Green Lantern Corps (Vol. 2) #48

Release Date: May 26, 2010
Cover Date: July 2010

Story: Tony Bedard
Pencils: Ardian Syaf
Inks: Vicente Cifuentes
Cover: Rodolfo Migliari

After his mysterious meeting with Guy Gardner and Atrocitus on Ysmault, Ganthet returns to Oa and officially resigns his position as a Guardian of the Universe. He declares himself Green Lantern of Sector Zero; the other Guardians aren’t keen on this at first, but ultimately approve. While Ganthet forges his own power battery and ring, Kyle Rayner and John Stewart are starting to rebuild the planet from the catastrophic damage it suffered during Blackest Night. John is summoned to the Guardians’ citadel, where he is teamed with Alpha Lantern Boodikka for a special mission: Stel’s homeworld has ceased communications, and after Stel himself went to investigate, contact with the robotic drill sergeant has been lost as well. Meanwhile, the other Alpha Lanterns are capturing unwilling Green Lanterns to add to their ranks.

Green Lantern Corps (Vol. 2) #48 marks the debut of the new creative team of Tony Bedard and Ardian Syaf, and they’re started things off with some serious intrigue. The Alpha Lanterns have always presented a hidden danger to any other Lantern, and after being restricted and defeated during Blackest Night, it looks like they’re trying to form a Corps of their own. It also seems that they have the ability to mask themselves from detection by other Green Lanterns, which could prove most useful to their cause. (Tough break for their new “recruits,” though.)

As for Ganthet’s secret mission with Atrocitus and Guy, it’s likely tied into the search for the emotional entities. We’ve already seen Atrocitus hunting for them on Earth, after all. However…what’s Guy up to, and why will it piss off Hal Jordan? We’ll have to wait for Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors in August to find out, as there really weren’t any clues here.

I believe Ganthet opting to forge his own lantern and power ring was done for two reasons: one, the splash page showing the forging process was gorgeous, and two, I have a feeling that Ganthet built some custom features into both pieces of technology that he doesn’t want anyone else to know about. For example, he’s already “hacked” into other Corps’ rings during Blackest Night, and I doubt that’s an ability he’d just throw away. Ganthet has proven to be a formidable ally as well as foe, and since he always plans ahead, I’m sure he’s got something up his sleeves with his “homemade” lantern and ring.

Last but not least, I think the Alpha Lanterns have it in for John Stewart, but just need to lure him far away from Oa first. That problem on Stel’s homeworld has got to be just a ruse, and Boodikka is likely the cause. The other Lanterns the Alphas have captured are pushovers compared to John; he’s the only Green Lantern whose willpower actually exceeds a power ring’s capabilities (as seen in Green Lantern [vol. 4] #26). John was one of the initial group asked to become Alphas, but he’s the only one who refused. The Alphas likely want revenge, after a fashion, and the best way to do that would be to turn their biggest opponent into one of them.

Green Lantern (Vol. 4) #54

Release Date: May 26, 2010
Cover Date: July 2010

Story: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Doug Mahnke
Inks: Christian Alamy
Cover: Shane Davis and Sandra Hope
1:25 Variant Cover: Alex Garner

Atrocitus and Dex-Starr murder a subway full of criminals in New York City, but spare the innocent civilians. As seen in Brightest Day #1, Hal Jordan, Sinestro, and Carol Ferris are unable to lift the White Lantern power battery, but when all three try it together, the Entity inside speaks to them. It shows them the twelve returnees, saying “help me live,” and tells the trio to seek out the remaining emotional entities. Meanwhile, the mysterious figure from the previous issue frees Sodam Yat from Daxam’s sun, removing Ion from him in the process. Atrocitus seems to be searching for the entities as well, but cannot locate Ion or Parallax. Hal and crew confront the leader of the Red Lanterns, but before a real fight can break out, Lobo shows up to battle everyone.

