Friday, April 17, 2009

Rayboy's Review: Green Lantern #39 (DC Comics)




The buildup to this summers "Blackest Night" event continues in DC Comics Green Lantern #39 (April 2009) from writer Geoff Johns and artists Philip Tan and Jonathan Glapion. "Agent Orange: Part One" starts with an incursion by a small contingent of the immortal Controllers on the planet Okaara, in the Vega System (home turf of The Omega Men).

It seems that the Controllers have arrived seeking a power source of their own, in order to challenge their ancient masters, the Guardians of the Universe. Bypassing the rotting carcass of a large alien beast, to their eternal regret the Controllers discover an orange lantern aglow with "light" power similar to that of the Guardians Green Lantern Corps. Unleashing the fury of Larfleeze and his Orange Lantern Corpsmen, the Controllers are slaughtered where they stand and "Agent Orange" lashes out into the universe, first encountering Green Lantern member, Stel, who also gets trashed by this awesome new threat.

We catch up with the star of this book, Hal Jordan, who is currently on the planet called Odym, home world of the Blue Lantern Corps (yeah, I know). Given that the green power ring which gives him his super-heroic name is fueled by will-power and that over the last year or so, readers have been introduced to the concept of various Lantern Corps of different colors, different attributes and different ideologies, this will come as no surprise to you regulars.

It seems that in order to operate, the entirety of the Blue Lantern Corps has to be in the vicinity of a Green Lantern Corpsman – like Hal – but the blue ring (which he has also received) seems to be giving him a fit and per Ganthet (former Guardian and current Blue Lantern chief), Hal has to tap into his inner "hope". You see it’s "hope", not will that fuels the blue rings. With no clear idea of what to make of his situation, Hal flies off in search of the villainous Sinestro of the Yellow Lantern Corps. However, we will just have to wait and see how that all works out for Mr. Jordan, because the issue ends with Larfleeze breaking into Oa to take the Guardians to task for "their" Controllers violating the old agreement to stay out of the Vega System. And one of the Guardians declares that with the War of Light impending, the little blue man had better rethink the whole Vega jurisdiction thing and get their asses over to that end of the universe to find out what the heck is going on.

When Geoff Johns is on, he is really on. "Agent Orange" was both exciting and riveting, and the art by Mr. Tan was just as good as what I’ve seen from Ivan Reis or Ethan Van Sciver. I may not have been picking up Green Lantern, but after hearing lots of good word of mouth, I gave this book a try and I will be on board for the remainder of this storyline. Hopefully, "Blackest Night" will live up to its hype too, but I do have to wonder just how many more "colors" we will be introduced to and where it all will ultimately lead. I can foresee a character down the line who manages to wield one ring of each color on each finger of his (or her) hand. Maybe he/she will be called Sauron or the Mandarin. One ring to rule them all. Sheesh!

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