Book Review: Absolute Green Lantern Vol. 1 by A. Ewing et al.

Absolute Green Lantern Volume 1: Without Fear written by Al Ewing and art by Jahnoy Lindsay

In yet another reboot of the DC Comics universe, the Green Lantern mythos is completely reimagined as Abin Sur comes crashing down on Evergreen, a small town just outside of California. The town is caught in a bubble and the townsfolk disappear except for a handful, including Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and other recognized names in the Green Lantern tradition. They are regular townfolk trying to figure out what Abin Sur is up to. About halfway through this volume some explanation is made but it is not very coherent and not at all intriguing. The story reads like they are trying to come up with something new but haven't thought it out and are just winging it. As a Green Lantern fan, I found this very disappointing and won't be coming back to it.

Not recommended.

Movie Review: Green Lantern (2011)

Green Lantern directed by Martin Campbell

The Green Lantern Corps is a set of intergalactic heroes created by the Guardians, an immortal group that was once in conflict with the entity Parallax, a tentacled alien that feeds on fear. The Guardians established the Corps using the power of will to fight against the entity. One of the corps members, Abin Sur, imprisoned Parallax in a forbidden sector of space. All this is told in voiceover. The next scene shows some aliens who have crashed on Parallax's prison and who have given him enough fear energy to break free from the prison. Parallax then heads across the universe gaining power as it terrorizes intelligent beings it comes across. It eventually finds Abin Sur and mortally wounds him, though Abin Sur escapes in a pod that goes to the nearest inhabited planet.

The story then jumps to Earth where maerick Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a test pilot at Ferris Aircraft. He and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) fly some fighter planes against some drone planes the company is trying to sell to the government. The drones have proven hard to beat but Jordan breaks the rules of engagement in order to win against them, sacrificing Carol in the process (though as a test case she isn't really killed). His plane goes out of control and he has a flashback to when his dad, who was also a pilot, died in a plane crash. Hal manages to eject before his fighter crashes, which costs the company a lot of money. Also, it puts the government contract in jeopardy, so his actions are doubly annoying to Ferris, who is the daughter of the company owner and about to take a hand in managing the company. While this is going on, the alien escape pod crashes on Earth and Abin Sur sends his ring out to find a new Green Lantern to take his place. The ring snatches Hal from his apartment and he gets a quick speech from Abin Sur about being a Green Lantern. Hal returns home and has trouble getting the ring to work, even with help from the computer nerd (Taika Waititi) at Ferris Aircraft.

When he gets the ring to work, he is swept off to Oa, the planet that's the home base of the Green Lantern Corps. He goes through the fastest training ever and is disparaged by Sinestro (Mark Strong), a Green Lantern who was friends with Abin Sur and seems to be a leader among the Lanterns (though the Guardians are in charge). Sinestro wants to take the fight to Parallax. The Guardians reluctantly agree. Hal returns to Earth after he sort-of quits. 

Meanwhile on Earth, Abin Sur's body is being autopsied by Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) who is the son of the senator (Tim Robbins) who is negotiating the Ferris contract. Hector is infected by some of Parallax's yellow energy that's still inside the alien corpse and he starts to mutate. He's friends with Hal and Carol, though his romantic inclinations toward her have always taken a backseat to Hal's charm and bravura. He winds up as an agent of Parallax, who is coming to Earth on his way to Oa, where Parallax plans to wipe out the Lantern Corps.

That's just the setup of the movie. It's a bit convoluted and the film repeats a bunch of exposition about the Lantern Corps (the opening voiceover and during Hal's training). Sinestro's role is unclear--is he the head Lantern or just headstrong? The training montage is the worst superhero training ever put on screen. The other Lanterns hardly explain what they are doing or how to use the ring effectively. No wonder Hal quits, though even that is only explained later when he's back on Earth. He then is forced into being a hero as Hector start being a villain and Parallax shows up. That plot doesn't flow well at all.

Reynolds does his best with the script. He has the charisma but not the drive and determination that the character of Hal Jordan needs. The training sequence could have established that but it's too rushed and too incoherent, like they used it as an excuse to show off a bunch of other alien Green Lanterns rather than advance the character or story. When he finally gets around to manning up, he still seems immature and unconvincing. The other actors are okay but they are also short-changed by the scripts.

