The
Masked Bookwyrm's Graphic Novel (& TPB) Reviews
Green Lantern / Green Arrow ~ Page 7
for a complete alphabetical list of ALL reviews start hereA - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z
Green Lantern Reviews
For a complete list of all GN/TPB reviews, go HERE
Green Lantern: Secret Origin 2009 (HC TPB) 160 pages
Written
by Geoff Johns. Pencils by Ivan Reis. Inks by Oclair Albert.
Colour: Ranov Mayor. Letters: Rob Leigh. Editor: Eddie Berganza.
Reprinting: Green Lantern (4th series) #29-35 (2008)
Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
After having read Geoff Johns' Green Lantern: Rebirth and the issues that comprised Green Lantern: No Fear, I reluctantly concluded that -- despite a certain affection for Hal/GL and despite the popular acclaim Johns' run was enjoying -- I'd probably sit out Hal's adventures while Johns was writing them. Yet here I find myself reading another arc from Johns' run and, more, an origin tale...when I've already read GL origin tales! So with all that acknowledged up front...on with the review.
Smack dab in the middle of Geoff Johns run on Green Lantern, when he was in midst of laying out an epic arc (destined to become yet another DC cross-title epic!) he stopped for the flashback arc, Secret Origin, which re-tells the origin of Hal Jordan/Green Lantern.
And one might ask, um, why? That's kind of the question facing a lot of modern comics writers. It used to make sense to retell origins because the original comic was long gone, unread by modern fans. But now, with reprints and TPB collections all the rage...it's not hard for fans to read earlier tellings of the tale. And in the case of GL, there's everything from the original origin in various collections, to the re-imagining in Emerald Dawn (and Emerald Dawn II) and even integrated into a broader epic in DC: The New Frontier!
So the other reason might be because the writer has some radical new spin he wants to give the old story (ala Batman: Year One). This can be problematic, as it can end up messing with something that didn't need messing with, and certainly raises questions about what is, and isn't, considered continuity. But although Johns tweaks things here and there, he doesn't really offer any radical alterations. In fact, Martin Pasko did more to shake up one's perception of GL in his 11 page story in the mini-series DC Comics Presents than Johns does in 150 some pages.
Maybe as the current architect of GL's adventures, Johns just felt his name should be on the true origin story, no one else's.
Another possibility is that previous origins were flawed, so the character was just begging for an origin tale done right. And maybe that's so. But in that, Johns hasn't really succeeded either.
Johns takes seven issues to cross his Ts and dot his Is, but does little to justify this epic telling. Even his treatment of Hal, as a feet of clay protagonist who has to grow into being a hero is pretty much the same as in the previous "definitive" origin, Emerald Dawn. And like with most origins, all the key scenes are in place, so there's a lot of just restaging scenes that have already been depicted dozens of times over the years: as a boy, Hal witnesses his test pilot father's crash; as a man he's a cocky sonuvagun who's his own worst enemy, and despite his piloting skills finds himself in the dog house with his bosses; he gets summoned by the dying Abin Sur to be given the emerald ring; he goes to Oa and receives training in his ring, etc. Even wrapping the arc around a battle with Abin Sur's killer is, of course, the same premise as in Emerald Dawn...albeit with a different killer (though a similar motive). For the first couple of issues, nothing really seems to be happening to justify the new telling, until we get to the end of the second chapter and Hector Hammond is introduced -- Hammond destined to be an arch villain, but here still just a normal man. To my mind, no previous GL origin had thrown Hammond into the mix, so it intrigued me to see how this would play out.
Turns out, not very interestingly. Johns doesn't really do much with Hammond, he's basically just a sidebar, nor does he give his origin any extra nuance -- he was a sleazy creepo even before he got his powers. And I always thought Superman foe the Parasite had the lame-brained-est origin in comics, but Hammond's rivals him! Johns also works in Sinestro and (I believe) Black Hand. But again, not really for any penetrating results. It smacks a little bit of hoarding, as if Johns was determined to lay claim to telling their origins before another writer did.
The back story for Sinestro was that he had once been a respected member of the Green Lantern Corps himself, and so Johns' utilizing Sinestro as a good guy is kind of clever...except that too had already been done, in Emerald Dawn II. Sure, unlike Emerald Dawn II, the story here ends with Sinestro still a good guy, leaving his villainy for a later story. And Johns does do the potentially interesting idea of having it be that Hal and Sinestro aren't just colleagues...but actually become friends. It smacks a little as if Johns was thinking about how many heroes had arch foes who were once friends and decided GL needed someone like that. But almost half a century after the character's creation, it seems a bit late to throw in that sort of a retcon.
