Rookie Call-up to Big Leagues - Review of Green Lantern Sector 2814 volume 2

 

Review:

Book two of the three-volume Sector 2814 set of Green Lantern trade paperbacks puts John Stewart at the center of the action. The set continues to collect some momentous and turbulent times in the life of Green Lantern, whoever bears that title.

Len Wein and Dave Gibbons establish the new Green Lantern out of the gate with battles against some classic foes, first Major Disaster, closely followed by Eclipso. Through these confrontations, the new guy is clearly learning the ropes, making mistakes, slowly getting better and more confident.

It includes one of my favourite scenes in the whole collection, the sanity-breaking "everyone is a Green Lantern" sequence. Whether or not it's an early nod to the cosplay culture, it is a fun page. I am less impressed by some of the sloppy green-power structures John Stewart creates - sure, he is still learning, but he is supposedly a highly regarded architect and the best he can imagine is an elevated platform without safety rails for his date with the reporter?

As the Wein & Gibbons run ends, Paul Kupperberg steps in for a one-parter standalone "day in the life" tale, although still contractually obligated, it appears, to move some of the secondary plots forward with a panel or page here and there. Fill-in artist Bill Willingham is already in this era showing the distinctive visual style elements that will become so strong in his Fables series in the future. Unfortunately, here in Green Lantern, those traits of posture and expression just feel awkward.

With #188, Steve Englehart takes over the writing and Joe Staton becomes the penciller. This new team immediately starts moving the characters and themes in intriguing new directions. They reveal John Stewart's secret identity in their very first issue, so he loses the mask - because what is the point, who are you hiding from now that everyone knows?

They also start a budding romance between Stewart and Katma Tui, the veteran Green Lantern assigned as his tutor by the Guardians. In their hands it feels natural and sweet, building to their first kiss and beyond.

And over several issues the creative team builds the tension brewing between Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris and the mysterious Predator. Ringless Hal is still without fear and does his best to confront the vicious Predator who, in turn, becomes increasingly romantically fixated on Carol. It all culminates (spoiler alert!) in the shocking return of Star Sapphire!

In all, it is an audacious debut for this new creative team, as they take a big swing at putting their own stamp on the Green Lantern mythology. Not everything they try is a hit - the Hal Jordan vigilante arc foremost among them. And Staton occasionally switches from rectangular panels to slashing diagonals and triangles for no apparent reason, just a page here and there of sudden visual disorientation.

I also appreciate how they are slowly setting up Guy Gardner for a future role, and the many nods to the long and rich history of Green Lantern. In particular, the retrospective of past confrontations with Star Sapphire and the extra legwork on the Editor's part to stick in references to issues past, where these events took place.

Description:

The mid-1980s run of Green Lantern tales continues with the final stories by the team of writer Len Wein (creator of Wolverine and Swamp Thing) and artist Dave Gibbons (Watchmen). Over the course of these tales, John Stewart becomes the new Green Lantern of Earth, only to face the threats of Eclipso and Star Sapphire. Plus, John Stewart battles his predecessor as Green Lantern of Earth, Hal Jordan.

Collects: Green Lantern (vol 2) #182-183, 185-193

Authors:  Len Wein, Steve Englehart
Artists:  Dave Gibbons, Joe Staton, Bruce Patterson
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Aug 27, 2013
Parental Rating: PG
ISBN:  978-1401240783
Pages:  232 pages

Not Cloned, Not Fun: Review of Justice League 3000 volume 1 Yesterday Lives

 

Review:

A legendary Justice League creative crew is reunited and given a brand new New 52 era Justice League book. Keith Giffen and JM Dematteis, who co-wrote Justice League titles (Justice League, Justice League International, Justice League Europe) for many years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, team up for a new take on the league. They bring in Howard Porter, who provided art for them on such lesser-known titles as Magog and Scooby Apocalypse.

It all held so much potential with high expectations from fans of their previous run. Unfortunately, this time it doesn't work. The magic fails to click.

The so-called Wonder Twins, Terry and Teri, have resurrected key members of the classic Justice League - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern.

It's now the 31st century and half the known universe is run by The Five, ruthless and near omnipotent beings. There's Kali the 6-armed god, Locus the reality-altering teen, Coeval the sentient program, the Convert who can possess several thousand other beings simultaneously, and one other to be named later.
Can the resurrected Justice League defeat The Five and saved the oppressed?

