Drunken Comics Rage

Welcome back to the fourth and mercifully final part of my recap and reaction to the third collection of the new Green Lantern ongoing series.  Click on the links to find parts one and two and three if you are looking to waste some time and get caught up.  Go on, I’ll wait.

You’re back?  Good.  So what do I think of all this?  Hmm.

Two things were a little weird to me, both involving Green Lantern’s emotions and personality.  Why the guilt over the no-ring thing?  Suddenly he feels like he needs to cough up his secret identity to his partner pilots so he can THEN tell them he’s sorry for being a dumb ass and not bringing the ring?  And then…what’s the fascination with Cowgirl?  Ok, I get it, she’s a pilot, and she’s hot, and doesn’t want tied down, etc…so she’s a lot like a hot female version of Hal.  So all that said…what?  For a guy who is largely described in two words as “cocky asshole” does either guilt or puppy love seem to jive?  I can see conniving to get Cowgirls jeans off of her, but…just weird.  And guilt strikes me as something that largely is not the problem of someone with the self-certainty that surely must be required to have a gigundo universal class willpower.  I dunno.

The scene with the Justice League, Alan Scott, and the Rocket Reds was really cool.  Nice imagery when they first rolled up, and a nice big fight.  And Alan Scott stopped Hal cold, twice; I honestly don’t know much about the old school Lantern, but the presentation was damned cool.  And Batman alluded to Superman that Rocket Red One held his own in the scrap, and that they have been talking about expanding the League, so…you read it here first.  Unless he's now in the Justice League and you already read it there.

And the biggest storyline…the war of the color corps.  I WANT to like this idea.  I’m pretty sure I DO like the idea.  I definitely like what I’ve seen so far of the Sinestro Corps; the Batman piece was a very cool and enjoyable touch, although they better not have Batman just sorta forget that happened and neglect to mention it to anybody.  Sorta like nobody bothered asking John Stewart if he’d heard from Hal during that year.  But…the Zamaron thing just didn’t do anything for me.  Their weird misinterpretation of love was neither compelling nor interesting.  The implication, or perhaps my inference, that they are going to be a centerpiece in collecting all the pretty colored rings didn’t do anything for me either.  There’s clearly a lot more to be revealed…or, hell, has already been revealed for those not following the story months afterward when it finally hits the collection format.  So we’ll see; I’ll say this is a good start, and things clearly seem to be coming to a head.  And I would guess that things could get pretty intense once the whole thing becomes The Big Event.

Here’s a thought: I wonder if DC will craft this colored ring war thing with the galactic scope and scale that Marvel wielded so well, IMO, in Annihilation?  There was a giant something about Annihilation that really made it feel like A Big Fucking Deal to me.  I got swept along by the huge figures and massive scope and really could believe that “Ohmygawd what are we gonna do if they don’t stop this before it hits Earth?!”  And they managed to make the thing feel gigantic without involving the Hulk, or Iron Man, or even the Fantastic Four, Marvel’s typical space-hopping supagroup.  Will DC manage the same thing for something that clearly could be of the same scope and have the same impact on readers?  We’ll see, but it gives me something to think about, and a mighty high bar for me to ask this event to leap over.

Filed under: DC Comics, General Comics Rage, Monkey Rage