Comic Review: Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Omnibus 3

I’m realizing I’m probably going to have to go back and start re-reading some of the books I’ve already read, because making the decision to review my most recent read: the 3^rd and final Omnibus in Geoff John’s completely game-changing Green Lantern run, while excluding the 1^st and (arguably best) 2^nd omnibuses (omnibi, omnibii, omnibus’?) was not easy.

But here we are.

For those who are familiar with Geoff Johns, you already know his reputation. He’s essentially the boy-scout of DC comics; the golden boy if you will. While other writers may be more popular, divisive, or notable, Johns is easily the most prolific writer in DC’s stable. He pumps out more work than Arnold Schwarzenegger in the early 80s on a chest day.

Now, I’ve always considered him to be a very “safe” writer, in that he’s going to compliment continuity, entertain in some way, never fully disappoint, but rarely change my life. If I were to give Johns a score as a writer, I would give him an 8 out of 10.

Green Lantern is the exception.

Now at the time of “Rebirth” Johns’ introduction to the GL series, the Ring Slinger was not an exceptionally popular character. By the end of his run in 2013 (included in this omnibus), Lantern was able to go toe to toe with the Caped Crusader himself.

Now compared to the first 2 omnibuses (which I may review later), this was probably my 2^nd favorite. It had a slow start coming out of the Legendary “Blackest Night” event which was the culmination of years of careful world/plot building by Johns who had introduced such concepts as the emotional spectrum as warriors and entities beyond the green, and the history of the Guardians of the Universe. However, this “down-time” was still very active by any other writer’s standards (especially Bendis’) and we were quickly whisked into a plot involving the scattering of the emotional entities across the Universe.

With the largest prophesied threat apparently taken care of, it seemed like all that was left to do was round up these emotional entities that had escaped. However, in an interesting twist, Sinestro, our main antagonist for much of Johns’ run became a green lantern again, and Hal, our vanilla-as-all-hell-but-apparently-still-the-best-green-lantern was dismissed from the Corps. What ensues is an interesting tale that adds a new layer to the relationship between Sinestro and Hal as they work together to stop a renegade Guardian, the resurrected Black Hand, and ultimately the Original Lantern.

There’s a lot to love here. From the return of my favorite Orange Lantern of Avarice: Larfleeze, who steals every scene he’s in, to the revelations concerning the Guardians, and finally the introduction of (yet another) new Green Lantern human, Simon Baz, character development gets kicked into high gear on a scale not seen in the first 2 omnibuses.

And that brings me to my main realization.

I think where this book shines is in highlighting the complex relationship between two men at odds who still want what’s best for the Universe. They have wildly differing ideas of how to go about accomplishing this, and there’s no doubting Sinestro’s significantly more of an ass, but the lines of good and evil become blurred, especially when dealing with the likes of the Red Lanterns and a PARTICULARLY interesting revelation about the Indigo Tribe.

Throughout the book, you really get the sense that while the past GL omnibuses were setting up an extraordinary event with fantastic characters, this 3^rd omnibus is giving us a much more personal look at these characters as they take on the final threats prophesied in the Book of Oa. As always, Johns writes a fantastic Sinestro – one who is nuanced, easy to hate, yet also easy to understand the motivations of. The extra layer of having Sinestro be a Green Lantern again – shackled in some respects to Hal Jordan adds more to his character as well. His constant highs and lows of successes and failures, more of the latter, add more drama to the events that unfold. Hal, who I largely found to be an absolute wall of drying paint in previous issues, also comes into his own here, and the extra attention to their relationships – as well as relationships in general, is a nice change of pace.

Now don’t take this the wrong way, there are plenty of epic moments in the book, (although not as many as in omnibus 2), the final issue alone clocks in at 60+ pages of pure epic/emotional goodness, I had moments of extended frisson for a solid 20 pages as I closed out the back cover of “The End”! But there is a lot in here that deals with personal relationships and interactions, with the complicated concepts of morality on an intergalactic scale, with responsibility, with emotion and its role and relationship with logic and reason.

The most poignant aspects of the closing pages are not the ones that deal with the defeat of evil, but rather the glimpses of redemption, of requited love, of a never-ending friendship, and of bitter-sweet reunions that are a much-welcomed far-cry from Johns’ usual bombastic, action-oriented storytelling.

I will say this, it’s hard to even fathom continuing ANY Green Lantern after the conclusion, because almost every plot thread and relationship is tied up with a nice little bow in the most satisfying and consistent way as far as I’m concerned.

Luckily, the following issues sucked, so you really don’t have to.

I’ll definitely return to review the first 2 omnibuses at a later date, but for now, the closing to this epic masterpiece gets…

4.5/5 Green Lantern Rings

The funny thing is, until specifically this omnibus tremendously fleshed him out, I thought Hal Jordan was the blandest superhero ever. This was the summation of my opinion of him; I wrote this before really getting into Omnibus 3: “He’s like the default setting to a create-a-character in every video game; he’s like white person averaged out to the lowest common denominator. His defining trait is that he can overcome great fear – like every other fucking hero in any fictional universe ever. He’s also got brown eyes, brown hair, and a boys’ regular haircut. If Superman is jacked, Batman hulky, the Flash cut and wiry, Hal Jordan is whatever generic distillation of “muscular” you need to be to manifest green light objects that do all the work for you. His personality is “cool guy with no real flaws”. Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, hell even John Stewart each have more personality in their pinkies than Hal has in his whole body. He’s the male equivalent of that Bella chick from Twilight – My only real complaint about the way Johns writes Hal, especially considering he used to be hilarious and more dynamic in earlier comic runs.”

Comic Review: Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon

It took me a while to figure out where to start. I've read a metric shite-load of comics over the past ~2 years and what I decided to do was simply review the one I've read the most recently.

