I love the Green Lantern Corps.

From Alan Scott all the way to Jo Mullein with Tai Pham and Keli Quintela being small exceptions because I haven’t read Green Lantern: Legacy and stopped reading Young Justice, respectively. All of these characters have such a long and storied history with so many great stories under their belts with an excellent team of writers and artists throughout their various years making up the entirety of this special.

Dark Things Cannot Stand the Light – James Tynion IV, Gary Frank, Steve Oliff, and Tom Napolitano

Alan Scott was one of DC’s first and most popular heroes, a founding member of the Justice Society of America and the first Green Lantern after appearing in All-American Comics #16 in 1940. He was the one that started it all and even though Hal Jordan was the character to transform the corps into what it is today, he wouldn’t be here without Alan Scott doing it first.

Alan Scott as we know him hasn’t really been used much since The New 52 and recently made his re-emergence as the reason why we were given such a darker, grittier universe with Dr. Manhattan moving the Lantern out of his way during the train crash that gave him his ring and abilities. DC did give fans an updated version of our classic heroes with the Earth-2 ongoing series, but something still felt off – a hope and heroism that came with the characters, a reason to do good and thankfully, DC took some of the surface level character progression of that series and injected it into the Alan Scott we know and love with the sense of Justice behind it.

Thanks to Gary Frank’s excellent art with a tight focus on expressive faces and Steve Oliff’s fantastic coloring throughout, James Tynion IV retells the origin story of Alan Scott and recontextualizes his relationship with colleague Jimmy Henton as Scott visits Henton’s mother, Doris, and recounts the circumstances that led to his death. We get a feel for the anger that Scott felt at the tragedy and an idea of the kind of justice he would mete out for the wicked and corrupt.

Doris underscores this idea of Justice with a message about Jimmy always believing that a light was burning inside of him that wanted to get free, but if it did, then it would burn everyone else around him.

Throughout the story, there are numerous allusions to both Alan and Jimmy being lovers, likely meaning that the 2012 retcon of Alan Scott being gay is being recognized as also being part of the character’s long history and as a hero living in the 1940s, his existence as the Green Lantern now holds even more significance as he acts as a torch for, not only himself, but other men in the closet during a very repressive time in history

Where he initially tries to get away from himself, talking with Doris, she tells him that he must be that light and show others that even in the dark world, there is a way to shine.

Last Will – Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert, Alex Sinclair and Rob Leigh

When Geoff Johns sought to revitalize the Green Lantern Corps, Ivan Reis was one of the best artists that he was paired with and together, alongside inker Oclair Albert, they managed to bring Hal Jordan to prominence after he was killed following turning into Parallax. Eventually they went on to make the AMAZING Blackest Night storyline and they return here to tell a heartfelt story about Hal as his ring is near empty and he finds himself on an unknown planet with only enough charge to send three messages.

While I have never been a big fan of Hal Jordan, Geoff Johns understands the character and writes him to be very likable, charismatic, even a bit comedic at times so he does a great job of examining a few of the relationships that Jordan values the most.

He sends a message to the Corps on the off chance that it will the last one he gets to send,he sends another to Batman, shedding light on why he’d always butt heads with the Dark Knight and finally one last message to Carol Ferris, the woman of his dreams. The last one being the most telling as most heroes end up with their love interest, but Hal has never quite been able to make their relationship stable for long, but still wishes her the best.

Reis, Albert and Sinclair make the most of the few pages that they’re given, using all of their space for either big, almost splash pages, such as when we see Hal crashed, obviously suffering from the effects and damage caused by whatever caused him to land so badly. At the same time, we also get fantastic sequential panels like when Hal picks himself back up and looks out into the desolate planet in wonder and fear.

These styles blend together when Hal talks to a projection of Batman and later Carol, showing Hal’s full body as he airs out his insecurities and regrets to perfectly colored green constructs with close shots and dynamic angles throughout.

Of course, after these various messages, Hal finds himself a few miles outside of Las Vegas and knows he’s never going to hear the end of it.

The Meaning of Fear – Cullen Bunn, Doug Mahnke, David Baron and Carlos M. Mangual

Sinestro will always be an underrated Green Lantern in my opinion.

He’s uncompromising in his values, sees the potential for strength in everyone he comes across and he has a damn good moustache; On top of all of that, he is a raging madman with aspirations of ruling the universe through fear. He is evil, almost to the highest order, and is still the greatest Green Lantern to ever live next to Hal Jordan. 

Cullen Bunn authored his first ever solo series and gave Sinestro one of the best voices he’s ever had since the Sinestro Corps War while also making sure that he still maintained a sense of villainy despite being a leading man. His run was probably what made me love the character even more than I had in the past and what makes me want to see more of him after Grant Morrison finishes his run with Green Lantern.