No, in part due to the flawed process used in their resurrection. Ariel Masters knew of the flaws and sought to prevent the process, but is now on the run in an effort to preserve her secrets. The results of the process once executed give us, not the classic heroes everyone knows, but beings with some hiccups.

Superman is an arrogant frat boy with immense power but not flight. Wonder Woman is a blood-thirsty warrior. Green Lantern is slowly being killed by the Green energy. Flash has no anti-friction aura. The closest to their old self is Batman, yet something is still off.

The result is that these beings, flawed in powers and personalities, fail to bond into a team that transcends its individual parts. With all this internal squabbling and self-doubt, how can they possibly overcome the awesome power of The Five?

The ongoing series is flawed in its attempts to resurrect the magic of this creative team, too. Howard Porter's art is chunky and slapdash. The constant exotic panel layouts do little more than distract and confuse. Even Hi-Fi on the colours, in other places so jaw-dropping, here are blocky and sub-par. 

For a couple issues, Keith Giffen handles the layouts and it does make an immediate, if not lasting, difference. 

Giffen's primary involvement is with the plots, with longtime collaborator JM Dematteis putting those ideas into words. But the fun banter and non-sequiturs of their renowned Justice League run are missing here. A handful of forced and one-dimensional exchanges give hints of levity and fun, but they are too few, too wooden, too uninspiring.

Maybe these are just not the right characters for this team. When they wrote for Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Fire, Ice, Captain Atom and more, they excelled with mid-tier heroes or new characters of their own making. This attempt to reinterpret this set of A-List heroes is forced, not much fun and ultimately falls flat.

Description:

In the far-flung future in the year 3000, the Justice League still exists and they're more familiar than you could imagine. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern comprise the League, but how is it that a millennia from now, these heroes could still exists? JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000 VOL. 1: YESTERDAY LIVES is a new series starring the heroes of today--tomorrow from the classic Justice League writing team of Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis with legendary artist Howard Porter (JLA).

Collects: Justice League 3000 #1-7

Authors:  Keith Giffen, J. M. Dematteis
Artists:  Howard Porter
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Oct 21, 2014
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401250461
Pages:  176 pages

Hal Jordan Checks Out: Review of Green Lantern - Sector 2814 volume 1

 

Review:

Writer Len Wein and artist Dave Gibbons are both highly regarded for their comic book work over the decades. Wein is perhaps best remembered for co-creating the Swamp Thing for DC Comics, and Wolverine and several other key X-Men characters for Marvel Comics. Gibbons most famously teamed with Alan Moore in the Watchmen series, described as "one of the most important literary works the field has ever produced" (Paul Levitz)

Despite these accolades and accomplishments, these Green Lantern tales are not among their best work. And yet even in the midst of standard mid-80s superhero fare, there are memorably transcendent moments.

This book is the first of three volumes that collect #172-200 of the ongoing Green Lantern series that started in the late 1960s. It was a critical couple years in the Green Lantern universe, moving Hal Jordan out of the centre and letting other Earth-born ring-wielders take centre stage. It all culminated in the series switching to become the Green Lantern Corps with #201, kicking off a more team-based series with more extra-terrestrial characters.

Wein dazzles with a poetic touch in the narrative-heavy sections. Exhibit A is the repeated use of a newspaper image in #175, as he takes a potentially trite and contrived idea into the backbone of the story. And the personal tension and internal turmoil that leads to Hal Jordan's resignation as Green Lantern is nicely built over several chapters.

Where he falls short of his reputation are, first, how small-thinking Hal Jordan becomes upon his return to Earth - having seen the universe, it is unexpected that he would become so focused on the problems of one company in once city on one planet; and second, the middle section of this collection is decidedly ho-hum standard superhero fare, especially the chapters with the Javelin and the Demolition Team. 

The Shark chapters pull that way too, but Wein manages to mitigate the worst with the newspaper and the inner-mind battle. Wein also gives characters different accents - Irish, southern USA, east-coast USA, which injects more variety into the voices but becomes too cute.