The main changes Johns brings to the origin are less for this story, and more as a way of tying into, and foreshadowing, his later arcs -- specifically the Darkest Night theme. As such, though the story is self-contained (it is a flashback, after all) neither is it fully satisfying, as it's clearly meant to hint at things to come. Still, Johns does offer some interesting takes on various GL themes, involving will power and fear.
Actually, that's another way it echoes the earlier Emerald Dawn...both involve GL doing a supposedly impossible feat which is never explained here.
So if Secret Origin doesn't fully seem to justify its existence as yet another telling of the origin...how does it stand on its own?
Well, obviously, that's trickier to assess, since I have read earlier origins. But though it's not terrible -- there are some cute quips and humorous bits -- it still doesn't fully impress. And often for some of the same reasons Emerald Dawn didn't. Both try to present Hal as a more complex, more fallible person than his Silver Age version. But the results can be muddled and contradictory. For example Hal's rebelliousness is both supposed to be a sign of impulsiveness, a character flaw...and also what makes him a cool hero. Um...so which is it? Besides, wasn't the idea of Hal that he was a straight ahead, by-the-book hero -- one who could bend the rules, but only as a last resort? Wasn't that the crux of the character clash between him and Green Arrow when they used to hang out together? GL the space cop, GA the urban rebel?
There's just a kind of macho (Real-Men-Don't-Wear-Seat-Belts, Kids!), occasionally sexist streak through Johns' GL comics that isn't wholly appealing. At one point, GL comes to the aid of a woman being manhandled by her boyfriend...which then segues into your usual airforce vs. army good ol' boy bar brawl (with later day GL, John Stewart, one of the soldiers!) -- till by the end the abused woman seems to have been forgotten! And do we really need lines where a pilot boasts he'll teach a woman a "new meaning for the term 'landing strip'" in a GL comic? Ironically, I had complained in Emerald Dawn that the Green Lantern Corps seemed more militaristic than I recalled -- well, they may as well have been the peace corps compared to Johns' version, which is even more like grunts in space. I mean, are these macho bruisers really the sort you want wielding the "ultimate weapon" in the universe?
Although I've liked some stuff by Johns, other times I get turned off by his seeming infatuation with violence, brutality, and sadism -- something I've seen other reviewers comment on, so I guess it's not just me. Not only does he make the villains creepier and nastier than they ever were (Black Hand as some kind of sick necrophiliac?!?) but the heroes, too. I mean the Guardians crucifying villains? Abin Sur torturing them? Even the greater emphasis on the military, though not "sadistic" per se, reflects a guy who's just really in love with all that martial, military stuff.
And Johns even throws in some GL wallowing-in-the-mud scenes (like he did in No Fear) about which the less psychoanalysis the better. Actually, in Emerald Dawn there was also a use of mud...but with more relevance to the plot, and less fetishtic undertones.
Along the way, Secret Origin throws in various key supporting characters -- Hal's brothers, Carol Ferris, Tom Kalmaku, etc. But again, to little effect. Granted, Tom didn't even appear in Emerald Dawn, but here there's little attempt to really develop the relationship between the two. Likewise, GL Tomar Re appears, but with little sense why he was once identified as Hal's first friend among the corps -- save a scene toward the end where Tomar sides with Hal in a matter. But without any other scenes between them, it has little meaning. Of course, since many of these characters aren't part of the series anymore, maybe there was little point in playing them up. While Carol does have a significant part, even as her personality isn't well defined.
Johns clearly wants to write a deliberately paced, sophisticated drama, as much human drama as super hero adventure...but doesn't necessarily have the knack for that kind of kitchen sink realism, for making little domestic scenes seems as gripping and dramatic as any super battle.
And for seven issues, it's a pretty thin plot. When at one point a character remarks "what a life" Hal's led you're left thinking, um, he hasn't really done much (most of his "exciting" memories are just of his training on Oa!).
The art by Ivan Reis is very good throughout, with well rendered, realist fasces and figures, and detailed environments. But maybe it's just me, but like a few artists I've seen lately, as much as his craftsmanship is impeccable, occasionally breathtaking, the "art" side of things is less pronounced. His choice of angles for telling the scenes, his character designs, his body language. All of that is perfectly okay....without being especially stand out.