This story continues that characterization with the former Lantern confronting a current Member of the Corps after some unseen battle with some mechanical monsters called Purge Engineers. Sinestro recalls his history as an explorer before being chosen to wear a Green Lantern Ring, but then muses about how the War on his home planet of Korugar gave him the willpower and fear to do the things that needed to be done – IE subjugating his warring people under his sole rule, thus causing the Green Lantern Corp to rip the ring from him and forcing him to forge a tool of fear himself: The Yellow Lantern Ring.

Doug Mahnke, David Baron and Carlos Mangual absolutely smash it in the art and lettering department with a lot of upward shots to make it seem as though Sinestro is looking down at the reader for not also embracing their own fear while also making sure that word balloons and captions don’t wildly litter the pages, making everything nice and focused. Mahnke pays special attention to Sinestro’s facial expressions, painting him with that signature sense of snide arrogance with regality. 

Baron makes the most of the colors he uses and makes sure that the reader understands the high regard Sinestro used to hold the Green Light in, but posits that it was the Yellow that set him free. The best example of this is when the Yellow Lantern projects a giant fight between him and Hal Jordan to the wounded Green Lantern and the yellow is the most intense and overbearing it could possibly be, emphasized by Mahnke’s detailed and awesomely scratchy line art – Sinestro’s own Inferno of Fear.

Time Alone – Dennis “Denny” O’Neil, Mike Grell, Lovern Kindzierski, and Clem Robins

Rest in Peace to recently passed Dennis O’Neil who had probably the biggest hand in elevating Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen from being low selling heroes to becoming a fantastic duo that were making headlines with powerful political stories that made use of Hal’s moderate leanings as they bounced off of the HEAVILY liberal Oliver Queen as they solved various crimes together. Unfortunately, Time Alone was the last story that O’Neil was able to pen before his untimely death, but it definitely is an amazing one.

Superheroism has to be one of the most trying things in the DC Universe as these heroes have to deal with the worst that humanity and beyond has to offer every day and with the sense of duty that comes with that, there’s little time for breaks. However, that can also lead to stress and anger and Oliver exemplifies that as he beats the ever-loving mess out of Clock King after he takes a child hostage for a dumb plot, but is stopped by Hal before he can make an even worse mistake himself.

While Ollie chastises Hal for being gone for an extended period of time, Hal tells him what he was doing all that time; He went to another planet for two months and two days to read “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau and reevaluated his own life, started thinking and calming himself after noticing that he was becoming more brutal when dispensing “justice” and gives the book to Ollie as an explanation. O’Neil posits that much like Thoreau, everyone has the ability to set aside some time for themselves and find ways to better themselves – to change in a positive way.

Mike Grell was one of the primary artists for part of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow storyline and his art has only gotten better over time as he manages to capture the rage that Ollie feels as he sees a child in danger, giving all of his movements and expressions an intensity from a man that hasn’t stopped in months, made even worse when he punches Hal to the ground for trying to stop him, all of this is accentuated by his signature hatch shading style. Grell also sells their friendship as they take a car ride together and interact like the good friends that they are.

Of course, this all culminates in a few serene panels of Hal reading Walden in contentment, away from the trappings of regular superhero society and this is also where Lovern Kindzierski’s colors stand out the most. Where previous scenes had beautiful orange skies, these scenes popped with lush blues, purples, greens and well contrasted dark inks. Readers are easily able to get a sense of Hal’s newfound calm and maybe could contemplate their own inner peace.

Dennis O’Neil will be missed as an amazing creator and as a final send off to some of his best characters, this was fantastic.

Legacy – Ron Marz, Darryl Banks, HI-FI, and Josh Reed

Kyle Rayner is my FAVORITE Green Lantern.

It all started with one fantastic episode of Superman: The Animated Series when an aloof artist gets hit in the head with a mysterious ring and spends most of the episode trying to escape the responsibility while also fending off a yellow ring wearing villain in Sinestro. This was my first experience with the Green Lanterns at all and it left an impression, especially with the many references that the episode had to other Lanterns in Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan.

Ron Marz and Darryl Banks created Kyle in the early 90s as a modern replacement to a stale and villainous Hal Jordan, who had become Parallax, and established Kyle as the sole Green Lantern following Hal’s destruction of the Corps. Kyle always stood out to me because he wasn’t even the best choice with Ganthet’s famous line always echoing in my ear, “You’ll do.” Kyle then went on to become one of the greatest Lanterns of all time and that’s why he’ll always be my favorite – his perseverance, creativity and ability to learn from his mistakes set him apart from Hal, John and Guy.

The main crux of this story was how Kyle managed to keep things together while still being the only Green Lantern in the universe as he looks to retrieve some of the items from Guy’s old hero bar, Warriors. The owner of the warehouse praises Kyle for everything he did and Kyle simply says that he “did the best he could,” as one of the souvenirs that Guy seems to have kept was an inactive robot mech and it springs to life, causing Kyle to jump into action to stop it. 