Dave Gibbons nails the art in the Shark chapters. The inner-mind battle especially stands out, with its jagged tooth-like panels and reduced colour palettes. Some other charming touches show up too, like the Flash with one leg casually draped over the arm of an easy-chair. And he is reasonably restrained with the light constructs created by the power ring. But much of the rest is cookie-cutter work and some secondary characters are hard to distinguish - good thing they rarely change their clothes, so we can tell them apart!

Reading these 40-year-old stories today, they are obviously dated and did not always age well. But there are some sparkling moments and it sets up a key moment of succession in the Green Lantern character, a radical change that did not come with any attempts to kill off a character as historically significant as Hal Jordan.

Description:

In 1984, DC Comics introduced British artist Dave Gibbons to U.S. readers with Green Lantern #172, the start of a popular run by Gibbons and writer Len Wein, best known as the creator of both Swamp Thing and Wolverine. Over the course of thirteen action packed issues, Green Lantern battled some of his greatest foes, clashed with the Guardians of the Universe, and was replaced by another human Green Lantern - John Stewart! This title is a showcase for the art of Dave Gibbons, who moved straight from Green Lantern to Watchmen, the best-selling graphic novel of all time. Gibbons returned to the world of Green Lantern in 2007 as the writer of the new series Green Lantern Corps.

Collects: Green Lantern (vol 2) #172-176, 178-181

Authors:   Len Wein
Artists:  Dave Gibbons
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Nov 20, 2012
Parental Rating: PG-13
ISBN:  978-1401241667
Pages:  192 pages

An Ill Wind: Review of Justice League America volume 1 The Tornado's Path

 

Review:

The 2006 Brad Meltzer reboot of Justice League of America resulted in a team with a nice diversity of heroes. It included heavy-hitters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern; with a mix of lighter-powered characters with other expertise like Black Canary, Vixen and Red Arrow. And of course the Red Tornado.

Red Tornado debuted in 1968 and was a frequent member of the Justice Society of America in their annual cross-overs with the JLA. He eventually moved permanently between dimensions, landing on Earth-1 and joining the Justice League.

In his history, the sentient android/elemental fusion has seen his body badly damaged or destroyed countless times, followed by a reanimation /resurrection story. The years have seen a dozen reboots and retcons of his story.

It has all left DC readers in three camps - some who find the character compelling and who crave more; a second group (this reviewer included) who find the repetitiveness of the destruction and reanimation tales annoying and overdone; and a larger third group for whom Reddy is a trivial minor character who deserves little more than the occasional non-speaking cameo.

Brad Meltzer and Ed Benes, in this reboot of the whole JLA, take their turn resurrecting and rewriting Red Tornado. How did their version do on this well-trodden path?

In this book, the soul of Red Tornado aka John Smith longs to be human. With the help of Felix Faust, disguised as Deadman, and a schema ultimately masterminded by Solomon Grundy, that soul is successfully transplanted into a flesh-and-blood human body.The bad guys then steal the empty android shell for their own nefarious purposes.

But the human body is intentionally more flawed than Reddy was led to believe, and he must fight for his life and ultimately (spoiler alert) sacrifice for his loved ones. While Meltzer's writing gives us a few genuinely moving moments, the arc is prone to lapsing into melodrama and over-sentimentality.

Much stronger is the ongoing voting among the big three of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, as they discuss the pros and cons of other heroes and decide whom to invite into their newly reformed club.

Or the spotlight on Black Canary's immense courage and ferocity in combat. Or the Vixen arc as she struggles with her sanity after the loss of her totem. Putting Red Tornado at the centre of this whole narrative feels out of place and produces somewhat predictable plot twists.

The powerful images Ed Benes gives us with his art do a lot of the heavy lifting in the parts of the story where Tornado's involvement actually works. I love the cute nods to the four-colour newsprint days of the Silver Age in the Tornado flashback sequences. While Benes gives us some intense action framing and combat sequences, the poses and expressions become as repetitive as the Tornado destruction / reanimation cycles. The one exception is Black Canary, who has seldom looked better in hand-to-hand combat scenes than in these pages.

Description:

New York Times best-selling novelist Brad Meltzer teams with artist Ed Benes to redefine the Justice League for today...and tomorrow! After the darkest hour in the DC Universe, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman meet to once again choose who among Earth's greatest heroes will comprise the new Justice League of America. But while they meet in secret to decide the fate of the team, dark forces move against their friends and allies.

