Instead of doing my
normal review of the three Green Lantern titles that came out last month I want
to use them to springboard into a broader discussion about the Third Army
crossover as a whole. We know that the
event runs from issue #13 to #16 across all four Lantern titles, and with the recent
publication of Green Lantern #15, Green
Lantern Corps #15 and Green Lantern:
New Guardians #15 we should expect to be fairly well embroiled in the storyline
by now. As it transpires ‘Rise…’ has not
taken the format I have come to expect from a comic book event. Usually writers take time out from their own
on-going narratives to play into the larger story of an event. That hasn’t really happened here. Each of the three books continues to deal
with the progression of their own main characters. They promise a pay-off further down the line that
seems to bear very little relationship to the event itself. At most it acts as a catalyst for our heroes’
actions rather than as the focus of their attention. The crossover elements of
each book could almost be pulled out into a separate title without having too
much impact on what is happening to an individual characters’ development
within their own plotline. It could be
suggested that the weight of the crossover’s story takes place within the pages
of Green Lantern Corps but the emphasis
is not significant.
You may
have spotted that Red Lanterns is
notable by its absence here. At the time
of writing RL #15 has not yet been
released but, in terms of the ‘Rise of the Third Army’, the tone of that book
has been a little different to its sister titles and I have an expectation from
the next issue that leads me to want to discuss it on its own (and you wouldn’t
have caught me saying that 6 months ago!).
In order
to do justice to the three GL titles I’d like to provide a short synopsis of
where each of Earth’s Green Lanterns found themselves in their respective #15
issues. Guy Gardner has had his Lantern
status revoked and has been returned to Earth by the Guardians of the
Universe. In a scene reminiscent of the
1992 mini-series Guy Gardner Reborn,
the depowered hero takes to the streets to fight crime with nothing more than
his ego and his reputation for protection.
As was also the case back then, what seems like a good idea at the time
results in less than favourable consequences.
This time around Guy inadvertently blows the cover on an international
arms smuggling investigation and is placed under arrest by his police officer
sister. This will likely lead to the
realisation of the prophetic vision in Green
Lantern #11 depicting Guy imprisoned behind bars.
John
Stewart, in the company of Star Sapphire Fatality, continues to investigate
what appears to be Mogo, the destroyed planetary Green Lantern, re-forming
himself. The Stewart/Mogo plot is only
given a couple of pages in GLC #15 but for me is by far the most
interesting part of the whole issue.
Lantern fans want Mogo back and at the moment I am daring to hope that
his (her?) future return is imminent and this is not just another deception by
the conniving Guardians.
Over in Green Lantern: New Guardians #15 Kyle
continues to master the powers of the emotional spectrum at a rate of knots. In the space of three issues he has gained
control over no less than five emotional energies besides the green power of
Will. The light of Avarice is all too
easy to acquire. All Kyle had to do was
wait until Larfleeze was distracted and then charge his ring on the latter’s
orange lantern. As I mentioned in my
review of GL:NG #14 last month, this
storyline is bitterly disappointing.
What should be one of the greatest lantern stories ever told is being
thrown away in a few poorly written issues with a fair proportion of the action
even taking place off panel. Tony Bedard
has proven himself as a great Green Lantern writer in the past but here,
whether by his own hand or as a result of poor decision making by the editorial
team, his skill is being sorely neglected.
Hal Jordan
makes a very brief appearance in Green
Lantern #15. He is trapped with
Sinestro in the Dead Zone accessed via Black Hand’s black lantern ring. A mysterious figure tells them that they are
deceased. Geoff Johns continues to do
what he does best in this scene – namely messing with the heads of GL
fanboys. The hooded character confirms
himself to be a former friend of Hal and an enemy of Sinestro. Truth be told this description could fit
almost anybody in the 50 odd years since the silver age Green Lantern was first
published but I am hoping it is going to be some really memorable character
from the past. At the moment all we have
to go on is that he is a humanoid and he is big. Until we know any different I am going to
ignore both of these facts and assume it is the great Flodo Span himself!