The effects are impressive for the most part. The energy constructs are fun if not terribly imaginative. Sometimes the energy force looks odd, like when the Green Lanterns fly through space or they are getting enveloped by green lightening before something is about to happen. Parallax's face looks a little bit too muppety to be taken seriously as a villain.

Not recommended, though this isn't as bad as its reputation as the worst superhero film.

Book Review: Green Lantern Earth One Volume One by C. Bechko

Green Lantern Earth One Volume One co-written by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman, art by Gabriel Hardman, and colors by Jordan Boyd

Hal Jordan is an ex-NASA astronaut working with a small company surveying asteroids, hoping to find a valuable and sizable chunk of metal. He and partner Volkov stumble upon something even more valuable than raw metal--a space ship that crashed seemingly hundreds of years ago. A large, broken robot is inside along with a desiccated alien corpse who has a ring on his finger and a glowing lantern nearby. Jordan and Volkov take the lantern and the ring as proof of their find. As their small ship goes to dock with their larger mothership, Volkov slips on the ring and accidentally destroys their ship. Jordan winds up with the ring just as the robot comes blasting off the asteroid. The ring keeps him from dying in space and gives him some powers that he doesn't know how to use. He barely survives a fight with the robot. He wakes up on another planet where an alien with a ring becomes his first ally in discovering what the ring and robots are all about.

I'm usually not a fan of reboots of characters but this one works really well. Instead of just transplanting a hero's story to modern day, this volume moves the story into a credible future. Jordan's character is more disgruntled than hot shot, a nice twist from the standard version of Hal Jordan. A lot of the usual Green Lantern history is woven into the story (the planet Oa, the Guardians, the Manhunters, other individual Green Lanterns, etc.) with enough twists and wrinkles to make the story fresh and interesting. I didn't think anything could top Geoff Johns's run on the Green Lantern comics but this is a very promising start.

Highly recommended.

Book Review: Green Lantern The New 52 Vol. 4: Dark Days

Green Lantern The New 52 Volume 4: Dark Days by Robert Venditti and Billy Tan

After taking a lot of casualties in the last volume, the Green Lantern Corps is in bad enough shape that the Guardians decide to promote Hal Jordan to head of the Corps. Almost immediately the Orange Lanterns (who are motivated only by greed) attack, hoping to steal whatever stuff is on the Green Lantern home base of Oa. Hal and company (featuring some brand new recruits) just barely beat back the threat when they discover problems with their rings. The energy that powers them is fluctuating badly thanks to a new threat from before the Big Bang--Relic. Relic is a giant, crazy scientist from the universe that existed before the Big Bang. That universe ended when its light-wielders depleted all the light energy they had (causing the Big Bang). Somehow Relic survived and now he is try to stop all the Lantern Corps from using up all this universe's light energy and causing another universal catastrophe. Can Hal Jordan and the Lanterns both defeat Relic and start using their light energy more wisely?

The plot is large and imaginative, possibly bordering on the preposterous. I went with it and found it an enjoyable read. The "history" of Relic is well-written and makes him an interesting opponent that forces Hal not to go it solo. Hal needs to learn leadership skills and this gives him a good opportunity. I was worried the "conserving resources" theme might get too heavy-handed but they don't go overboard with it. They just went overboard with a lot of other elements!

Book Review: Green Lantern Vol. 3: The End by Geoff Johns et al.

Green Lantern Vol. 3: The End (The New 52) by Geoff Johns et al.

This volume of Green Lantern brings to an end a nearly ten-year run of stories written by Geoff Johns, one of the star writers at DC Comics. The story follows from the last volume, where Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Sinestro have been sucked into Black Lantern's ring, where they inhabit the Dead Zone. Most everyone there is really dead. They still have a bit of living in them, so there's a chance for them to escape.

Meanwhile Jordan's power ring thinks he is dead because it flies off in search of a new Green Lantern. It finds Simon Baz, an Arab-American who has been accused of a terrorist act and is currently being interrogated by the US government. He stole a van (part of a career of car theft) to help out his sister and nephew. Baz discovers the van has a bomb inside so he decides to drive somewhere unpopulated--the car manufacturing plant that shut down and left him unemployed. Naturally the Feds think he has a vendetta against the company and start using tougher techniques to get information from him about other terrorists he knows. His resistance, i.e. the ability to overcome great fear, makes him a prime candidate for a Green Lantern ring. So it breaks into his jail cell and he breaks out.

