets to speak for Natu, when it'd be better if Natu weren't defined by the men around her; on the other hand, it's chillingly wonderful every time Sinestro calls Kyle "alley rat." For as much as Kyle has accomplished as a Green Lantern, Sinestro still sees him as the shiftless California artist we met him as way back when, and this makes their conflicts crackle -- I like this even more, perhaps, than watching Hal Jordan mourn his lost friend when Sinestro is around.

A word to the Brightest Day crossover aspect of Green Lantern Corps: The Weaponer -- if that's why you might pick up this book, I'd pass. Firestorm shows up in the last chapter, and it's fun to see him flit among the Green Lanterns and shoot some bolts at the Sinestro Corps. Ultimately, however, Firestorm's just passing through and leaves the Lanterns in the end, changing the story not a whit. It's another example of the same difficulty this book has overall; it's five chapters long and there's art on every page, but when I got to the end I didn't find I had much more than when I started.

[Contains original and variant covers (including by favored Corps artist Patrick Gleason); printed on glossy paper]

Later this week, a look at a trade that never was, with Collected Editions' Cancelled Trade Cavalcade. Don't miss it!

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Review: Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

I've decided at this point I'd read Peter Tomasi's comic book adaptation of the phone book, if he wrote it. Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors is another winner from Tomasi after a string of such on Green Lantern Corps. With the years-long run-up to Blackest Night behind him, Tomasi is able to focus more on the characters in Warriors, teaming up a number of fan-favorites. Emerald Warriors itself is a strange series, almost not a series -- the whats and whys, however, matter far less given the strength of Tomasi's story.

[Contains spoilers]

Emerald Warriors collects the first seven issues of the self-same series; three more issues will appear in the War of the Green Lanterns collection, and then the final three in the Aftermath collection. That makes this volume the first and only singular collection of the Emerald Warriors series, with Peter Tomasi returning to Green Lantern Corps after the DC Comics relaunch. As such, it makes it hard to call Emerald Warriors a series at all, but more like a miniseries that DC Comics didn't want to call a mini so as not to tip off the forthcoming relaunch (not unlike, to an extent, the also-thirteen-issue Flash, the Fastest Man Alive).

This is important because even as I liked Emerald Warriors, in trying to determine whether the book is "successful" on its own it's necessary to determine what Emerald Warriors is and therefore what it tries to accomplish. I reject, really, that Warriors is anything different than Tomasi's Green Lantern Corps, given that both use the same characters and storylines and that Tomasi proceeds right back to Corps after Warriors. Also, despite "Warriors" in the title, this book is no more gory than your average issue of Corps (and those complaining that the DC Relaunch Corps is too bloody obviously weren't watching when Mongul ripped out Sinestro Corpsman Arkillo's tongue or when murder victim's eyeballs rained on the Green Lantern recruits).

Rather, Warriors deviates from Corps in its emphasis on its characters. Sure, Corps has offered considerable building of Lanterns Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner -- including Guy's relationship with girlfriend Ice and Kyle's trauma over his possession by Parallax -- as well as spotlighting Lanterns Natu, Kol, Sarn, Kilowog, Arisia, and Sodam Yat, among others. WIth a stripped-down cast of three, however (plus the irrepressible Red Lantern Bleez), Tomasi has room to hone in on the characters like he hasn't before -- Guy Gardner, guilty over undertaking a secret mission without telling his friends; Kilowog, guilty over the recruits he's trained and watched die; and Arisia, guilty over abandoning her partner Yat.

Of these, Kilowog's struggle is the most compelling, in part because it's the most relatable and in part because Tomasi takes the usually gruff-but-loveable character into emotional territory that's new for the reader. I also appreciated that Tomasi's challenge for Gardner is that Gardner is working to keep his Red Lantern-fueled anger under control and rid himself of an unwanted power source, both of which one can imagine would have been anathema to Gardner just a few iterations ago; it's also nice to see Gardner grow into a leadership role for this erstwhile team. I rate Arisia's conflict only slightly lower because I've never quite been convinced by her love for Yat and wish her struggle could be just because she let down her partner, not because of romance (I've never quite been convinced of Yat's prophecy-foretold potential, frankly, and much prefer him as the villain he emerges at the end of this book).

The Green Lantern Corps as a concept is a team, of course, but we don't think of it as a team book like Justice League; rather appearances of multiple Green Lanterns in Corps is akin to how various members of the Bat-family come and go in Batman. But the triumvirate of Gardner, Arisia, and Kilowog (plus Bleez and maybe Blue Lantern Warth) is so focused as to seem a team and not an ensemble -- the closest analogue I can consider, to some readers' chagrin, is the new DC Relaunch title Red Hood and the Outlaws, also built from three hard-luck heroes teamed together because they have nowhere else to go. It's a compelling recipe, and I enjoyed reading about Green Lanterns brought together on a smaller scale than the Corps, like a Green Lantern espionage squad.

I'm hard-pressed, however, to imagine Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors at issue #100. The group accomplishes their goal, to venture out to the Unknown Sectors and find the source of what's draining power from the green rings; perhaps future issues could follow the team further out into the unknown (like Green Lantern Corps meets Star Trek: Voyager, effectively), but I can't imagine Kilowog, for instance, would find resolution to his conflict completely divorced from the Green Lantern Corps title proper. That is, if Emerald Warriors were just to spotlight these three Lanterns in otherwise normal situations, I'd just as soon see it rolled back into Corps; and if its purpose was to separate these three characters from Corps proper, I'm not convinced that would be sustainable.

As the premiere of its own series, then, Emerald Warriors is strong on characters, but short on the focus necessary to define itself, Tomasi's writing notwithstanding. The villain Zardor is unremarkable, seemingly shoe-horned as a sub-villain into the greater Krona plot going on in Green Lantern. Artist Fernando Pasarin draws some nice sci-fi gore (and a great close-up of a blustering Kilowog) but his figures seem too stiff and "normal" for a Green Lantern book; I wonder if he'll bring the same depth to the post-DC relaunch Green Lantern Corps as previous artist Patrick Gleason did.

This is all to say that while Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors is as entertaining as one would expect a Peter Tomasi-written afternoon with Guy Gardner, Kilowog, and Arisia would be, there's not enough here to justify a third Green Lantern title. These characters, and Tomasi, might better have been left on Green Lantern Corps, continuing that title's string of hits (I wasn't much of a fan of Tomasi's replacement on Green Lantern Corps). Corps fans will find the same quality stories they've come to expect here, however, and it's just as well Tomasi will be back on that title in just a few short trades from now.

[Contains original and variant covers]

On the way ... the Collected Editions review of Secret Six: The Reptile Brain. Don't miss it!

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Review: Green Lantern Corps: Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason's Green Lantern Corps has been a perennial surprise hit for me -- from Sins of the Star Sapphire to Emerald Eclipse to the Corps volume of Blackest Night, I have enjoyed this title immensely, and every time more than I expected. Unfortunately, new series writer (as least until September's DC Relaunch) Tony Bedard's first outing, Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns, is dull by comparison, lacking both the excitement and nuance of Tomasi's work. It's a good thing Tomasi returns to Green Lantern Corps after the relaunch, else it's possible I might have dropped Corps entirely.