Earth’s
newest Green Lantern, is also being kept well occupied. Simon Baz’s attempts to prove he is not
guilty of terrorist activity come to a head when he confronts the actual bomb
maker behind the plot of which he is accused.
In an unremarkable twist it turns out to be the work of a lone
malcontent (or ‘looney bin’ as I like to call them) rather than a political or
religious group. This makes it easier
for Baz to prove his innocence to the FBI agent who discovers a bomb factory in
the man’s basement but in my opinion it is unusually weak story telling for a
writer of Johns’ capabilities. The most
pertinent moment we get with Simon Baz is when his power ring runs out of
charge at the worst possible time and he has no idea how to reignite it. No doubt the incident explains why Baz has
been shown carrying a gun despite wearing the most powerful weapon in the
universe on his finger.
As it
goes, the bomber is attacked by the Third Army before he can be brought to
justice and the GL’s future hinges on the survival of his would be pursuer,
Agent Fed.
With this
neat little segue I can move onto broader examination of ‘Rise of the Third
Army’. I mentioned in my introduction
that it doesn’t feel like this event should already be nearing conclusion and
will be done and dusted in another month.
I know this means there are still another four or five titles to run but
in these three issues we get no hint that the Army’s defeat is just around the
corner. This consideration led me to
ruminate on the title of the event itself.
The more I think about it I realise the word ‘Rise’ could suggest that
this is only beginning of something.
When DC Comics published ‘Reign of the Supermen’ some years ago we were
presented with a story were the Supermen appeared, had their reign as it where,
and at the end of their reign life more or less returned to normal. Whereas here with the Third Army perhaps ‘Rise’
is intended to suggest that the Army will not be defeated in the final pages of
the crossover. Instead they will exist
as a force to be reckoned with for some time to come. We know from solicits that this arc will be
immediately followed by another one entitled ‘Wrath of the First Lantern’. The Thirdites were created by the Guardians
using the power of the First Lantern and my best guess is that they will fall
under his direct influence and become his army to command in the future.
The connection to the event in Green Lantern Corps #15 is largely by way of exposition on the part of the Guardians and
can be summarised thusly: The Third Army is growing in numbers as it continues
on its pestilent journey across the universe; the Guardians believe that wiping
out the autonomous action of every known life form is the only way to bring
about lasting peace; the first step to succeeding in this goal is to utterly
destroy their own servants, the Green Lantern Corps. This self-same message is laboriously
reiterated by the Guardians’ only collaborators, the Zamarons, in Green Lantern: New Guardians #15. The only additional information we really get
is that the Zamarons hope to be spared in the final reckoning when their fellow
Maltusans’ mission is complete. There is
a nice touch in GL:NG playing as
backdrop to the Zamaron monologue where the arachnid race known as the Spider
Guild are overrun by Thirdite creatures.
They shed unneeded appendages during their transformation into the
uniform appearance of their four limbed assailants.
We are left beating the same drum again in Green Lantern #15, albeit via the
impressive visuals of artist Doug Mahnke.
The book opens on a conversation between Gorish and Vray, the Green
Lantern partners for sector 2820, who confirm that the Third Army are
multiplying across the universe at an unprecedented rate. Mahnke’s double page splash showing a
veritable swarm of the Guardians’ creations rising up from Gorish’s home world
is terrifying. The mass of bodies is so
dense as to appear more like single gargantuan tentacle rather than the
thousands of figures it is actually made up of.
I had to
chuckle at Johns’ script in this scene.
I picture him sat at his desk struggling as badly to come up with new
adjectives describing the spread of the Third Army as I have while writing
these reviews! The excellent description
he finally settles on, “They are transmuting everyone they come into contact
with” will no doubt appear in Green Lantern blogs across the globe in the
coming weeks.
GL #15 throws up a striking inconsistency in
the presentation of the army to date.
From the very beginning particular emphasis has been made of the fact
that the Thirdite’s original eyes remain unchanged post-transmutation (did you
like that?). The Guardians commented on
it themselves when their very first victim was recruited and it has been a
mainstay of the character ever since. In fact, in Red Lanterns, it is
considered to be their only weakness as the otherwise impervious creatures can
be maimed and even killed via an attack on their eyes. But in this book the beings that set upon
Simon Baz are shown to have glowing green eyes.