In the end, Secret Origin leaves me...ambivalent. Obviously, I come into it with baggage -- philosophically I don't think Johns and I are always on the same page about what makes a "hero" -- or even a man. It's certainly not bad, in writing and art, Johns all too frequent sordidness notwithstanding. There are some cute quips here and there. But it's a long way from being inspired, let alone surprising. Funnily enough, I had mixed feelings about Emerald Dawn, but liked it more. On a whim, I re-read Emerald Dawn after reading this...and enjoyed it even more, finding it just a bit better telling of the same basic tale.
This is a review of the story as it was serialized in the comics.
Green Lantern: Sector 2814, Vol. 1 (2012) 192 pages
Written by Len Wein. Pencilled by Dave Gibbons. Inks by Dave Gibbons, with Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo, Mark Farmer.
Colours: Anthony Tollin. Letters: Dave Gibbons, others.
Reprinting: Green Lantern (1st Silver Age series) #172-176, 178-181 (1984) - with covers
Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Review posted: June 2024
This was the first of a series of sequential TPBs collecting a run of GL from the mid-1980s (issue #177 is skipped because it was -- mostly -- a re-presentation of an older story and not relevant to the continuity here). It's a reasonable starting point as it begins a "new" era/direction for the series.
Prior to these issues Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) had been spending the previous 20 or so issues "exiled" to space -- at the behest of his masters, the Guardians of the Universe. This kicks off with Jordan's exile/penance completed and he's allowed to return to earth, and back to the familiar supporting cast/milieu of Ferris Air. As well it sees Len Wein assume the scripting chores joined by British artist Dave Gibbons, marking possibly the latter's first full-time monthly American comics gig.
This first collection forms a kind of arc, as it involves Hal returning to earth, resuming plot threads left over from before his exile (in a run of issues by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton that, I'll admit, stands as one of my favourites, and warrants its own collection) but then builds to the semi-shocking event of Hal quitting the Green Lantern Corps! The next collection picks up with John Stewart (already long established as Hal's understudy anyway) taking on the mantle full time -- but with Hal and the Ferris Air characters remaining part of the series. Since Hal eventually reclaimed the ring, I don't know if that means they had intended that from the get go, or whether they just thought it would ease the transition for fans if Hal stuck around as a supporting player.
Anyway -- let's focus on these issues.
And this run is a bit -- mixed. Of course part of the problem trying to review these issues is not really being sure of the creative intent or what was going on behind the scenes. The shift back to earth-based superheroing and soap opera, only to then build up to changing the title character? Had that been the intent from the get go? Or was it an idea that occurred midway through? And were these creative decisions or attempts to boost sagging sales?
As I mentioned, I really liked the Marv Wolfman/Joe Staton era that these issues are building upon (Wolfman really going to town on creating a soap opera dynamic with the Ferris Air setting) -- but as such Wein's reprise of that stuff seems a bit tired. Recycling the Wolfman era rather than building on it and without putting much effort into the characters or the sub-plots. Or at least Wein taking his sweet time as if he is actually headed somewhere.
His main addition to the cast is a trio of scientists working on developing a telepathically controlled plane; but despite cutting back to scenes with them issue after issue, he doesn't really do anything with them or put much meat on their personalities. But something happens toward the end of these issues that leads you to think he has something in mind. Likewise, other supporting characters seem barely developed, or just reiterate their thing issue after issue. While the main story thread is an evil Congressman, Jason Bloch, seeking to destroy Ferris Air which -- yup, you guessed it -- is carried over from Wolfman's run (but with less subtlety!)
It's a bit as if Wein took on the gig...but is mostly just treading water until inspiration strikes. In fact, after the issues here, I think Wein only stuck around another half dozen issues or so. And I think with some sub-plots he introduced -- including a mysterious superhero named The Predator, and a mysterious conspirator named Mr. Smith -- it was after Wein's run that revelations about them were presented. So it's possible even Wein had no clear plan for where their plots were headed.
Meanwhile the front and centre adventures here are likewise a bit workmanlike -- mostly involving crooks Bloch hires to sabotage Ferris Air. Wein treats us to some (I think) new creations -- but they feel like the sort of second string foes you trot out when the action plots are secondary to the soap opera. Characters who could evolve into interesting adversaries in later stories...and equally, who could never reappear and no one would miss them. Plus he returns old GL foe, the Shark, for a two-parter (the character given a bit of a re-design).