[Contains spoilers]

The "Revolt" story takes Bedard five issues to tell, when I couldn't help but think Tomasi or Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns could have covered the same material in one or two issues. Every step of the story seems to require its own chapter -- an entire chapter for Lantern John Stewart to arrive on the robot planet Grenda, another entire chapter for Kyle Rayner, Soranik Natu, and Ganthet to arrive to rescue him, still another while the heroes hide out from the villain, and so on.

Corps has seen in Emerald Eclipse, for instance, the Green Lanterns take on the issue of capitol punishment as Rayner and Guy Gardner placed their own bodies between the Alpha-Lanterns and villains to be executed. In Revolt, in contrast, the story is black and white with no shades of grey -- Alpha-Lanterns are kidnapped by the evil Cyborg Superman, Stewart and company arrive for the rescue, and they're successful.

When the Lanterns fought the Sinestro Corps's baby-stealing Kryb in Sins of the Star Sapphire, their battle was weird and violent and shocking. Revolt has not the cybernetic Borg-esque horror it could have; rather a good amount of the real nitty-gritty battles with the Cyborg take place in an artificial dream-space. Letting alone that I don't quite get the sci-fi science that lets Alpha-Lantern Boddika and the Cyborg Superman fight it out in their subconsciouses (nor how Boddika can be so sure this kills the Cyborg), this dream fighting lacks the drama "real" fighting might have brought. Revolt's story turns on Boddika and the other Alpha-Lanterns being unable to act for themselves; Boddika's moment to shine has her standing still, and I found this unsatisfying.

Bedard does achieve some nice character moments in the book, especially in regards to Boddika. Boddika is a long-standing, brusque Green Lantern character, and her transformation to an emotionless Alpha-Lantern pained the reader the same as her fellow Lanterns. Bedard has a perfect sense of continuity here, bringing up some of Boddika's greatest moments from stories ten or more years ago and this thrilled me as a fan, as did the two-part spotlight on Boddika by Sterling Gates that closes out this book.

Bedard's focus on new Green Lantern Ganthet is also interesting, including Ganthet forging his own ring, and I very much enjoyed Bedard's depiction of the Cyborg Superman during Blackest Night and the ties this book has to the upcoming War of the Green Lanterns. This is not quite enough to offset the other difficulties of the book -- and I groaned at the silly jealousies Bedard seems to be setting up between Rayner and Natu -- but there are some moments here that Corps fans might want to see.

I had liked artist Ardian Syaf's work on Superman/Batman: Big Noise, but here I felt it came off too dark and rough, often with distorted open-mouthed faces; artist Nelson's faces are equally distorted in Gates's story, with every character wearing a perpetual sneer. I'm not sure if Bedard's story might have shined more if Gleason drew it, but the combination of both unremarkable story and art lead ultimately to a book that doesn't meet its own standard. This is a small thing, but Syaf draws the Red Lantern Atrocitus incorrectly in the first pages, with red fire coming perpetually out of his mouth like a solid cloud hanging around the character, and it's an indication of the kind of extra care this book needed and didn't receive.

Another "care" issue: Gates's Alpha-Lantern story came out five years ago, roundabouts Final Crisis, whereas Bedard's are more recent, but Bedard's are presented first in the book. I don't mind this necessarily -- Bedard's issues are the more important of the volume, though reading Gates's first gives greater insight to the characters -- but there's no indication given to the casual reader to explain the discrepancy. It's not hard to read the beginning of Gates's story as following rather than preceding Bedard's, and a casual reader could certainly be confused.

Also, Gates's story ends with a tag directing the reader to follow the events into Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns, a book which indeed follows Gates's old story, but not Bedard's, essentially moving an uninformed reader backward. In comparison to Green Lantern: Brightest Day, which not only directs the reader to War of the Green Lanterns but even includes a preview of it, Green Lantern Corps: Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns seems an unfortunate slapdash production that doesn't get help from any of its sides. More's the pity, because this is a good series that deserves better.

[Contains original and variant covers]

Let's put this uncharacteristic stumble behind us, however, because up next comes the Collected Editions review of Justice League: Generation Lost Vol. 1. Be there!

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Review: Green Lantern: Brightest Day hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

In between Blackest Night and the next Green Lantern event, War of the Green Lanterns, the reader might expect to find a bit of quiet, as was writer Geoff Johns's wont in his JSA series, among others. "The New Guardians" storyline collected in Green Lantern: Brightest Day is quieter in the sense that it's an Earth-bound tale and lacks the Corps-crowded panels of Blackest Night. Green Lantern: Brightest Day, however, offers no formal epilogue to Blackest Night, and rather takes its introspection on the run -- it's action-packed, perhaps overly so, and contains sweeping, mythos-altering revelations about the Green Lantern Corps just like Blackest Night did, without a resting point in sight.

[Contains spoilers]

Though the Green Lantern title doesn't rest after Blackest Night -- misses the chance for some lower-tempo issues, even -- Green Lantern: Brightest Day certainly offers a tonal shift. The first few chapters of this ten-issue collection are full of blithe superhero violence -- Lobo guest stars, and you can't get much more blithely violent than that.

In a kind of road trip to locate the missing Lantern entities, Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Star Sapphire Carol Ferris fight Sinestro, the three of them fight Lobo, Hal fights the Orange Lantern Larfleeze and villain Hector Hammond, Carol fights the rogue Star Sapphire entity the Predator, and so on. Artist Doug Mahnke's gritty work has always emphasized the weird, so it's not difficult for the reader to turn off their brain and watch the alien tentacles fly. In that way, while Green Lantern: Brightest Day lacks the one-off, "everyone relaxes and talks about the war" issue found post-Blackest Night in Green Lantern Corps, for instance, the first part of this book is at least slightly less cerebral, and the stakes less high, than Blackest Night before it.

I did like that Green Lantern: Brightest Day is more Earth-bound than this Green Lantern series' stories have been of late, though not perfectly so. The destruction and resurrection of Coast City have been such an integral part of the Green Lantern mythos of late that I'd like to see Hal Jordan actually exist there for a while, fly planes for the Air Force and stop a traditional super-villain -- you know, classic superhero stuff.

While Johns does let Hal interact with some civilians (including a charming scene involving a security guard and a lawn flamingo), one underlying idea that comes out of Green Lantern: Brightest Day is that the green ring may be at best causing Hal to isolate himself and at worst driving him mad. It is a testament to Geoff Johns's writing and creativity that, even as he's kept me compelled and wanted to follow Hal Jordan over sixty-plus issues, the one complaint I've had about Hal's lack of interaction with his supporting cast may turn out to be an intentional character element on Johns's part, foreshadowing a plotline to come.

The beginning of this trade will seem familiar to Green Lantern movie-goers. Johns, who consulted on the movie, obviously knew there'd be movie-directed attention on the first post-Blackest Night Green Lantern collection, and that this would be the series' newest trade around movie time. Carol has been an ongoing presence in the Green Lantern series, but for almost the first time since Green Lantern: Rebirth she gets one-on-one screen time with Hal Jordan here, in a bar scene and in dueling fighter jets reminiscent of the Green Lantern movie (not to mention movie villain Hector Hammond's sudden increased presence).