Thanks to some financial struggles and ultimately caving in to the realization that as much as I love physical copies of books and comics, I just couldn't pass up on the opportunity to read the (almost) entire backlog of Marvel comics for the same price as a Spotify subscription (also completely worth it by the way; seriously, just get it, if for no other reason than to avoid those repetitive commercials by that God-awful chick with the nasally voice), I decided to read this run based on some rave reviews by a number of online X-fans.

Some spoilers (but not a lot) ahead… but it’s like 10 years old, so, c'mon.

A little background on the series: Joss Whedon, writer of many-a-favorite tv series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the apparent second-coming-of-Christ-for-nerds-in-tv-form series: Firefly, wrote the series over the course of approximately 4 years. Now, keep in mind that most Marvel comics issues release monthly and there are 24 issues (and 1 special conclusion issue) in this run... doesn't add up. Well, Whedon took his sweet time on the story, but thank God for it because it fucking shows.

Holy hell, I've read a lot of X-Men and this is easily one of the top runs ever created.

As far as the plot is concerned, the run is broken into 4 story arcs. The first and probably most well-known is the story of the cure for the mutant gene, a plot that has been done many times since, as well as touched on before, but never with quite the punch as is done here. This arc, which influenced the plot of the 3rd X-Men movie is an excellent intro to Whedon's status quo. Cyclops, Emma Frost, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Beast, and Colossus make up our A-Team. The following 3 arcs cover the AI embodiment of the Danger Room, the return of the Hellfire Club, and the battle of the Breakworld which concludes the series-long sub-plot of S.H.I.E.LD.'s companion/foil organization: S.W.O.R.D. and a prophecy involving the destruction of an alien race.

All of the stories are above average in their own right. The second story arc less-so, but they ultimately all succeed in entertaining and kicking some serious ass! What really makes the stories told here stand out though, is Whedon’s ability to plant seemingly unimportant seeds that end up growing into major plot points later in the series. For example, a strange and seemingly simple throwaway of a scene that takes place early on in the Danger Room is called on issues later in a much larger capacity. This ability to cohesively combine 4 separate, yet naturally progressive and integrated stories makes the series shine.

But where Whedon truly shows his capability as a writer, is in his characters.

Our core crew stands out as being some of the best written versions of themselves in the over 40 years of X-Men history. Tagging along in our awesome adventure is a wonderful assortment of fantastic side characters that are fully fleshed out such as Hisako "Armor" Ichiki, Ord the ugly-ass alien from the Breakworld, and Agent Abigail Brand of the aforementioned S.W.O.R.D. Together with our main crew of X-Men Whedon has crafted an ensemble of unbelievable characters that somehow manages to be extremely real at the same time. Whether it’s the interactions between our core crew members as they argue and struggle internally as a group, or when they’re interacting with the morally gray side characters that round out the cast, Whedon never trips over dialog. Every interaction seems real given the context and never feels dialed in. Of course it wouldn’t be Whedon if it wasn’t incredibly witty, and there’s plenty of that to go around, especially from Kitty.

And speaking of Kitty, holy hell. I never thought it could be possible, but she has become one of my all time favorite X-characters and it’s all thanks to Whedon’s run. Kitty, who has a history riddled with annoying personalities, questionable decision-making, and a moral compass that will make you yawn, has never been more fully fleshed out. While all of the characters shine in Whedon’s run, Kitty (and perhaps Emma to a lesser extent) is the breakout star. She’s tough, but it comes naturally and it never feels forced. She’s hilarious at times as well. Her relationship with Colossus is necessarily complex and well-executed. She’s also never seemed more like an adult. Now a teacher at the school (in the absence of half our original X-Cast including the professor) she’s not afraid of her sexuality, not afraid of sacrifice, and not afraid to make the tough decisions. Without giving away too much, let’s just say her development from the first issue to the last will leave you fully satisfied.

Emma likewise is facing a great deal of character development here. Her complicated past and relationship with Scott become major plot-points and it was awesome to watch her character evolve into someone truly sympathetic by the end. Scott himself has a similar development if not a bit more been-there-done-that in execution, (Jean’s gone again. We get it, they’re soul-mates.)

Beast is always a difficult character to assess, and rightfully so. He has become such a reviled character over the years that recent issues of X-Men have gone out of the way to bring attention to how much Beast is a fuck-up. Again, in Whedon’s capable hands, we see a completely sympathetic side to Beast as he struggles with his “devolution” as a mutant that is slowly becoming more beast than man – which does occasionally lead to some hilarious situations involving Beast’s capacity to behave like a cat.

The perks of bein' small.

Colossus, one of my favorite X-Men absolutely shines as well. He completely steals every fight scene he’s in, and his signature move with Wolverine becomes an awesome running gag throughout the run.

Really though, what sets Whedon apart from other X-writers is his ability to perfectly juggle great plot, fantastic characterization, dramatic and humorous tone, great pacing, and respect for the source material (the return to old-school uniforms is much appreciated). Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon is truly a masterpiece that should not be skipped by X-Fans and comics fans alike.

Before I close out, I’ve gotta give credit to the artist, John Cassady. At first I wasn’t so sure about the largely realism-styled art after having finished a lot of Ultimate X-Men and its more comic-booky art, but it ended up really suiting the series well, especially when it came to expressing character emotions in a way that seemed more realistic than a lot of more over-the-top depictions. Cassady also apparently has a mastery on the human figure, particularly muscles, because whenever I see his interpretation of Colossus, I am instantly rendered forever small. If this doesn't get your ass back to the gym, I don't know what will.

Looking swole, Peter. Chest game on point!

All in all, fantastic stuff.

4.5/5 stars

Now go read it.