Wein is joined by Dave Gibbons -- an artist nowadays indelibly associated with the iconic The Watchmen. Gibbons has a clean, realist style. But I'll admit I've often been mixed on him. His figures often stiff, even a bit dumpy. Funnily enough, I actually appreciated his action scenes more here, and panels of GL swooping through the air. It's his quieter, more domestic scenes of civilian characters standing around talking that often seem awkward. Like he's not really sure how to pose them, or even how to dress them (his choice of fashions for the women in particular seem stodgy and old fashioned).
With all that said -- I still kind of enjoyed the early issues here. The issues may not be "great" but they were enjoyable in their very lack of pretension, and with Gibbons' art clean, bright, and open. And with both men occasionally rising to some creative ambition (like an issue where Wein uses a recurring motif around newspapers). And for a dose of nostalgia, it's fun seeing glimpses of the DC Universe of that era (with references to the Trial of the Flash epic, and with the Monitor cropping up as a kind of underworld headhunter, prior to his pivotal role in the Crisis on Infinite Earths which is still a year or two away, publication-wise).
But as I say: it feels like a run of issues that wants to recapture the Byzantine, soap opera plotting of the earlier Wolfman era, without really having enough plot threads, or character exploration, to pull it off.
Then we get into the latter half of the collection which are setting things up for Hal quitting the Corps in the climax. Just as Ferris Air is attacked again -- Hal is ordered off earth to deal with a threat to another planet. He is irked. And Carol is angry when he returns, issuing him an ultimatum -- her or the Corps.
Again, this relates to my point about behind the scene choices. Obviously the creative decision was to replace Hal with John Stewart -- but it's an awkward storyline. Not in the basics, but in how Hal & Carol both react. He is literally sent to save an entire planet from being destroyed -- yet he is angry at the Guardians and Carol is angry at him because he was required to save a planet instead of Ferris Air? I mean, maybe that was Wein's point -- to portray both Hal and Carol as selfish jerks. But it feels like the same plot could've been rewritten so Hal decides to quit the Corps, to prioritize his personal life, without him acting like saving a planet was somehow an inconvenience. As well, given what I said about the lack of deeper character development in the previous issues, we don't really get enough sense of his relationship with Carol (or what he sees in her) to make us understand why he would sacrifice so much for her.
The result? Well, as I said earlier: mixed.
I did enjoy the first few issues, flaws notwithstanding, Or maybe because of them. There's a clean, straightforward approach to both the writing and the art, a kind of kick-off-your-slippers-and-relax, Old School comic book storytelling that's appealing. But there's too little pay-off (or development) of the plot threads as the issues go, and with Hal (and Carol) more annoying than endearing in the climactic plot.
With that said: it does at least have an arc, with Hal returning to earth, having some adventures, and then resigning. And though threads are dangling, the chief story arc involving Congressman Bloch does resolve in these pages. (Although there's a kind of problematic scene with a female airforce officer that only resonates if the reader realizes she's actually Wonder Woman in her alter ego of Diana Prince -- but she's not actually identified as such. It's just assumed the reader will recognize her).
Green Lantern: Sector 2814, Vol. 3 (2014) 204 pages
Written by Steve Englehart. Pencils by Joe Staton. Inks by Bruce Patterson, others.
Colours: Anthony Tollin. Letters: L. Lois Bunalis, D.C. Weiss.
Reprinting: Green Lantern (1st Silver Age series) #194-200 (1985-1986)
Rating: * * * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Review posted: June 2024
This is a book that's kind of hard to assess and review.
It's the third volume in a more-or-less sequential reprinting of a run of Green Lantern that began in Vol. 1 with an appropriate jumping on point: Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan returning to earth after a run of issues exiled in space. After a few issues Hal quit the Corps, cuing the new star of the comic (in issues collected in Vol. 2 of these books) being John Stewart -- but with Hal remaining as a supporting character (conspicuously hinting the new status quo might remain neither status nor quo).
This third volume reprints issues published during DC's seminal Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series and the plot here overlaps and intertwines with that series. Plus this was all building up to a major over haul of the series -- leading to a title change to The Green Lantern Corps (so even though this is the third and final volume in the Green Lantern: Sector 2814 books, the Englehart/Staton run continues under the title The Green Lantern Corps collections).