Darryl Banks is possibly in the best form of his career with this story as his lines are smooth and thick, giving everything amazing outlines that pop off of the page. He also draws awesomely dynamic shots showcasing Kyle’s nerdiness as he creates a fire breathing Kaiju to fight the robot and projections of the friends that helped him along the way. HI-FI was the perfect colorist for this as they make every green as vibrant as possible, every red and gold from the robot as threatening and give everything the heroic lighting it deserves.

While probably not my favorite story in this Special, it certainly is the one closest to my heart.

Heart of the Corps – Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin, Wade von Grawbadger, Gabe Eltaeb and Rob Leigh

Kilowog is without a doubt one of the most enduring members of the Green Lantern Corps and definitely one of the highest respected. Serving as the Drill Sergeant for the new Lantern Recruits, Kilowog was a genetic scientist from a planet known as Bolovax Vik before it was destroyed during the first Crisis. Since then, he has served the Corps fervently, albeit with a massive weight on his shoulders by being the last surviving member of his people. Kilowog also often bumped heads with fellow Lantern Guy Gardner and together, these two are probably the toughest Green Lanterns there are.

This story reunites the Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors and Green Lantern Corps team of Peter J.Tomasi and Fernando Pasarin for a short tale of the rest of the Corps doing something nice for the man that means so much to them. On the anniversary of his planet’s destruction/Kilowog’s birthday, Salaak, the mission coordinator of the Corps, sends Guy and Kilowog on a mission to save a few ambushed Lanterns. Much to Kilowog’s surprise, it turns out to be a birthday celebration for him as they all know what he’s lost.

Pasarin, Grawbadger and Eltaeb do their best to convey Kilowog’s frustration and later happiness as his muted pink face smiles as they all recite their oath next to a GIANT cake shaped like the Green Power Battery.

Reverse the Polarity – Charlotte Fullerton, ChrisCross, Jordi Tarragona, Luis Guerrero and Steve Wands

John Stewart was the fourth Green Lantern, created by Denny O’Neil and Neil Adams in 1972, becoming DC Comics first black superhero. Over the years John has gone from a brash, interim Green Lantern to one of the most disciplined and respected members of the Corps. Having briefly served as a Marine and later an architect, John’s mind and constructs are considered the strongest of them all because of the effort he puts into building everything piece by piece.

 In 2001 when Justice League began airing on Kids WB, John gained a wider audience as he was chosen to be the Lantern of the team, serving as representation and inspiration for an entire generation of fans while also entertaining audiences with his flirtatious relationship with Hawkgirl. This story reflects just that and mainly focuses on how the two characters lean on each other when times get rough and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that this was Fullerton’s way of writing a love letter to her late husband in Dwayne McDuffie.

ChrisCross, Tarragona and Guerrero evoke much of the feel of that old cartoon while maintaining the current designs with Guererro’s bright and evocative colors such as Polaris’ purple and white energy, Hawkgirl’s dark greens alongside the lime greens of John’s light. ChrisCross gives the action a high intensity feel, well accentuated by Tarragona’s clean inks and thick blacks for shadows.

Because John is so used to hold the world on his shoulders, he bears a weight that he doesn’t allow others to bear with him, so when Doctor Polaris suddenly shows up on the Watchtower, it’s up to him and Hawkgirl to shut him down before he’s able to gain control of the macguffin of the story, but it’s only when he lets her in that he’s able to reign control of the object from the magnetic villain.

Four – Robert Venditti, Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona, Ivan Plascencia and Dave Sharp

Guy Gardner is the one you love to hate.

Guy is an asshole. Straight up, he’s a trash talker, an egomaniac, the least creative of the bunch, the least tactical and the least to show real leadership, but what he lacks in all of those qualities – he makes up for in bravery and toughness. Guy is notoriously the Lantern that people love the least, but he holds that special third place in my heart because of how much of a goon he is and how good he can be in the right hand. In Robert Venditti’s run of Green Lantern, Guy was amazing alongside Hal, John and Kyle and they were the Four Corpsmen.

The Four Horsemen were a wrestling stable that came together to dominate the business because they were the best of the best and Venditti drew upon that with these members of the Green Lantern Honor Guard with Guy serving as the Heart of the team. Four Legs on a Table, Four Walls in a House and Four Seats in a Mustang GT – their motto, The Four Corpsmen.

This story had my favorite storytelling conceit, old veterans sitting around the table, reminiscing about the old days and telling stories to each other. The main focus of their stories on their seventeenth anniversary (?) of being retired centered around Guy Garnder, who appeared to have been late for their annual meeting, of course at a certain point readers start to get an uncomfortable feeling that he’s not coming. That’s confirmed in the final page of the story as they all do to Horsemen Salue at the Warrior’s grave.