Hal and Carol's relationship is appropriately complicated, to a great extent because Hal doesn't know how to react to Carol's unconditional love that doesn't require anything back from him, giving him nothing to run away from. The reader intuits Hal's greatest objection to Carol becoming queen of the Star Sapphires is that it brings her most fully into the superheroic side of his world, when he spends most of the book trying to separate those aspects of his life and keep his friends out of danger -- in part out of guilt over his time as Parallax, and in part due to the corrupting influence of his ring. Though Hal and guest star Flash Barry Allen discuss the metaphorical aspects of their feelings far too much to be believable, one gets a fannish thrill here when Barry himself gets possessed by Parallax, and Barry's concern over Hal's behavior is what finally sheds light for the reader that something more is going on with Hal than just Hal's inherent bluster.

Johns, however, suddenly interrupts the main action of "New Guardians" for a single-issue solely devoted to the Red Lantern Atrocitus -- who interrupts a capitol execution and runs afoul of the Spectre -- and the story is suspenseful and gripping; Johns's short origin of the Red Lantern Dex-Starr at the end of the book is equally moving, and in only a couple of pages. (The Spectre story, on the heels of another in Blackest Night: Green Lantern, argues strongly for Mahnke getting to draw a Spectre series or special). Johns's stories do not quite convince me of the necessity of the upcoming DC Comics Relaunch Red Lanterns series, which seems mainly meant to take advantage of the name recognition of the new villains of the Green Lantern animated series -- but I will be curious to see if writer Peter Milligan brings the same kind of depth as found here, and what he does with the characters.

As recently as Blackest Night, Johns has been constantly revamping the Green Lantern mythos, often in the form of "revealing" lies that the Guardians of the Universe have told. Johns adds one more lie on top of the others here, that mainstay DC cosmic villain Krona was once an agent of the Guardians, and it seems a step too far if only because we haven't yet quite sorted out what's true or not about the Guardians' origins as presented in Blackest Night (also, I like Krona's larger look, seen as recently as Kurt Busiek's Trinity, over the shrunken form in which Johns and Mahnke present him). But I was quite caught off guard by an image in the great War of the Green Lanterns preview that DC includes at the end of this book of Krona and the Guardians in white cloaks with the Brightest Day White Lantern symbol on them. This book shares a scene with the first volume of Brightest Day, and Hal takes his mission to find the entities from the White Lantern, but I had not expected that the Guardians were in some way White Lanterns in their days before the Corps.

It's there and in the final pages of the main story that this book really distinguishes itself. It seemed to me Johns had made Hal too egotistical and focused too much on Hal's Corps life to the detriment of Green Lantern: Brightest Day, until all at once the story turns and the reader understands all of this is to demonstrate the psychological influence of Hal's ring. Larfleeze, the Star Sapphires, the Red Lanterns, and the Indigo Tribe are all have their minds controlled to a great extent by their rings, but we had believed the Green Lanterns at the center of the emotional spectrum were immune; now we understand the green rings have a corrupting influence also. This ignites this engaging but somewhat nondescript story; Green Lantern: Brightest Day was good, but it seems War of the Green Lanterns is going to be "can't miss."

[Contains full and variant covers, preview of the War of the Green Lanterns trade]

This is the fourth time recently that I've encountered one of these previews for a forthcoming trade at the end of one of DC's books -- Birds of Prey: Endrun, Justice League: Rise and Fall, and Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton Vol. 2. These are great, and I applaud DC for including them -- it's a recognition that trade-readers aren't "done in one," but rather that we follow the DC Universe in serial form, too, just not necessarily in periodicals, and that we want to be marketed to and teased about upcoming storylines just like "regular" fans. If you see more of these, let me know -- I'd love to think these are becoming standard in DC's books.

Next week, our review of Green Lantern Corps: Revolt of the Alpha Lanterns and Justice League: Generation Lost!

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Review: Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

In the first two pages of Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps, writer Peter Tomasi reveals that a major character told a major lie unbeknownst to the reader a couple volumes back. It's a moment that's shocking, and yet entirely true to the character -- and the story maintains this level of emotion and action almost all the way to the end of the book. Maybe because I was never a fan of the original Green Lantern Corps series, I never get very excited going in to the new series, but Tomasi's last outing, Emerald Eclipse, was one of DC's best books this year, and this volume is equally good, only a smidgen behind Blackest Night: Green Lantern in terms of the best of the crossover companion volumes.

[Contains spoilers]

Just as the Green Lantern volume celebrates that title's fiftieth issue, this book feels like an anniversary of sorts. Right in the center of the book is a two-part story called "Red Badge of Rage," one issue of which follows Kyle Rayner and the other Guy Gardner, and both feel like a "rebirth" for the characters. Kyle dies to save Oa, and what follows is a truly harrowing sequence where fellow Lantern Soranik and the Star Sapphire Miri struggle to resurrect him; Guy Gardner's rage at Kyle's death, meanwhile, causes him to become a berserker Red Lantern.

There is romance, drama, action, and (considerable) violence all in these pages, and it's believable and heartfelt because Tomasi ties it all to who the characters are. Even Kryb, horrific baby-stealer of the Sinestro Corps, ends up sympathetic in these pages, with her sorrow over the death of "her" babies turned Black Lantern zombies. Indeed, it seems as though Tomasi has been setting up, for years, the reader's abhorrence for Kryb solely for the purpose of turning it all around in Blackest Night's "War of Light." It's this kind of expertise that makes Tomasi's Green Lantern Corps more than just a cosmic DC Comics title; this is very, very strong stuff.

As well, whereas the horror of the Black Lantern zombies becomes old hat especially in the Green Lantern volume, Tomasi's Black Lanterns come off rather more seductive and ultimately tragic. The reader appreciates Kyle's confusion over the resurrected Jade zombie; as well, artist Patrick Gleason gives Kyle a bold, angular heroism in the scene where Kyle and Jade simply talk that is perhaps the best Kyle has ever looked. Similarly Tomasi's sequence where Lantern Kilowog fends off the attack of a former instructor, and must then face all the dead Lanterns that Kilowog ever trained, is absolutely heartbreaking.

If there are any drawbacks to this book, it's that it stops at some point being a Blackest Night tie-in. There's maybe one issue too much dedicated to the Lanterns trying to free Guy from the red ring that seems like it might be a placeholder while other Blackest Night action takes place elsewhere, akin to the one-shot John Stewart issue in Green Lantern. It's not a bad chapter, but Blackest Night falls away.

After that, Green Lantern Corps jumps into the thick of the Blackest Night action for its conclusion, and heaven help you if you're not reading Blackest Night. The majority of Corps is a rather self-contained tie-in, as opposed to the very dependent Green Lantern volume, but the end of Corps is thoroughly in Blackest Night and makes no effort to explain itself. Some parts, even, don't much make sense -- how is Guy able to shatter the Black Lantern Ice when she's possessed but not actually dead? What power causes Kyle to believe he's Major Force? And if the Anti-Monitor wants to escape from Nekron's battery, why do all the Lanterns fire at him? To the extent the story goes off the rails here, however, the chapters before that point are well worth it.