Two months after seeing their origin, we now know the names of the orange, blue, indigo, and red entities: Ophidian, Adara, Proselyte, and the Butcher, respectively. (Personally, I think they should’ve gone with names that made absolutely no sense regarding their powers, like they did with Ion, Parallax, and the Predator.) As to where they’re located, clues were given for a few of them: Adara is locked up someplace, the Predator is apparently possessing a man taking pictures of his girlfriend, and Ophidian is inside Larfleeze’s power battery. (That last bit isn’t clear from the art, but a July 2009 Newsarama interview with Geoff Johns confirmed the then-unnamed Ophidian’s location.) As to why the Entity wants them hunted down…who knows? I think we can predict that Hal will eventually become a host for each of them, just as he did with Parallax. (Granted, this would retcon Johns’ own writing from “The Sinestro Corps War” in which it was stated that a being couldn’t host Ion after hosting Parallax, but that’s never stopped him before.)

There’s one thing about the hunt for the entities that really bugs me: according to Atrocitus’ map, not only are all of them located on Earth, but they’re all within the United States! (The obvious exceptions being Ion and Parallax, who were captured.) This is nonsense. Even though the entities were born on Earth, it’s been shown that they’re beings who travel the universe on their whim. Why the hell would they be on Earth all of this time? This is just poor writing; it’s like that Hollywood movie bullshit where aliens always land in America. Give me a break; the search for the entities should take our protagonists across the universe, not state lines.

It was good to see Sodam released from his prison; he’s been stuck there since the end of “Emerald Eclipse” in Green Lantern Corps (Vol. 2) #36. His “death” was never an option, as we know he’ll be alive and well for at least another thousand years; he’s the last Green Lantern (and Guardian!) in the 31st century, as seen in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds. Hopefully he won’t sport that silly mohawk anytime soon, though. Anyway, since freeing Sodam from the sun turned it from yellow back to red, the asshole Daxamites finally received their comeuppance: their yellow sun-given powers cut out, and many of them fell to the ground to meet a splattery doom. Serves them right for being such xenophobic, arrogant pricks.

I leave you with a fun art error. Atrocitus claims that Ion and Parallax are not on his map, but we can clearly see the Parallax symbol on the right-hand side:

(Inset added by me, of course.)

Maybe the Red Lantern ought to pay better attention to his own divining.

Will Larfleeze become dangerous again?

When Larfleeze was fully introduced during the “Agent Orange” storyarc in Green Lantern (Vol. 4) #39-42, the holder of the Orange Lantern was depicted as an extremely powerful adversary, indeed. I spoke about this a little bit before in this post, but to reiterate: Larfleeze is a character who’s kicked the shit out of the Green Lantern Corps, beat Hal Jordan’s ass, and killed Guardians and Controllers! The Guardians were understandably terrified of him; that’s why they let him keep the Vega system all to himself and repressed all knowledge of Larfleeze’s existence, so that the orange light would stay contained.

(click image for fullsize version)

But after “Agent Orange,” and throughout Blackest Night, Larfleeze has been relegated to the role of comic relief. He ran away from Black Lanterns, even though he could’ve overpowered them with his Orange Lantern Corps. All he was missing was a word balloon yelling “WOOP WOOP WOOP!” He sits around and makes jokes while the rest of the Corps representatives plan, and Hal Jordan actually had to light a fire under his ass!

Once he made it to Earth to help fight Nekron, he was shuffled to the background; but, to be fair, so were the rest of the Corps representatives. They, and their eventual deputies, didn’t really do much. And now? Larfleeze is hanging around Lex Luthor, pestering him for ways to feed his insatiable hunger for anything and everything. Larfleeze’s next target for ownership is land. (Apparently, we’re also supposed to believe that Larfleeze is an idiot; it seems that he doesn’t know what land is, despite owning an entire planetful.) This makes sense due to his greed, but wouldn’t other Earthbound heroes find that to be a bit of a threat? I don’t think that Larfleeze would be content merely buying up real estate. He’s the type of greedy bastard that would want to annex entire worlds. Hal will likely have to deal with him, but I doubt we’ll see the awesome clashes we’ve experienced before.

