Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Green Lantern #20
DC Comics
Johns & Mahnke
The end of the Geoff Johns era on Green Lantern is an over-sized, over-priced exclamation point on his entire run. It's a very good comic book in what has been an epic run. The book summarizes much of the entire run (over 100 comics) by Johns and also resolves a lot of plot threads. The book also manages to provide a glimpse into the futures of many of the characters that Johns has made his own over the last nine years. It's not a perfect comic but it comes awfully close and it definitely entertains.
The book begins in the distant future when a new lantern goes to the Book of Oa seeking the story of Hal Jordan. A cloaked narrator then takes the newbie (and the reader) through the last 20 years of character. This is done in about three pages and is a fantastic recap. It can't be done for every comic book but it works well for this one because of the Book of Oa angle.
The comic then spends the bulk of its time resolving the story of the first lantern. This plot then manages to involve just about every single character Johns has had his hands on in the past nine years. It has a professional wrestling, everyone enters the ring, feeling to it but it works well and it brings a smile to the face of the faithful reader.
Once this plot winds down we get the cap on the entire series with the whereabouts of the key characters as seen through the lens of the distant future. Johns takes some of the characters off the board completely at the close of this comic which I found a little surprising but that doesn't mean that they won't show up down the road. The oddity here is there is no tease for the reader to pick up issue #21. This comic represents a perfect jumping off point for the reader.
The aspect of this individual comic book that works is how Johns handles Sinestro. This is clearly his best character and it shows in this comic book as much as any other. Johns has the character down cold and the book just centers around his dialogue and actions. It has been tremendous to have watched the evolution of this character over the years and I have never tired of watching Johns drop him into the book at any given point.
The book doesn't work well with the plot. As with Blackest Night, the villain isn't really built up. We are sort of just told he's all powerful. I'm still not even clear of his motivation behind cleaning up the universe. In the end the heroes sort of just shoot a lot of beams at him. We are told that his constructs are real but where are they? A lot of the comics in this series have had this problem since Blackest Night. Johns just never managed to define many of these characters as unique once he got past the seven colored corps.
The artwork had a wide range. The bulk of the book is fantastic. Bright colors, big action, splash pages and detailed facial expressions are all over this comic book. I hate when comics simply have the fight scenes come down to some hero saying "pour it on!" but when it looks this good I can't complain. However, the art lags towards the back. The army of inkers takes its toll at the end as some of the characters appear to be made of wax and are standing too close to the fire. Overall, the book is gorgeous. The fold out at the end is simply amazing.
If you haven't read Green Lantern by Geoff Johns then I ask you check this out. If you read this and aren't jazzed up to try a trade from the back catalogue then you can honestly say this isn't for you. This is a fun read and it doesn't require a lot of continuity knowledge. Plus, the book has a lot of send-off quotes for Johns plus a letter from Johns about his run. It's a great cherry on top for this run. It's an unforgettable run that has literally expanded five fold since it began. I can't wait to back to the beginning and re-read the whole run again.
4.5 out of 5 Geek Goggles