Green Lantern Corps ends with a Blackest Night epilogue, of the sort I imagine we'll also see in the next volume of Green Lantern. Aside from a great scene with two of my favorite characters -- Lanterns Vath and Isamot, the partners from warring planets -- not a gigantic amount changes in the Lantern status quo post-Blackest Night, and even Tomasi notes, through Guy, that it's another moment of rebuilding themselves after a half-dozen before. As much as I liked this story, I have to admit that parts weren't much different than the wild multi-Lantern fight sequences of Emerald Eclipse. Tomasi moves to Emerald Warriors after this volume, with Tony Bedard joining Corps, and hopefully that's a shakeup that will continue Corps level of excellence, reinvigorating the title while adding a companion just as good.

[Contains full and variant covers, Black Lantern sketchbook]

Green Lantern still leads as the best Blackest Night volume in my opinion, but Green Lantern Corps is a close second. Next up, we explore the wider DC Universe with Black Lantern Corps -- see you then!

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Review: Blackest Night: Green Lantern hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Between writer Geoff Johns's Blackest Night and Blackest Night: Green Lantern hardcovers, the former is obviously the "parent" volume. Blackest Night has a handful of holes where events happen in other titles, but can more or less be read as a complete story beginning to end; the Green Lantern volume, however, is basically a collection of scenes and supplementary "tales" tied loosely together with text pages that summarize the events of Blackest Night. That said, however, I found the Green Lantern volume to be the stronger of the two, both in surprises and in widescreen action, helped mightily by the art of Doug Mahnke.

[Contains spoilers]

If the Blackest Night event weren't momentous enough, the Green Lantern volume sees this latest Green Lantern series arrive at issue 50. As such, the anniversary issue must serve double-duty, furthering Blackest Night while also celebrating what a momentous occasion it is that a comic starring Hal Jordan -- once considered an untenable part of the Green Lantern franchise -- should have reached the half-century mark and be as popular as it is. Johns accomplishes both with "Parallax Rebirth."

The two-part story picks up from a brief scene in Blackest Night where a black ring possesses the Spectre; the Spirit of Vengeance never appears in Blackest Night again, but suddenly attacks Hal and the multi-hued Corpsmen here. In a flashback to Green Lantern: Rebirth, Hal recognizes that the Spectre didn't help him fight the freed fear-entity Parallax because the Spectre is afraid of the raw emotion that Parallax represents; in order to stop the Black Lantern Spectre, Hal willingly chooses to let Parallax enslave him once again.

The story's parallels to Rebirth are exactly what they should be; Hal fought to free himself of Parallax in Rebirth, and here he chooses to bind himself again -- what ought be his greatest fear -- for the greater good. This time around, in the most significant sign of the ground Green Lantern has covered in fifty issues, Hal's arch-nemesis Sinestro tries not to bury Hal in Parallax, but rather to save him from it; there's also a lovely scene where Hal's on-again-off-again girlfriend Carol Ferris helps to dispel the last of Parallax's influence. The freed Spectre agrees to help Hal fight Blackest Night villain Nekron, making up for the Spectre's quick exit a few years ago.

Between Hal's re-possession by Parallax and freeing the enslaved Spectre is a fantastic fight between the two giant entities, complete with crushed city blocks and plenty of supernatural gore. The double-page crowd scenes of Blackest Night were impressive, but Mahnke's spreads of just these two behemoths towering over Coast City had me gaping far more than Blackest Night did. Johns's fight contains a bunch of twists, including the Spectre becoming at one point a Red Lantern; I didn't know about any of this going in to Green Lantern, and I loved the surprises page after page.

Aside from "Parallax Rebirth," most of the rest of the Green Lantern volume basically profiles the main representatives of the other Lantern corps, with each narrating a different page or issue. In just a couple scenes, Johns gives the berserker Red Lantern Atrocitus a great amount of depth, and he could now be the Green Lantern character I'm most eager to learn more about. Johns also hints that Indigo Lantern-1, as she's called, has an untold history with Sinestro, Hal's predecessor Abin Sur, and the Green Lantern Corps; whereas this character was too mysterious for me to care much about before, these tidbits tie Indigo-1 to the ongoing action in a way I'm excited to see explored.

There's also a couple chapters here, mainly disconnected from the immediate action of Blackest Night, that follow Green Lantern John Stewart and his guilt over the destruction of the planet Xanshi. I like John, mostly from his portrayal on Justice League Unlimited, but he recovers so quickly from his shock both at the resurrection of Xanshi and of his former wife Katma Tui that these chapters aren't very gripping. In another scene Hal ignores the taunts of a resurrected Abin Sur, recognizing that the Black Lanterns aren't the deceased souls they appear to be; indeed, one place I felt Blackest Night didn't work is that after the heroes (and the readers) get the "trick" of the Black Lanterns, the villains lose much of their shock value. It's in this way that I liked the Parallax/Spectre fight better, in that it had some real stakes as opposed to John fighting a not-quite-resurrected Katma.

Alternatively, the pages in which Sinestro fights the resurrected Arin Sur, newly-revealed sister of Abin Sur, are second-greatest only to "Parallax Rebirth." By Johns's hand, Sinestro has become perhaps the best-realized villain in the DC Universe, and this story goes to show there's still more we have to learn about him. Sinestro having scoffed at Abin Sur's "Blackest Night" prophecies becomes increasingly tragic when we learn that Sinestro was nearly Abin's brother-in-law; there's so much wrapped up in Sinestro's hate for Hal Jordan and how it stems from Sinestro's guilt about Abin that it sizzles on every page. The last shoe to drop is whether this makes Arin the mother of Sinestro's daughter, Green Lantern Corps's Soranik Natu, which would make her Abin Sur's niece. Here again, Johns both surprises and builds toward the future in interesting ways, and all of that gave the Green Lantern volume more heft for me than Blackest Night itself.

[Contains full and variant covers, sketchbook pages, Blackest Night text pages before each chapter]

Blackest Night continues to bring with it some surprises; reading the main volume, I had no idea that the characters fought the Spectre, and even after reading the Green Lantern volume, the flow-through is still a bit confusing (if not just inexact on its own). I'll be curious to read the Green Lantern Corps volume next to see if the third part fills in the gaps, and if it's as much a "companion volume" as Green Lantern was. Stay tuned!

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Review: Green Lantern: In Brightest Day trade paperback (DC Comics)

DC Comics may promote Green Lantern: In Brightest Day (not to be confused with the limited series by the same name) as a kind of "greatest hits" volume as chosen by Geoff Johns in advance of Blackest Night, but here's what it really is: origin stories, if you like that kind of thing. You'll find here the first appearances of Guy Gardner, Sinestro, Krona, Laira, and Mogo, and also significant origin-type stories for John Stewart and Stel. Much like Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, if one thing you're digging about the current Green Lantern series is all the history, here's a whole lot of history for you.

[Contains spoilers]

Geoff Johns introduces each issue or section in this book with a text page similar to those in the 52 collections, and Johns' choices are as revealing about the ongoing Green Lantern story as they are about the writer himself. I tend to be less worried about the final fates of Alan Scott, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner after Blackest Night when Johns includes a story about each of them; one aspect of Johns' Green Lantern run that I've always liked is the deference he pays to Kyle Rayner, discussed here, as the character who preserved Green Lantern's popularity in Hal Jordan's absence.