I’m not saying that Larfleeze should become a villain-of-the-month, but at least make him a credible threat again who could pop off at any moment and threaten more than just a planet or two. He’s not being conveyed as such in current stories, and that’s a damned shame, as Larfleeze was by far the most interesting out of all of the new Lanterns introduced in recent years.

Fourteen, not twelve

The Entity brought back twelve heroes and villains at the end of Blackest Night #8. DC’s official title page text in each issue of Brightest Day also says as much:

However, fourteen characters were resurrected: I forgot about Black Hand and the Anti-Monitor! Black Hand was brought back to life by the White Lantern Corps, and the first white ring regurgitated by Hand resurrected the Anti-Monitor. After Nekron sent the Anti-Monitor back to Qward, Hand puked up twelve more rings which destroyed Nekron and resurrected twelve more characters.

Now, I think that the twelve that DC continually refers to in Brightest Day are just those last dozen who were all resurrected at once. Still, it bears remembering that there’s two others, especially since the Anti-Monitor appeared at the end of Brightest Day #2. (We can safely assume he’ll have a big role in #3.) Black Hand may be out of the picture for now, but you know damned well he’ll be back.

Brightest Day #2

Release Date: May 19, 2010
Cover Date: Late July 2010

Story: Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi
Pencils: Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, and Joe Prado
Inks: Vicente Cifuentes, Tom Nguyen, Rebecca Buchman, David Beaty, and Patrick Gleason
Cover: David Finch and Scott Williams
1:25 Variant Cover: Ivan Reis & Nei Ruffino

At Pittsburgh University, the Atom enters Firestorm’s body in order to forcibly split apart Jason Rusch and Ronnie Raymond. However, while he manages to find the Firestorm Matrix, something else is in there, which triggers a massive explosion. In New York, a woman murders her family after seeing the Martian Manhunter on television, then begins to peel off her own skin to reveal a monster underneath. The Martian Manhunter’s out in Colorado, but manages to track down the elderly daughter of the late Doctor Erdel. He masquerades as her father in order to gain her trust and enter her memories, where he finds that he wasn’t the first alien that the doctor had brought to Earth. Far away in the Peruvian jungle, the Hawks find Hath-Set’s lair, and vow to finally kill him. And just in case you thought Boston Brand wouldn’t show up, he’s pulled away from Aquaman and Mera into Qward, where his white ring tells him he must fight…the Anti-Monitor!

This issue didn’t cram in as many characters as the last two, and that’s a good thing. For the most part, the story focused on Firestorm and the Martian Manhunter; though honestly, the scene with the Hawks could have waited until another issue. Obviously, that “other” within Firestorm is his former Black Lantern self, and I’m guessing that the woman who killed her family is the monster that came through Doctor Erdel’s portal right before the Martian Manhunter did. (Okay, so it’s not exactly brilliant detective work, but let me put my theories in writing!) I’m also wondering that since the Firestorm explosion caught Professor Stein in its blast radius, perhaps Ronnie’s old partner could become a third part of Firestorm…or just kick Jason Rusch out for good. The latter option may sadly come true, because as we all know, DC Comics has been hellbent on restoring everything to pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity.

But I digress. I don’t think Boston Brand will physically fight the Anti-Monitor; first of all, that white ring makes him undetectable. For all we know, the Anti-Monitor doesn’t even realize that Brand is there. Secondly, it’s taken most of the DC Universe’s heroes acting together to stop the Anti-Monitor on two occasions in the past. The white ring may be incredibly powerful, but I don’t think if it could take out such a fearsome foe. (I also noticed something incredibly important about the Anti-Monitor that I’d stupidly never realized before…but I’ve got a commentary post coming on Monday about that.)

Hopefully, as Brightest Day continues, we’ll see more of these focused stories. We’ll get enough massive multi-character battles at the end, I’m sure, so dealing with only a few characters at a time now is just what the story needs.