GREEN LANTERN #31

[ A SALE AND A WAR GO GREEN ] 

Even though rebellion has spread out across the entire universe, DC Comics have still managed to find two men to stand-up and fight back against their oppressors. One of those men is none other than Robert Venditti, where as the other is Billy Tan. And together, united in arms, they will both try their hardest to counteract house-hold germs, in June, 2014. Hurray!!!

To QUOTE John Wayne: 'Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway'.

THE STORY:

Now as you well know, we Green Lanterns are currently in the preliminary stages of 'all out war' against our interstellar enemies. So what I suggest we do, it to faction off our team based upon ability, skill, priority, and....

BOOOOM!!!!!

Eh? What was that noise? Yes! What's that you say, Lantern that looks like a potato? Suddenly we're under attack from all sides? Both within and without? Oh, sh*t! Quick! Counter-attack, now! Or else I may turn into a banana and split.

Hal Jordan, over and out. Wink-Wink!

THE GOOD:

In my most humble opinion this first part of 'Uprising' is a great start to this somewhat intriguing six-issue cross-over event. Not only because Billy Tan's amazing artwork was well detailed, well expressive, and well paced upon the page. But in addition to this, Robert Venditti's simple yet engrossing tale complemented Billy's visuals, because... errr... hmm... now how can I put this?

Well, in every good movie there's a part where the hero gets to show his true colors even though his enemies appear to have the upper hand -- this is that part. A part that was jammed packed with character and exposition that felt very natural to follow.

More than that, though, there was this one scene -- which I won't spoil for you, folks -- where Hal managed to prove to his enemies what it really means to be a Green Lantern. And for me, personally speaking, that extra dynamic stood out from the crowd like a cute chimpanzee in a bowler hat.

Lovely.

THE BAD:

The only aspect about his adventure I wasn't too keen on was how its overall narrative was distracted on a few occasions. Like during that scene where Mister Glowing-man talked about his home planet, or when Hal and Kilowog inadvertently plugged the new Sinstero ongoing series.

Not that this was a major-gripe, of course. At best it's a nano-gripe under an electron micro-scope. Ha!

THE MUSIC:

In a round about way it was something Hal Jordan said during this story that has lead me to musically pair it up with the following Michael Jackson song -- 'Man in the Mirror'.

Hint-Hint!

THE COMPARISON:

Conceptually this adventure was about an initial meeting of minds that lead onto an unprovoked attack. Therefore, that is why I'm going to compare it to some sort of tabloid talk show -- like those hosted by Jerry Springer or Oprah Winfrey -- except in this case the tale was way more realistic. Ha!

THE CONCLUSION:

Now if you were in Hal Jordan's shoes, dear reader, how would you win this war? Would you...

1. Ignore it and hope for the best.
2. Just go ape-sh*t and attack your enemies from all sides.
3. Wear a dress.
4. Call in help from the Justice League or the Samaritans.
5. Agree with your enemies and swap sides.
6. Disband the Corps.
7. Ask Robert and Billy to politely write your enemies out of the story-line.
8. Decide that the notion of war is useless and become a pacifist.
9. Create a charity hit single to raise funds for the poor and needy.
10. Ask pointless questions to yourself hoping that you can somehow answer them.
11. Wear two dresses.
12. Prey to whatever deity you don't worship in spite of your own belief system.

Nuff said.