(As well, I don't have vol. 2 in this run, but according to on-line sources it reprints issues up to #189 which I don't know if that's a typo or what, because that would mean these volumes skips issues #190-193; which seems weird, both because this was supposed to be a sequential run, and that story arc (involving Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire) is part of the overall arc here).
Anyway, this whole run of issues -- including two double-sized issues! -- is a mess of continuity threads, from the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossovers, the long, meandering arc finally getting Hal back to being a Green Lantern and the juggling of multiple leads -- including Hal, John Stewart, Katma Tui, and introducing Guy Gardner into the series as a significant player. There's the re-defining the Green Lantern Corps (to lead into the next run of issues) and just a lot of tweaking past lore and some retconning. The latter is the sort of stuff that is kind of Steve Englehart's bread and butter (dating back to his early 1970s Marvel work). There's plenty of action, sure -- mostly in outer space -- but a lot, I mean a lot, of talking head scenes just trying to tie all those continuity threads together.
So it's weird that I enjoyed it as much as I did. But it is genuinely highly readable, even with all the recapping and referencing of past lore and the allusions to the on-going Crisis, occasionally with characters popping in and out of the action.
And I think a lot of that just goes to the sheer storytelling professionalism of Steve Englehart and Joe Staton.
Staton was a major, arguably defining artist on the character/series having drawn an earlier run (including what I consider a highly underrated era: the Marv Wolfman run) and had returned for another long tenure here (he and Englehart would subsequently also collaborate on their own Green Lantern-focused Crisis-like cross-title epic -- Millennium). So to someone like me, Staton's art on the series is like seeing familiar actors in their iconic roles. As well, Staton has a really nice eye for and sense of storytelling and composition. It's not splashy or draws attention to itself, but the scenes play out smoothly across your eyes -- the close-ups, longshots, angles. It all serves the story. Staton's art can also lean a bit toward cartoony, and with rough lines when he inks himself. But an inker like Patterson is arguably a great embellisher, giving smoother, cleaner lines to his work -- making it more effectively "superhero-ish." Likewise Tollin's colours (from the days of single-tone hues) is effective and keeps the eye where it needs to me. I also really enjoyed Bunalis' beautifully elegant lettering -- almost Tom Orzechowski-esque in its neatness, but with maybe a touch more humanity.
Which brings us back to Englehart. As I suggest, I think this is the sort of story that Englehart (and indeed a number of comics scribes) enjoy -- the digging into and playing around with the established lore and mythology of the comics. The story juggles enough action and adventure (facing the GL Corps off against a litany of old GL foes at one point) to keep things bouncing along, but also spends a lot of time with characters just talking, untangling Englehart's story. But even those scenes remain interesting, Englehart (and Staton) maintaining both a pacing and the humanity of the characters so that you really do feel like these are characters talking, not just mouthpieces to move plot points along. Indeed, that's a strengh: the characters, the sense these are real people with inner lives; Hal in particular having an arc as he struggles with his position (initially) as an ex-GL.
There's an odd (and in this case odd is good) rhythm and structure to the narrative. Rather than simply a "superhero adventure" comic. It's more a sci-fi adventure mixed with soap opera -- there's action and adventure but that feels less of the focus than the characters and the story threads that tie them all together.
Are the creative choices Englehart's made always the best? How he portrays certain characters? The whole shake up of the Green Lantern status quo? (Especially since once Englehart and Staton opened that door practically every writer after them did some retcon or another of the GL mythos leading to one shake up/re-boot after another, shrinking the Corps, growing the Corps, destroying the Corps; the Guardians are gone, they're back, there's only one, they're good, bad, etc).
But maybe that's the strength (and weakness) of these issues: they are sufficiently readable that the story tells itself -- even if I wasn't overly invested enough, emotionally, to question or argue with plot choices.
As I said at the beginning: hard to review. Because I could easily imagine not liking this, especially just picked up as a random book to read (not as part of the surrounding series).
But as just a page-turner, with multiple threads and characters, conflicting agendas, all slowly tying together -- I found it enjoyable.
Tales of the Green Lantern Corps
This TPB reprints the early 1980s mini-series...plus a selection of short back up stories that were published in various Green Lantern comics. I've read the mini-series, but not (most of) the short pieces, so for now I've left the review of the mini-series in my Mini-Series Reviews section here.
Back to Green Lantern Reviews Page SIX
or
Back to 