Even the eyes of the newly transformed ‘looney bin’ burn brightly in its
skull. I am keen to find out if this is
a creator oversight or the next stage in the army’s evolution.
There is
one fresh development in ‘Rise of the Third Army’ this month that is a
veritable delight for any hardcore GL fan to read. It takes place largely in Green Lantern Corps with a brief
crossing into Green Lantern. Salaak, formerly the Guardians most trusted
Lantern who, ranked as Clarissi, is second only to their command, begins to
suspect that all is not well in his master’s citadel. In order to build a case
to present to his fellow Corpsmen he plants a nannite spy camera in the
immortal’s chambers. The device is
detected before he can act on his findings and he is imprisoned in a tiny
torpedo-like holding cell. As the cells
door slides shut drowning him in darkness it seems that any chance of alerting
the Corps to their dreadful fate has been lost.
The
question remains as to what has caused the Guardians to suddenly contemplate
universal genocide. Have they really
given up on billions of years of interstellar policing in favour of a more
drastic solution? Personally, I don’t
believe so. I share the opinion of a
number of lantern fans that the Guardians are not entirely themselves. It seems to me that their thought processes have
been corrupted while they were possessed by the emotional entities during the
War of the Lanterns. Furthermore, I
think Geoff Johns and his colleagues are leaving small clues to let us know
this is the case. In Green Lantern Corps Salaak promises the
lanterns he will do everything in his power to release the Guardians “from the
grip of this insanity”. And in the main Green Lantern title the rodent-like B’dg
tries to locate Hal Jordan “before the Guardians realise we know they have gone
mad.” I think both GLs are correct in
their diagnosis. It makes sense to me
that the Guardians are mentally ill rather than intrinsically evil and so have
a chance of redemption. I have my
fingers crossed that eventually a ‘comic book fix’ will restore the established
hierarchy of the Green Lantern mythos that I have always known and loved.
The last
panel of Green Lantern #15 ends a year long guessing game by finally revealing
the name of the mysterious First Lantern whose energy was harnessed to create
the Third Army. It is a name that is
recognisable by only the geekiest of lantern fans, of which I am proud to say I
am one. That name is Volthoom. Volthoom is the source of power for Green
Lantern’s evil counterpart (aptly named Power Ring) on the parallel world of
Earth 3. This Earth is inhabited by the
Crime Syndicate of America. I am itching
to find out what connection, if any, exists between the world of the Prime
Earth and Earth 3 in DC’s New 52. Could
the First Lantern have ties to wielders of the emotional spectrum across the
entire DC multiverse? At the moment the only
other area of the multiverse being explored is Earth 2. It would be excellent if Volthoom was our first
introduction to other worlds beyond this.
In my wildest speculations the relentless growth of the Third Army could
potentially lead it to overrun not just the main DCU, but also every other
dimension and life-form in the multiverse.
And as far
reaching as this idea might be, it underpins the essence of ‘Rise of the Third
Army’ for me. The Guardians’ silent
forces are undeniably powerful. They are
unyielding. They are intimidating. But what they are not is particularly
entertaining. They burst with potential
for future storylines but at the moment the characters are not being utilised
effectively. The arc started out as
exciting story in issue #13 of the various Green Lantern titles, drawing on the
most popular elements of the horror comic genre. But now, just a few months later, it has
become vaguely mundane. The same two or
three plot devices are being played out over and over again. So while I’m certainly not going to be
turning my back on the Lantern books any time soon I would be a lot happier if
we could get things moving along a bit more.
As far as I am concerned the Third Army has well and truly risen, and we
are overdue on a story that takes their character further.
The
first thing that you need to know about the recently released GL:NG annual is that it has been
universally panned in reviews by professional critics and comic book fans
alike. Many of my favourite comic book
commentators have metaphorically (and possibly literally) ripped this
publication to pieces. In fact, I ran a
straw poll on Twitter and I could not get a single one of my 475 followers to
admit to liking the thing – and some of those guys are hard-core lantern fans!
