Green Lantern Corps: Edge of Oblivion #5 - A Review

Discovering they've been duped into aiding a group of world-devouring parasites, several of the surviving Green Lanterns are feeling pretty foolish. And nobody feels more foolish than Guy Gardner. Unfortunately for the parasites in question, there's few things Guy Gardner hates more than feeling foolish and one of them is anyone who leads him to feel foolish.


I loved the way Tom Taylor wrote Guy Gardner back in Injustice: Year Two, showing a true understanding of the character unseen in the monthly Green Lantern books for some time. There's a flashback sequence here that summarizes Guy's character better than anything I've ever seen. Taylor's script beautifully ties this into Guy's current conflict, while displaying the perfect balance of action and humor that has made Taylor so beloved as a writer.


Unfortunately, the artwork is all over the place this month.  This is primarily due to Scott McDaniel, who apparently did all of the layouts but none of the finishes. McDaniel can be a great artist, but it just seems strange to have the likes of Ardian Syaf and Cliff Richards (both good artists) trying to draw their work according to a McDaniel design. Three individual inkers only serve to confound the visual continuity further.

Green Lantern #19 - A Review

Everything I said about the artwork last month applies to this month's Green Lantern as well.  The two separate art teams do an excellent job of telling two very different stories within their very different worlds.  The shorter, more stylized portion of the comic is drawn and inked by Szymon Kurdanski, who delivers a deliberately sketchy style in depicting The Dead Zone where Hal Jordan finds himself trapped, neither alive nor dead.  I wonder, in retrospect, if there's some connection between this place and The Phantom Zone?


Most of this issue is drawn by Ardian Syaf, with inks by Guillermo Ortego and Mark Irwin, in a more traditional superhero style.  As in the previous two issues of Green Lantern Corps, we are treated to a number of Elseworlds-styled scenarios where our heroes get to see how the universe would have changed had it been for one small twist of fate.  This time, it is Sinestro who confronts The First Lantern and is exposed to visions of what might have been, all while The First Lantern finally reveals its' purpose in manipulating the emotions of the Green Lantern Corps. greatest heroes and gathering energy from them...


This is a solid issue of Green Lantern but it's completely inaccessible to those readers not already immersed in the glory of it's universe.  I highly suggest tracking down a copy of Green Lantern: Rebirth and starting from there if you are interested in seeing what all the hype is about.  This is a great book but this is not a good time to start with the monthly series.

Green Lantern #18 - A Review

Green Lantern #18 offers an interesting study in contrast between two very different artists depicting separate sections of the same story.  It also finally allows Geoff Johns the chance to answer a question that has been brewing for months - exactly what the heck happened to Hal Jordan and Sinestro during their confrontation with Black Hand?


Johns' explanation is a fair one and the drama here is well-played, as one would expect with a Geoff Johns story.  However, readers are more likely to be enraptured by the atmospheric artwork of Szymon Kurdanski and colorist Alex Sinclair.  Can one properly be called a colorist when working in a monochromatic scale?  That's a debate I'd rather not be a part of.  All I know is that the black-and-white imagery used to portray "The Dead Zone" is some of the most interesting I've seen in recent memory.


The artwork in the other sequence, where The Guardians fight Black Hand, is more problematic.  I've enjoyed Ardian Syaf's work on Batgirl before but his work here seems oddly off-model.  The panels seem to cramp the action rather than displaying it and these sequences suffer as a result.  It doesn't look bad.  It just looks tiny in a book where everything should be larger than life.

Green Lantern #18 is an enjoyable read but it's not a good first issue for those who haven't been reading the Green Lantern books already.  If you have yet to discover Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, I'd suggest tracking down a TP of Green Lantern: Rebirth and starting from there.

Batgirl #14 - A Review

Batgirl #14 starts fast and doesn't slow down for a moment.  It all begins with Barbara Gordon getting a call in the middle of the night from a figure with a disguised voice.  The man on the other end knows all about the night in which Barbara Gordon was paralyzed - all the fine details, like how three men were there when it happened.  He warns Barbara that three such men took her mother away earlier in the evening and that they are on the way for her now.  After an epic ass-kicking ensues, Barbara goes after the only person who could be responsible for all of this and the man who put her in a wheelchair for three years... The Joker. 


Gail Simone's script can only be described as intense.  For the first time, we see Barbara truly frightened and get some insight into the sheer scope of her trauma.  Yet Barbara is no shrinking violet and when her fight-or-flight response kicks in, the only things flying are her fists and feet.  Any who still doubt that this is the same Barbara Gordon from Birds of Prey who once said she could easily kill The Joker without remorse if given the opportunity would be well advised to reconsider that assessment.  Barbara Gordon is a woman to be reckoned and make no mistake about it.

I also love Simone's take on The Joker, who is just as creepy here as in this week's new Batman comic.  In fact, I dare say he's creepier here because Simone has captured the one aspect of The Joker that so many writers miss out on - spontaneity.  Written properly, you should never be exactly sure what The Joker will do in any given situation.  Comedy is all about the unexpected, after all, and first and foremost The Joker should be a comedian.  It may be the dark comedy of the man falling down an open manhole and dying but his main motivator is still playing to an audience and provoking a reaction.  That's why I loved the final pages of this book - because they honestly surprised me and The Joker's actions, seemingly nonsensical, make a paradoxical sense on that level.


The artwork by Ed Benes and Daniel Sampere is equally as good as the scripts, though made somewhat uneven in its' inking.  The first part of the story has a Mike Grellian aspect, with the inks heavy and blending into the blacks of the dark room.  The later half of the comic, inked by Vincent Cifuetes, outlines the figures a bit too much in my estimation, with Barbara looking as if she used a Sharpie marker as a lip-liner at one point.  To my mind, the middle pages linking the two halves of the story (inked by Mark Irwin) find the right balance of light and shadow.  Sadly, they only amount to two pages.

Despite this quibbling over the fine details, I have no reservations about declaring Batgirl a must-read comic.