The reader also learns that Johns' first Green Lantern issue was #188, a notable issue for John Stewart and the first appearance of Mogo; we can intuit how this sets the tone for Johns' Green Lantern run as something collaborative rather than singular -- not just about Hal Jordan, but about the wide mythology of the Green Lanterns, any of whom might be able to lead their own books.

More interesting, however, are the less relevant stories that Johns chooses. Johns name-checks a couple less-well-known Green Lantern contributors, including writer Todd Klein and longtime DC editor Joey Cavalieri. Klein's "Apprentice" and Cavalieri's "Progress" follow a similar short story pattern of build-up and twist, and are good examples not only of how the Green Lantern mythos can be applied to any of a number of different canvasses, but also of the comic book short story genre in general -- Cavalieri's story, in particular, uses strong familiar images to tell a story that's otherwise mostly silent.

I also enjoyed Johns' explanation of Elliot S. Maggin's "Must There Be a Superman?" as an example of a shift in writers' thinking about Superman. Johns cites the story as some of his own inspiration for the character of Lex Luthor, positing Superman not as a benefactor but as a threat to the otherwise normal development of humanity on their own.

The real meat of In Brightest Day, however, is the origins. Guy Gardner's first appearance is fascinating, inasmuch because of how different that Guy is from the later Justice League International incarnation, especially, and also for the revelation that if Guy had become Green Lantern before Hal, Guy would have died and given his ring to Hal anyway. Sinestro's first appearance is equally revealing, in that his relationship with Hal Jordan is far less intimate than how it would be changed later (for the better, I think). And while it's not Katma Tui's origin here, I delighted to her good-natured rivalry with Hal since I hadn't previously experienced the character "live."

As a continuity note, it's worth reading this book in conjunction with the first volume of Tales of the Green Lantern Corps. In Brightest Day's Alan Scott/Hal Jordan team-up story leads right in to the first part of Tales; the aftermath of a character's death in Tales is revealed In Brightest Day. Also, Arisia makes a cute cameo in In Brightest Day after Tales; it's a brief scene, but gives more insight into this character's early days.

I love DC Comics history (as evinced by the DC Trade Paperback Timeline) and especially when old stories are directly relevant to the events of the day. The hand-picked stories here (like 52: The Companion and Justice League Hereby Elects) have that great blend of old and new; especially if you're wary of delving into the Golden or Silver Age because of the difference in story structure or quality, In Brightest Day is a good starting book.

[Contains introduction pages]

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Review: Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1 trade paperback (DC Comics)

If ever one was lead to believe that comic books are just ten minutes of escapist entertainment, the first volume of Tales of the Green Lantern Corps argues firmly in the other direction.

It's not just because the stories collected here are each in their own way thoughtful deconstructions of the Green Lantern concept -- though they are. Rather, it's because there are concepts introduced in this book that are still in use thirty years later -- letting alone writers and artists involved with these original stories who still influence the Green Lantern titles today. Comics may not yet have fully achieved mainstream status, but in this story that's continued for more than half a century, I see evidence of an unrecognized American mythology.

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps volume one collects Mike Barr's three-issue Green Lantern Corps miniseries from 1981, and the Corps back-up stories from 1981 to 1983. I missed these books the first time and only came to Green Lantern shortly before Emerald Twilight, but it's amazing how recognizable the characters are in this book -- Arisia (making her first appearance), Stel, and Green Man are here (as are later deceased Lanterns Katma Tui, Tomar-Re, and Ch'p), as well as the villain Krona and the Spider Guild. It's hard to believe that thirty years later, these characters still fight beside Green Lantern Hal Jordan; it's a benefit of the comics medium that for the most part we can't see in television or in movies.

The issues collected here build themselves directly on stories written previously, just as these events and characters would be used by writers later -- Arisia, for instance, continues into a number of Green Lantern Corps and Justice League books, Beau Smith's Guy Gardner: Warrior, and ultimately Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons' Green Lantern and Corps. Some would argue that this constant reusing of characters limits creativity and story growth, but I love the breadth of the tapestry, that one can read the latest crossover or stories thirty years old and still find something familiar; the monthly relay race of continuing stories, as demonstrated by Tales of the Green Lantern Corps through to the current Green Lantern title, deserves more credit even than what it's already beginning to receive.

In terms of readability, while dated, Tales of the Green Lantern Corps holds up fairly well. The three-issue miniseries is somewhat simplistic and spends much of the first and second chapters recounting the origins of the Green Lantern Corps, which will be familiar to modern readers but might not have been at that time; one bright point is that the story focuses on Hal Jordan's classic heroism in the end, as well again as all the familiar Lantern characters.

The Corps back-up stories might at one point have annoyed me given their loose connection to any main plot, but in this collection -- with the purpose of spotlighting the variety of the Lanterns -- they shine. Especially intriguing is the way each story bends the familiar Lantern concept; one story offers a Green Lantern forbidden by her culture to use violence, while two others follow Lanterns placed in forced retirement by the Guardians, something we rarely hear about today. A couple of Lanterns actually die before the end of their stories, and indeed I checked my copy of Tales of the Sinestro Corps -- all of them are there in the Green Lantern memorial spread.

A few of these stories are actually pencilled by Gibbons, who thirty years later took a hand in introducing the Green Lantern Corps to a new audience (including me). Brian Bolland drew covers for the Green Lantern Corps miniseries back then, and returns to cover the new collection now. There's also stories by long-time DC editor Paul Kupperberg, and renown artist Carmine Infantino.

I do wish DC Comics had included Green Lantern #163, which is the first part of a "Green Magic" series, since they include the second and third parts. The stories are not inextricably tied -- the second part explains, somewhat vaguely, what happened in the first -- but they still feel unfinished, and the third part's cliffhanger is entirely unclear. At base it's the story of a young Green Lantern from an island of persecuted magic users, and the uncommon combination of Green Lanterns and swords and sorcery makes for an intriguing combination, unfortunately left incomplete in this volume.

A shared universe has its pitfalls, no doubt, but among its benefits are a sense of heritage and tradition -- Johns inherits, for instance, what Barr set up before him -- and also continuity, not in the "does Jimmy have a consistent broken arm this month?" sense, but in that a character that you read yesterday is still around today and could still be around tomorrow. If you're in to that kind of thing, I think the first volume of Tales of the Green Lantern Corps is worth taking a look.

[Contains full covers]

Coming up next -- as we start the countdown to the Blackest Night collections, a little more Green Lantern ...

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Review: Green Lantern Corps: Emerald Eclipse hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Admittedly, in the long wait for the Blackest Night collections and uncharacteristically lackluster Green Lantern: Agent Orange, I'd begun to feel just the slightest bit of event fatigue for Blackest Night before I'd even read the series. However, as the next in a string of great collections, writer Peter Tomasi's Green Lantern Corps: Emerald Eclipse is nothing short of outstanding, possibly the best trade paperback I've read all year, and if this book reflects the quality of Blackest Night to come, I'm excited all over again.

