GREEN LANTERN #65

[ IS THIS TOO MUCH? ] 

Leaving on a Jet Plane – this was the John Denver classic song that I played whilst reading this particular issue of Green Lantern. And I suppose – in a perverse way – its an appropriate melody to muse on whilst reading this book. Why? Well, why don’t you grab a copy and find out? One Written by Geoff Johns; Drawn by Doug Mahnke; and Published by DC Comics in April 2011.

THE STORY:

The impurity has been restored to the Central Power Battery, all thanks to Krona’s machinations – and worst still, all of the Green Lantern Corps are under his trawl. Well, not exactly all of them? Because those few Corpsmen that have been possessed by Parallax before – Hal, Guy, Kyle, and John – have managed to withstand this initial possession. And two of these four – Hal and Guy – who are one Earth, jump onboard a supped up spaceship – the interceptor – and then go in search of the other two – John and Kyle. Eventually – after a kafuffle in space with Kilowog – they are able to track them down on OA, where three things occur: (1) They inform each other on how they got into there current predicament. (2) They each pick one of the multi-coloured rings that Hal has stashed in his pocket, each of them choosing one to fight with – Hal, Yellow – Guy, Red – Kyle, Blue – and John, Purple. And (3) They all strike a pose, and get ready for the battle that awaits them... to be continued.     

THE REVIEW:

This is the fourth part of ‘The War of the Green Lanterns’, and in my opinion, the one with the pithiest segments so far. In essence, this issue is one half road-movie – one half-buddy movie – and full-cream cheese. Now I like cheese, so I have no qualm about that at all – and I like these two types of genre movie too, so no problem there then. However, I do have a slight problem with the way that this quick story was told. OK, I know that I have droned on about this in the past, but come on – five minutes – that is a bit too quick for a comic book – especially one that is just so fun to plough through. Granted, I have taken into consideration that the more fun something is, the faster it plays out in your mind – but – FIVE MINUTES!!!! Anyway, enough of that for now, what about the story? Well, to be honest about it, there was not much of a story there – Hal and Guy just jumped into a ship – found John and Kyle – handed out the coloured ring – and struck a pose. Fair dues, the way that all this played out was fairly well done, and in all fairness was very enjoyable to read – as it reminded me of a hybrid Lethal Weapon film / a Star Wars Film / and a bit of Turner and Hooch too!  And that is about it realty – the arts by Mahnke was as nice as ever – the story by Johns was bold and captivating – but ultimately, just too quick. FIVE MINUTES!!!! Just like this review.

THE RATING: B