Collects: Justice League of America (2006) #1-6

Authors:  Brad Meltzer
Artists:  Ed Benes
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  June 7, 2007
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401213497
Pages:  226 pages

Training Raw Recruits - Review of Green Lantern Corps - To Be a Lantern (Eaglemoss Collection volume 103)

Review:

With the mythology of a Corps of Green Lanterns - a small army (numbering in the low thousands) policing the many sectors of space - dating back to the Silver Age of comics, the possibilities for stories and adventures of this team are nearly infinite.

This hardcover book, volume 103 of the massive Eaglemoss DC Comics Graphic Novel collection, brings together two starting points of the Corps.

The title tale comes from issues #1-6 of the 2006 ongoing Green Lantern Corps series. These characters and stories were not occurring in a vacuum, other than that of space, and the book helpfully sets the table of the Geoff Johns tales of Rebirth and Recharge work in the Green Lantern universe. This new series emerged from those plot lines, with writing duties going to longtime Green Lantern penciller Dave Gibbons.

Why did Eaglemoss choose this story for its larger collection of key stories from DC Comics history? It's because these pages set in motion elements that will ultimately lead to and culminate in the War of the Green Lanterns and Blackest Night. I will have to take their word for this long-term impact and importance of these stories as, on their own, they are not very interesting or satisfying.

Guy Gardner, sick of training raw recruits, tries for some Rest & Relaxation, only to be interrupted by the bounty hunter Bolphunga the Unrelenting. This is the comic-relief arc, I suppose, with Guy's lecherous resort getaway and running battle, sometimes while missing his power ring.

Soranik Natu and partner Myrrt are put through the emotional wringer with death and devastation, the execution of a prince of the ruling dynasty, elements of self-doubt, naked racism and the death of a Lantern.

Elsewhere, Vath Sarn and partner Isamot Kol, who should be enemies based on the interplanetary war between their peoples, work through their sometimes-tense interpersonal differences and fend off a surprise assault from a third force.

The story jumps to other settings, too, such as Kilowog's boot-camp for new recruits and a battle against kidnappers hiding in a sentient city. As I said, infinite possibilities. And yet somehow the result is a dull and uninteresting read. The scattered Corps has no unity, their powers are all identical, and the jumps between scenes ultimately fail to make us care about these heroes. Some character depth does emerge for Soranik Natu but the others are forgettable and one-dimensional.

Art duties switch from Patrick Gleason to Dave Gibbons after the first three issues. The difference is immediately noticeable, with Gleason's darkly inked and brutal images yielding to the more goofy and bright style of Gibbons, showing his deep familiarity with the Green Lantern concepts.

Eaglemoss books almost always include one much older chapter as well, and in this volume it is Green Lantern Corps #201 from the mid-1980s. It is an important pivot point in Green Lantern history, moving from a focus on in individual Lantern in its first 200 issues to a team book. The events of the major DC crossover event Millenium triggered this switch. Some highlights in this one packed issue include the first appearance of Kilowog, new and varied uniforms, and Earth becoming the new base of operations for the team. It is a tale packed with new beginnings, new villains and schemes. Still not a terribly interesting read, 40 years later, but it serves as a fascinating counterpoint - this old group is a much more integrated and cooperative team than the scattered pairs shown in the rest of the book.

Description:

Eaglemoss Collections volume 103

The beacon of hope that was the Green Lantern Corps shines brightly once more. Following its destruction at the hands of an insane Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern Corps has been resurrected as a force for peace in a chaotic universe. Now veteran ring-wielders like Guy Gardner must hep raw recruits learn what it means to wear the emerald insignia...

and

With the powerful Guardians of the Universe departing for parts unknown, it falls to Hal Jordan and a band of extraterrestrial Green Lanterns to defend the Earth from any and all threats.

Collects: Green Lantern Corps (2006) #1-6 & Green Lantern Corps (1986) #201

Authors:  Dave Gibbons (1-6), Steve Englehart (201)
Artists:  Patrick Gleason (1-3), Dave Gibbons (4-6), Joe Staton (201)
Published By:  IDW Eaglemoss
Published When:  July 18, 2019
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  9772054373515
Pages:  170 pages