[Contains spoilers]

From the beginning of the second chapter, when Daxamite Green Lantern Sodam Yat confronts the xenophobic mother who nearly exiled him from his home planet, Tomasi places Emerald Eclipse a cut above the rest. There's plenty of cosmic action in this book (and that's great, too) but largely the conflicts are between individual characters, and it brings a unique richness to the story. Yat, for instance, has been so far something of a cypher for me, but when Tomasi lets Yat's pent-up anger boil up to the surface in the face of his mother's racism, it's so powerful as to forever define the character. The Daxamites brainwashed Yat and murdered his alien friend, but they're now asking him to save their lives, and the moments when Yat weighs his rage versus his duty as a Green Lantern are simply electric.

Similarly, at the end of the book we find Green Lanterns Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner planting themselves squarely between some of their worst enemies and a firing squad, trying to prevent the Guardians and Alpha Lanterns from committing mass murder. This scene brings to a head some of the most interesting aspects of the new Green Lantern mythos -- the Lanterns have had to consider if they can still be effective without using lethal force in the face of murderous enemies, and now the Guardians have taken this to the extreme, executing even captured foes. Tomasi does well tying this to real-world issues -- if we murder our prisoners, Kyle asks, what will our enemies do to us? -- and creates palpable tension as the Alpha Lanterns pick off well-known bad guys one-by-one before the reader.

There's a number of these great moments in Emerald Eclipse, whether quiet ones like the verbal sparring between Lantern Soranik Natu and Sinestro, Natu's burgeoning relationship with Kyle Rayner, and the interactions between Rayner and Gardner or Natu and her Lantern partner Princess Iolande; or giant, loud ones like the knock-down fight between Mongul and Arkillo for control of the Sinestro Corps; or the massive, I-can't-believe-this-wasn't-its-own-crossover jailbreak of the Sinestro Corps from the Oan Sciencells, and kudos to artist Patrick Gleason for clear cosmic art in scenes of both type. That Sciencell battle, too, helped define the Red Lantern Corps for me; I wasn't entirely clear on their powers from Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns, but now I see the threat they pose (especially, that their spit can melt Green Lantern constructs!).

I remain only mildly confused by the end of Emerald Eclipse, but I suspect that confusion is on purpose. Yat released the power of Ion to turn Daxam's sun yellow -- did this kill Yat, or does he now exist for some reason, as the last scene suggests, in the sun (or is Yat's image meant to be Arisia's fond remembrance)? And with all the pushing and pulling that the Guardian Scar did to make the shield over the planet Oa explode (yet another fantastic, could-have-been-its-own-event moment), I was surprised to see all the Black Lantern Corps rings explode out of ... a little meteor. This final page felt anti-climactic to me after a book full of wonders, but I can most certainly forgive this after everything else in this book.

Constant Collected Editions readers will remember I was none too pleased that DC Comics switched Green Lantern Corps from paperback to hardcover with this volume, in a way that suggested to me trying to unfairly capitalize on the excitement over Blackest Night. Green Lantern Corps has only been in paperback before, but now if a reader wants to be caught up for Blackest Night, they have to read the Emerald Eclipse hardcover or else wait until November to get the paperback. Well, I didn't want to wait and delay reading Blackest Night, and was lucky enough to find someone willing to lend me their Emerald Eclipse hardcover, but it doesn't change my feelings on the situation -- I think this was a bad time for Green Lantern Corps to go hardcover, and if it remains that way after Blackest Night, I'll be waiting for the paperback then, too.

That said ... Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason have done themselves remarkably proud with Green Lantern: Emerald Eclipse. It's a shame Tomasi won't be staying on this book much longer, but he's won himself a fan and I'll be eager for his other Green Lantern work.

[Contains full and variant covers]

Up next ... more Superman. See you there!

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Top Green Lantern Trade Paperbacks

I'd venture a strong majority of the searches for collection information on the Collected Editions blog regard Green Lantern TPBs, whether because of Hal Jordan's new life at DC Comics, Ryan Reynolds in the new Green Lantern movie, or the popularity of the Blackest Night miniseries as of this writing. Either way, I'm long overdue for a list of the best and essential Green Lantern collections out there.

* Green Lantern Hal Jordan - Pre-Crisis
Setting aside any of DC Comics' Green Lantern archives (or Showcase Presents volumes, for that matter), there's just a handful of pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Green Lantern Hal Jordan volumes I'd recommend (and of them, some of them are "cheats"). To wit, the collection of the ground-breaking 1970s Green Lantern/Green Arrow crossover title, which dealt with generally untouched topics like racism and drug abuse, is still in print and referenced in today's continuity.

Two books not necessarily still in continuity (and not actually published pre-Crisis, either) are JLA: Year One and Flash & Green Lantern: The Brave and the Bold -- these books have been superseded by other Justice League origins, but I think they're worthwhile in their depiction of the friendship between Hal Jordan and Flash Barry Allen. DC has also recently published collections of the 1980s Green Lantern Corps mini-series and series under a Tales of the Green Lantern Corps banner -- these are not my favorites, especially the later stories, but have recently been referenced more and more in the modern Green Lantern series and the Blackest Night crossover.

(Edit: As discussed in the comments, DC: New Frontier is an out-of-continuity story, but gets to the core of Hal Jordan in a dynamic and beautiful way. For someone like me who came to Green Lantern via Kyle Rayner, all I needed was Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier to make me a Hal Jordan believer.)

- Green Lantern Chronicles Vol. 1
- Green Lantern Chronicles Vol. 2

- JLA: Year One
- Flash & Green Lantern: The Brave and the Bold

- Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection HC

- Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1
- Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2

- Absolute DC: The New Frontier

* Green Lantern Hal Jordan - Post-Crisis
Given Hal Jordan's popularity right now, you might be surprised to find that only the beginning and end of his previous series in collected format. Emerald Dawn are two collected miniseries that functioned like Superman: Man of Steel and Batman: Year One after DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, and The Road Back collects the first issues of that Green Lantern ongoing series. With that series' fiftieth issue, Hal Jordan became Parallax (of sorts) and Kyle Rayner became Earth's Green Lantern. A notable one-shot from this era is Ganthet's Tale by John Byrne and Larry Niven, introducing the titular Guardian who was important to Kyle and in the current Green Lantern series.

- Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn Vol. 1
- Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn Vol. 2
- Green Lantern: The Road Back
- Green Lantern: Ganthet's Tale
- Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight

* Green Lantern Kyle Rayner
I, for one, wasn't much of a fan of Green Lantern post-Crisis -- the Corps history too inscrutable, the aliens too unrelatable, and the conflict between gray-haired Hal Jordan and smarmy Guy Gardner often dissolving into so much bickering. So I for one jumped onboard when DC wiped the slate clean and introduced Kyle Rayner as the all-new, all-different Green Lantern, and much of my exposure to the Green Lantern mythology came in these books. Per my DC Trade Paperback Timeline, Kyle has a big moment in the crossovers Zero Hour and Final Night. Kyle's first and seemingly definitive writer was Ron Marz, through to Emerald Knights, but Judd Winick's run from New Journey through Passing the Torch is equally notable in establishing Kyle's place in the DC Universe. Out of continuity, but written by Marz and worth a creepy read, is Green Lantern Versus Aliens, featuring both Hal (in the past) and Kyle.

- Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight/New Dawn
- Green Lantern: A New Dawn

- Zero Hour: Crisis in Time

- Green Lantern: Baptism of Fire
- Green Lantern: Emerald Allies

- Final Night

- Green Lantern: Emerald Knights
- Green Lantern Versus Aliens
- Green Lantern: Circle of Fire
- Green Lantern: New Journey, Old Path
- Green Lantern Legacy: The Last Will of Hal Jordan
- Green Lantern: The Power of Ion
- Green Lantern: Brother's Keeper
- Green Lantern: Passing the Torch

* Green Lantern Hal Jordan - Current Series
In 2005, in something of a DC renaissance between Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis, writer Geoff Johns resurrected Green Lantern Hal Jordan in spectacular fashion. If Green Lantern: Rebirth weren't enough, DC saw similar success with the Sinestro Corps War crossover (the kind of in-title crossover that subsequently lead the way for Superman: New Krypton and Batman RIP). This new Green Lantern title, as most everyone knows, continues strong, having just surpassed its fiftieth (and formerly Hal Jordan-removing) issue and serving as the cornerstone of the Blackest Night crossover and subsequent Brightest Day event. Alongside the book, Ron Marz returned to write a twelve-issue Ion miniseries starring Kyle Rayner that lead in to Sinestro Corps War.

- Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth
- Green Lantern: No Fear
- Green Lantern: Revenge of the Green Lanterns
- Green Lantern: Wanted - Hal Jordan

- Ion: The Torchbearer
- Ion: The Dying Flame

- Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War Book One
- Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War Book Two
- Green Lantern: Tales of the Sinestro Corps

- Green Lantern: Secret Origin
- Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns
- Green Lantern: Agent Orange

* Green Lantern Corps - Current Series
As I mentioned, I was never much for the first iteration of Green Lantern Corps, but the gritty space police-procedural that emerged alongside Green Lantern: Rebirth, written first by Dave Gibbons and later by Peter Tomasi, has become one of my favorite series. Maybe it's because, again, there's a crime and horror undertone to this series that resonates better with me than the Justice League humor of the 1980s, or maybe it's because the writers have taken a page from Beau Smith's book and portray Green Lantern Guy Gardner as a person, rather than a caricature, but I always look forward to these books. Green Lantern Corps crosses over with the Sinestro Corps War titles, and also with Blackest Night.

- Green Lantern Corps: Recharge
- Green Lantern Corps: To Be a Lantern
- Green Lantern Corps: The Dark Side of Green
- Green Lantern Corps: Ring Quest
- Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire
- Green Lantern Corps: Emerald Eclipse

* Blackest Night
The following collect the Blackest Night miniseries and Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps issues, the Tales miniseries and "resurrected title" one-shots, and also six character-specific miniseries: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Justice Society, Titans, and Flash.

- Blackest Night
- Blackest Night: Green Lantern
- Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps
- Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns
- Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps
- Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps
- Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps

* Green Lantern One-Shots
We'll round this list out with a bunch of Green Lantern collections that don't necessarily fit in continuity or otherwise stand on their own. Notable about Green Lantern: Fear Itself (by Ron Marz) and Traitor is that they feature multiple generations of Green Lanterns (Hal and Kyle, and then Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott in the former and Hal's predecessor Abin Sur in the latter). In Brightest Day is a "greatest hits" collection of sorts, hand-picked by Geoff Johns as inspiration for his current Green Lantern run. Willworld is an original graphic novel starring Hal Jordan and written by J. M. Demattis, which I believe was meant mainly as a vehicle for the late dynamic artist Seth Fisher to produce some DC work. JSA Presents Green Lantern are Alan Scott-focused stories culled mainly from the JSA Classified series.

- Green Lantern: Fear Itself
- Green Lantern: Traitor
- Green Lantern: In Brightest Day
- Green Lantern: The Greatest Stories Ever Told
- Green Lantern: Willworld
- JSA Presents Green Lantern

I think that covers it -- if you find a trade I missed, please let me know. You can see these books in easier-to-browse format at the Collected Editions Trade Paperback Store.

I've listed some of my favorites above, but I'd be curious to know what's your favorite Green Lantern story?

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Review: Green Lantern: Agent Orange hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Possibly the Green Lantern series has set its own bar a little too high, because after volume upon volume of what's been a consistently high quality series, Green Lantern: Agent Orange just failed to impress. As Geoff Johns continues the build-up to the Blackest Night crossover, part of me says "Enough already!" -- Agent Orange might just be one last prelude too many before the main event.

Compared with the great last Green Lantern volume, Rage of the Red Lanterns, it's easy to see why Agent Orange didn't measure up. Both stories introduce new hues of Lantern into the mythos, but whereas Rage contrasts the Red Lanterns with the Lost Lantern Laira's grief over her fallen comrade and Hal Jordan's mixed feelings about Sinestro's upcoming execution, Agent Orange follows a mostly straightforward hunt for the Orange Lantern. There's some interesting conversation regarding the differences between greed, represented by the Orange Lantern, and hope, represented by the Blue, but nowhere near the crackle that Rage contained.

At this point, the characters in Green Lantern are so set in their ways (in advance, perhaps, of larger character changes in Blackest Night) as to no longer be suspenseful or surprising. The constant bickering between the Green Lanterns and their ruling Guardians grows old; one wonders why the Lanterns, heroes in their own right, tolerate the Guardians' constant recalcitrance.

And writer Geoff Johns seems to delight in doling out the Guardians' secrets one by one, playing a constant game of "I know something you don't know." The entirely unsurprising origin of Agent Orange Larfleeze is such a letdown that it spoils my eagerness for the next hidden tidbit. The Guardians' new rule that the Vega system is no longer offlimits to Lanterns fell flat for me, since even I -- well versed in DC Comics lore -- didn't know there was something about Vega in the first place; far better were the Guardians' previous rules about love and capital punishment that dealt with the Lantern's emotions, rather than minutia.

I enjoyed artist Philip Tan well enough on Final Crisis: Revelations, with his dark, sketchy art that brought out the moodiness of that story. Agent Orange has similarly suspenseful, secretive moments, though Johns seems through Lantern Hal Jordan to want us to envision Larfleeze like a Muppet; I wondered what the whole story would've looked like with more energetic art suited to animated characters. Tan offers beautiful scenes, but then also ones where the Lanterns, especially John Stewart, appear wooden. Strangely, Tan also paints just one panel per page, and not often the most pertinent or emotional panel; that the painted panel had no story relevance beyond appearing once per page seemed to me gimmicky and distracting, rather than adding to the story.

I did appreciate Agent Orange's unique Lantern power to kill, and then replicate his victims, creating a virtual Orange Corps and calling it -- Johns being punny -- "identity theft." While this seems to mildly duplicate what I understand of the Black Lantern power yet to be revealed (animating the actual dead corpse trumps stealing the corpse's identity any day), it's better by far than the Red Lantern power which is, no joke, to vomit fiery blood. In the measly four issues collected here, the Agent Orange power doesn't get much change to shine, but I'm curious what Johns does with it down the road.

