War of the Green Lanterns Aftermath #1 Review
- Details
- Published on Friday, 22 July 2011 01:00
- Written by Kevin
The War of the Green Lanterns crossover that spanned Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps and Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors has ended. With its end the crossover has left its mark on the Green Lantern franchise as Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner and John Stewart were all forced to make tough choices throughout the crossover. Those choices have shaken the Green Lantern Corps to its core. How will the Guardians and Green Lantern Corps react to all the aftermath? That is what War of the Green Lanterns Aftermath #1 looks to answer.
Creative Team
Writer: Tony Bedard
Artist: Miguel Sepulveda and Tyler Kirkham
Inkers: Miguel Sepulveda & Batt
Colorist: Rain Beredo
Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 4 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Hal Jordan finds himself back on Earth in the middle of Arizona.
Back on Oa Guy Garner, Kilowagg and the rest of Green Lantern Corp members show their displeasure over the Guardians kicking Hal out of the GLC. Making them even angrier is the fact that Sinestro is a Green Lantern again.
The Guardians become tired of hearing the GLC argue with their decision. However, even as the Guardians try and shut the situation down Kilowagg and hundreds of other Green Lanterns renounce their posts.
Salaak gets in the middle of the situation and says that everyone needs to take some time to think as everyone is dealing with scars that the war they just went through left on them all. The Guardians agree and they take Sinestro, much to his chagrin, to their Citadel.
Elsewhere in Oa, Ganthet is contemplating everything that has happened. Saint Walker suddenly appears in front of him and says he can help him regain what he lost. Walker uses his ring to heal Gathet’s lost arm and in the process Ganthet sees his lost love Sayd in the blue energy coming from Walker’s Blue Lantern ring.
A few hours later, some Green Lantern Corp members confront John Stewart over his decision to kill Mogo. As they are about to fight Kyle Rayner gets in the middle by saying John did what he had to do and that he was taken over by the Black Lantern’s emotions during the time since he was wearing the Indigo Lantern ring.
John corrects Kyle by saying that he knew what he was doing the whole time and that Kyle needs to stop acting like he is his friend. Kyle leaves and John ask the three Green Lantern’s if any of them wants a piece of him.
At the Corps Infirmary, Soranik is healing some of the wounded. She is soon confronted by Hannu who invites her to a secret meeting. At the meeting Latern Meadlux, who is also an empath, reveals that during the situation with the Guardians earlier he was able to feel the deep fear they had of Hal and every member of the Green Lantern Corps.
Hannu theorizes that the Guardians may use Sinestro to bring things back into their liking. End of issue.
Commentary
The Good: War of the Green Lantern Aftermath #1 was one of the better aftermath-type issues I have read. Tony Bedard, in his best Green Lantern work yet, provided a story that gives the entire Green Lantern franchise even more intrigue as we head into September’s relaunches. At the same time this issue left me scratching my head of why it was not a story told in one of the other Green Lantern books.
Since taking over Green Lantern Corps from Peter Tomasi I have not been a fan of Bedard’s work. Bedard has done some very average work since beginning his run. Because of that I was very surprised with how rich of a story was able to provide in this aftermath issue for the up and down War of the Green Lanterns.
Bedard does a very good job dealing with all of the characters reactions to everything that went on in the recent crossover. He wasted no time showing that the Green Lantern Corps, after everything they have been put through, have become tired of all of the Guardians decisions. This is something that has been long overdue in my book since the Guardians have continuously made decisions that have been questionable.
For far too long the Green Lanterns have given the Guardians a pass on their decisions for the GLC, but finally we see other members outside the four Earth Green Lanterns stand up to them. It is completely understandable that so many Green Lanterns would decide to quit since they were just taken control by one of the Guardians so easily, whether they were rogue or not. This was a completely logical reaction because now the Green Lanterns see that the Guardians can easily do what they want to whoever is wearing a ring.
Seeing so many members quit helps to build the desperate time the Green Lanterns are about to face. It also adds to the importance of Sinestro being back at the Corp. Though he has been an enemy of the Green Lanterns for such a long time there is no doubting his leadership ability. Sinestro has continuously shown over the years to have the ability to make people follow him through respect or force. This ability along with the current mentality the Guardians are in gives the future of the Sinestro starring Green Lantern book a lot of fun possibilities.
Sinestro’s membership in the Green Lantern Corps also opens up a lot of possibilities for other characters such as Soranik to play even bigger roles than they have. Bedard did a fantastic job showing that with what just went down in the War of the Green Lanterns that we may see a splinter group of the Green Lanterns. This new splinter group within the Corps will be interesting to follow who will be a part of it and how they go about rebelling against the Guardians since Hal showed that with enough willpower the GLC members can overpower the Guardians blocks in the ring.
Bedard did an equally great job building up John Stewart’s character. For a long time I have said that John has been the least developed of the four Earth Green Lanterns. For years John has been portrayed as a mostly one dimensional character that just follows what he is told to do. But now after killing Mogo we are finally seeing John show more personality than ever before. Thanks to this John came off looking more of a badass with his take no crap attitude when being confronted by three Green Lanterns and in his “conversation” with Kyle.
Seeing the character say he was in complete control of his decisions to Kyle and that they were never friends is something that I am interested to see how Bedard and the other Green Lantern writers handle. There is a lot of ways they can John with this fallout he is going to be having with his peers.
The Bad: Though I enjoyed this issue for the most part I don’t see why this wasn’t an issue of one of the three Green Lantern books. After all of DC’s big talk of “Drawing the line at $2.99” things like making this aftermath issue its own separate mini makes it look like DC is going back on this as they look for a way to charge $3.99. This issue would have been much better as an issue of Green Lantern especially as we head into the relaunch since it takes away the reason for the other Green Lantern books to deal with the direct aftermath.
Miguel Sepulveda and Tyler Kirkham provided some very subpar artwork, and that is putting it nicely. Separately, both artists have been shown to be very talented but together they combined to deliver an issue that looked like a mess at times. This may also fall on the mediocre inking and coloring provided in the issue but the pencils were just not very good. There were some dynamic images in this issue but for the most part everything looked rushed which is awful considering that War of the Green Lanterns had some great artwork throughout the crossover.
Overall: War of the Green Lanterns Aftermath #1 was a great comic dealing with the ramifications of everything that went down during War of the Green Lanterns. Tony Bedard provided what is his best Green Lantern issue so far. There was a lot of fantastic character work spread throughout the issue that helps build interest in the future of the Green Lantern franchise heading into the DC Comics September relaunch. It is too bad that art for this issue was not able to match the level of the story provided by Bedard.
Also, with a cover price of $3.99 it is hard to recommend this issue to anyone outside of those who read War of the Green Lanterns. This story should have really taken place in one of the three Green Lantern titles. Still, if you are a Green Lantern fan and followed the recent crossover this is an issue that will be an instant buy for those looking to see how the Green Lantern franchise will be shaping out.
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