Rafa Sandoval might be one of my favorite artists at DC comics right now because his style is very suited to the high intensity action that Venditti’s GL run required, but he also shows an ability to calm things down and shows Kyle, John and Hal in a serene and friendly environment as they yuck it up over the good times. When Guy is shown, he’s given a wide grin, almost as if he’s saying “Please, sir, may I have another?” as he just takes hit after hit like the badass he was. Tarragona’s inks smoothing out the lines and giving emphasis to Plascencia’s airbrushed colors; every green, yellow and brown just made everything feel so warm.

The ending of this story was a real gut punch, but I know without a doubt that Guy Gardner didn’t go down without a fight and took every hit that he could so that someone else didn’t have to.

Voices – Mariko Tamaki, Mirka Andolfo, Arif Prianto and Gabriela Downie

Jessica Cruz is one of the best new Lanterns that DC has created, not only because of her personality, but because of her major character flaw – Jessica suffers from anxiety and PTSD after watching her friends get killed during a camping trip and that has informed her character for the better half of her existence. 

What Mariko Tamaki does with this story is anchor Jessica’s fear to one particular item, a knife that she was using at the time of the murders, asking herself if it was bad luck, if the knife had some sort of connection to what happened and then her mind goes on a frenzy, distracting her in a fight against some alien, allowing her to get thrown into space and being alone with her thoughts with only her partner, Simon Baz to hold her down when he rescues her. And later in a fight where she has to save him, she channels the fear and the form of the knife to save him from an attacking King Shark, overcoming her fear for the moment.

Mirka Andolfo is another one of my favorite new artists because of her style. It maintains a sharpness with thick lines and flowing hair, but at the same time has a softness that emphasizes Jessica’s despair and anxiety.

She does a good job of giving readers scenes where the camera is pulled out while still focusing on Jess, making it seem like she’s lost in her own mind or very close shots where we’re in there with her as her mind is in a frenzy. All of her panels are made even better by Arif Prianto’s colors being able to wring out just as much if not more emotion, from cold blues to dark browns.

Jessica is currently the main star of Justice League Odyssey and while that series has been fantastic so far, I can’t wait for her to rejoin with the main team or star in another Green Lantern series, either as the main lead or another team book with Simon Baz or new Lantern Jo Mullein.

Homegrown Hero – Sina Grace, Ramon Villalobos, Rico Renzi, and AndWorld Design

On the opposite end of the (Light) Spectrum, I thought that Simon Baz was the WORST Lantern that DC had introduced in his early years. 

Simon Baz is a Muslim, Lebanese-American whose first story was that he was fired from his job, stole a car and then caused an explosion on accident after discovering that the car had a bomb in it, which had him branded as a terrorist and apprehended by the police before Hal Jordan’s malfunctioning ring chose Baz as it’s new bearer. Now, I HATE the word “problematic” and the people who use it with snark, but…in this case…this was one of the first things that soured me on him and then came his reputation as “The Gun Lantern.” He was never involved in any stories worth a damn up until being teamed with Jessica.

Watching him grow from a high strung rookie to a competent Lantern that gave up his gun and relied on himself, his partner and his ring was amazing to watch…and it was even better to watch all of that characterization fall away in the last arc of that series as things transitioned into Heroes in Crisis…but then nothing happened and Baz has only been a background character since, at best.

Suffice to say, I have mixed emotions. Same with the team of this story in Sina Grace and Ramon Villalobos – the former of whom routinely kills it on Power Rangers, but also wrote the godawful Iceman and the latter of whom drew the awesome Nighthawk series in 2016, but also drew for Border Town. 

Overall, however, this story was nice. In the current political climate, where there’s been a travel ban placed on a lot of Muslim leaning countries and tensions higher because of red hat wearing assholes, people need a hero like Baz to look up to. When a gunman tries to set his sights on a Muslim art exhibit, Simon springs into action to not only save his people, but to show them that they have a hero that looks like them.

The Verdict

After all of those wonderful stories, I can absolutely say that I am an even bigger Green Lantern fan than I was before. Recalling all of their rich histories, their greatest wins and most bitter defeats, these characters have only shown that there is always something more to them, that there are still infinite character driven tales that can be weaved for each of them.

I would love to see an Alan Scott solo or mini-series where he has to reconcile his heroism with his closeted queerness; While I’m no longer reading Morrison’s Hal Jordan book, I can see merits to the character; Sinestro deserves another ongoing series, or to be put in the prominent spotlight as the Green Lantern’s main villain again, maybe with a three way battle now that his daughter, Soranik Natu, is also against her former allies in the Green Lanterns; I desperately want another Kyle Rayner focused series and maybe one for Guy Gardner too; John Stewart is doing great things with the Justice League right now and so is Jessica, but where is Baz?

Just give us more Lanterns, DC.