Bottom line, I'm just ready to get on with it. It's January now -- the Blackest Night trades don't hit until July, kids. That's a long, long, almost interminable time to wait. Green Lantern is good, really good, I know it, but Agent Orange didn't do it for me -- that makes the wait for the better things to come all that much harder.

[Contains Philip Tan sketchbook, various Lantern corp profile pages from Blackest Night #0.]

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Review: Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire trade paperback (DC Comics)

With The Sinestro Corps War and Final Crisis very swiftly behind them, both Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps begin gearing up for Blackest Night. Green Lantern tackles the Red Lanterns, while Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire focuses on the "don't call them Pink" Lanterns. Of the two titles this go-around, I found Green Lantern Corps to be the more effective; writer Peter Tomasi struggles sometimes in his dialogue and interaction between the Lanterns, but wraps it up in a plot that, like his last volume, I found imminently gripping.

Tomasi's big accomplishment in this collection is to make me fear for the character's lives. The Star Sapphire story has less really to do with the Sapphires than with the Lanterns' search for the baby-stealing Sinestro Corps member Kryb. That Kryb kills the Lanterns and kidnaps their babies is creepy enough, but Tomasi introduces Kryb's mind-control power that, at one point, forces four Lanterns to hold down a pregnant fifth Lantern as Kryb prepares to slice her open. As in the previous volume, Ring Quest, Tomasi combines well superheroics and science-fiction horror, and there's no lack of adrenaline as the Lanterns fight Kryb for their lives and the lives of their children.

As Geoff Johns does in Green Lantern, Tomasi uses the emotional spectrum of the new Star Sapphire corps, "love," as the underlying theme of the story. The married Lanterns fight to protect each other and their children, Lanterns Kyle Rayner and Soranik Natu consider a relationship, and Guy Gardner reunites with long-time love Ice. Somewhat predictably, the Guardians outlaw love between the Corpsmen just as these storylines reach their climax, but Tomasi surprised me in the end with the unexpected fallout of the Guardian's decision.

Even as the plot of Sins of the Star Sapphire held my interest, I found that Tomasi still struggled getting in to the story, especially in his dialogue between Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner. Guy, as we know, is a "guy's guy," and Tomasi seems to try to write "guy dialogue" here, but it comes out rather flat and unreal -- as in Ring Quest, the character's repeat one another ("Helluva first night, buddy," Guy says. "Helluva first night," Kyle repeats, in two panels we could have done without). Similarly the attraction between Rayner and Natu is meant to drive the end of the story, but as they've rarely interacted all that much so far, it seemed more something "told" to the reader than something we actually felt.

There's only one more Green Lantern Corps collection (the controversial Emerald Eclipse hardcover) before Blackest Night, and my hope is that Tomasi will turn his attention away from the Lanterns he's spotlighted so far. Rayner and Gardner headline the series, we know, and we've seen Natu, Arisia, and Sodam Yat, but early favorites Isamot Kol and Vath Sarn, the Rann/Thanagar odd couple, are nowhere to be found, nor have we ever learned much more about Natu's supposed partner Iolande. Here's hoping Tomasi gets a chance to feature them before the crossover takes hold.

[Contains full covers]

In all, Tomasi's Green Lantern Corps promises to be a worthy companion to Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, even as the book still works to find its footing. I'll be curious to read Tomasi's Outsiders not too long from now and see how that holds up.

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Review: Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

I find I like Geoff Johns' Green Lantern title increasingly not for the story itself, but for the issues Johns uses the story to address. Sure, Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns is about a burgeoning War of Light fought by a bunch of new Corps, leading up to Blackest Night -- but it's also a story about police officers and soldiers, and about capitol punishment, and it's those aspects that give this book my recommendation.

I didn't "get," at first, Green Lantern Hal Jordan and renegade Lantern Sinestro's friendship. To me, Sinestro's always been this weaselly-looking guy with a pencil mustache who taunted Hal and acted superior, evil just for evil's sake. But the Green Lantern: Secret Origins collection opened the two men's early friendship to me in a way I hadn't seen before, and now their every interaction drips with the love/hate often saved for Professor Xavier and Magneto, or Smallville's Clark Kent and Lex Luthor.

To that end, Red Lanterns finds Hal Jordan at the door of Sinestro's prison cell, post-Sinestro Corps War, letting him know that Sinestro will be the first prisoner executed on the Green Lantern Guardians' new death row. The scene drips with Hal's indecision, mourning the coming execution of his once-friend even as he tries to convince himself Sinestro is too far gone to rehabilitate. In true Geoff Johns-ian fashion, the interior of this story is also the exterior, and later the new Blue "Hope" Lanterns and Red "Rage" Lanterns represent Hal's warring loyalties.

Most superhero comics can be separated into Superman or Punisher camps: those heroes who do kill and those who don't. Indeed, even when we have an instance like the recent where Wonder Woman killed Max Lord, her action came with a great deal of soul-searching and consequence -- the Superman camp. What I enjoy about the debate Johns has opened with the Guardians allowing the Green Lanterns to kill is that without punishment, the Lanterns choose whether to kill or not based on their own belief systems, and must deal with their own moral feelings on the issue, as must any police officer or combat soldier. Killing isn't a given (nor forbidden) but rather something being discussed, and that seems to me a new layer in superhero comics.

(Of course, the fact that this decision by the Guardians was in some way influenced by Sinestro, a fact only Hal Jordan knows, only deepens the delightful tension.)

The meat of this collection ought be the new hues of Lanterns populating Hal Jordan's world, but personally I found these confusing. I think the Red Lanterns spit their ring creations, but I'm not sure; it seemed that in trying to make the other Lanterns different from the Green Lanterns, Johns doesn't give us much to recognize. It didn't help that the Blue Lanterns apparently lie to Hal about their powers, such that in the end I wasn't certain what was true and what wasn't.

I did enjoy the complication of the Green Lanterns having to side now with the Sinestro Corps against their joint foe the Red Lanterns with a sense of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." I also liked that Johns name-checked the 1990s DC Comics space series Darkstars -- any old Darkstars characters that Johns wants to use in Green Lantern, I'm happy to see them -- and will use the Controllers from that series to head the Orange Lanterns. Only, it's strange that in all the hues and all the Lanterns, only Green Lanterns are the good guys. Perhaps I might feel more of a connection to some of these new Lanterns if they had some purpose other than the Sinestro Corps' mindless conquest and the Red Lanterns' equally-mindless rage.

DC released the first part of the "Rage of the Red Lanterns" storyline (chapter four here) as a Final Crisis tie-in, but be advised the ties are minimal at best. Hal Jordan references the beginning of Final Crisis, but the two stories don't meet again; the Alpha Lantern characters that appear in Final Crisis get an origin in this volume's first story, but the Alpha Lantern central to Final Crisis doesn't appear here either. I imagine that readers who bought Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns the first time around might've been disappointed, though it's a good story nonetheless.

[Contains full covers]

In all, this remains quality Green Lantern work from Geoff Johns -- not earth-shattering necessarily, but certainly a well-written and enjoyable comic.

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