Baz is thrown into a chaotic universe. The Guardians have unleashed a Third Army to remove free will from the universe, one sentient being at a time. So he's on the run even as a Green Lantern. Can he get Hal Jordan and Sinestro out of the Black Lantern ring? Can he sort out his own life and convince the Feds he's innocent? Will the Green Lanterns be able to stop the Third Army?

The story does have an epic feel to it and it is a great ending to Geoff Johns's run on the Green Lantern. He's able to wrap up a lot of different story lines and character arcs. The one weakness is the Simon Baz storyline, which comes off as cliched and completely unsurprising. Unfortunately, that storyline takes up a big chunk of the graphic novel. I kept waiting for the story to get back to Hal and the other more interesting characters. That being said, the ending is very satisfying and is a must-read for Green Lantern fans.

One note: I read this on Kindle for the iPad which was fine except for the occasional "splash pages," where an image would cover two print pages. Also, there must have been a fold-out extra long image which was also difficult to appreciate in the Kindle format. I recommend paper!

Book Review: Green Lantern Vol. 2: The Revenge of Black Hand

Green Lantern Volume 2: The Revenge of Black Hand by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke

The uneasy alliance of Sinestro (former Yellow Lantern and sworn enemy of Green Lantern Hal Jordan) and Hal Jordan continues from the last book. Sinestro has discovered a plot by the Guardians of the Galaxy (who lead the Green Lantern Corps) to get rid of the Green Lanterns and control the universe with a mysterious "Third Army." Before Sinestro has a chance to drag Jordan back into the action, the mysterious Indigo Tribe (who wield the light of compassion) drags Sinestro back to their home world. Jordan pursues, finding more than he bargained for. His old enemy, Black Hand, is one of the Indigo Tribe and seems to be reformed, or at least brainwashed, into serving the tribe. But what is really going on, and how is Abin Sur (the Green Lantern who gave his ring to Jordan as he died) related to the Indigo Tribe?

The story spins out nicely with plenty of action and plot development. The secret of the tribe is pretty interesting and fits well with the themes of redemption being explored for the various characters (especially Sinestro, Jordan, and Black Hand). The secret is also related to the larger plot involving the Guardians' shenanigans. I'm curious to read more!

Book Review: Green Lantern Vol. 1: Sinestro

Green Lantern Volume 1: Sinestro by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke

It is often said that the best villains are the characters who do not think they are doing evil. A fine example of this is Sinestro in the "New 52" reboot of Green Lantern. Originally I was less than enthusiastic about the "New 52" as it seems like another attempt to get new people into reading comics by promising to let go of the previous character continuity and freshen up the stories with more modern settings and characterizations. For example, Clark Kent becomes an independent blogger rather than a lowly, befuddled reporter for the Daily Planet. Such a re-write hasn't happened with the Green Lantern storyline. Sure, Hal Jordan has been tossed out of the Green Lantern Corps. And his arch-nemesis (as any fan of the old Superfriends show knows) Sinestro is selected to have a Green Lantern ring after years of fighting the Lanterns in general and Jordan in particular with his own corps of Yellow Lanterns.

Now that the ring is on the other finger, Sinestro is playing along with being a Green Lantern. His home world of Korugar has been overrun by the Yellow Lantern Corps. They rule with terror and murder while they await the return of their master, Sinestro. He is understandably unhappy with his corps' crimes against his own people on his own world (even though he had been a ruthless dictator there for many years). Sinestro believes in order. Sometimes order needs to be imposed, by harsh methods if necessary. But only on his own terms. He plans to remove the Yellow Lanterns but needs Hal Jordan's help in beating them.

Hal, after being kicked to the curb by the Corps, is lost with nothing to do. He was a jet pilot but his record of recklessness has kept him grounded. Work opportunities that aren't saving the galaxy from the likes of Sinestro are unappealing to him. He has a hard time reconnecting with his long time girlfriend Carol Ferris.

So all the backstory is still in play for the new Green Lantern storyline, which is a very interesting one indeed. Sinestro is unclear why he has been chosen to be a Green Lantern again after years of being out of the corps and fighting against it. But he seizes the opportunity to restore order on his home world. Jordan reluctantly joins up with Sinestro because it's his only chance to get back in the action, if not in the Corps. The uneasy alliance continues because of new revelations of deeper plans that will put the universe's welfare in question.

The book is very interesting and I want to read more!