Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Green Lantern Corps #63
DC Comics
Kolins, Prado, Williams & Hdr
Green Lantern Corps comes to a close with this issue as it waits for the relaunch/reboot with a story that tries to drive home what it means to be a member of the Green Lantern Corps. Unfortunately the issue attempts to divide the story up into chapters based on artistic team and character focus (while having the same writer for all four chapters) and we end up getting a story that doesn't stack up into anything remotely as powerful as it could have been. It's not even that the comic reads as a mash-up of leftover parts, but rather it reads as though the creative teams had different directions as to the focus of their characters, which seems impossible because Kolins wrote all four stories. Overall, this doesn't live up to the quality of one-shots we've seen from this line since the crossover ended and it certainly doesn't live up to the standard that this title has set up over the past five years. This was a very disappointing read.
The first story had the right idea for this type of issue. This story deals with Boodikka, as seen through a therapist's notes. This would have been a great way to analyze four characters. Have an analyst look through their notes about four random characters and come to the same conclusion: that they fight for what they believe in. Instead, Boodikka's reads like a lighter version of her origin story that ties into the fact that she hates lose and she's been losing lately.
The second story deals with two science-cell guards, Voz and G'hu, as they leave their posts to check on the mental health of another, Ry'Jll. Salaak finds them and scolds them while trying to determine if they still wish to be lanterns. This story is vastly different than the first one as it asks the question outright about wanting to be a lantern while the previous story just has someone else poking through the psychological profile of another.
The third story is Kyle getting picked on because he's human. This might be the oldest, most worn-out story in the Green Lantern books of late. How many times do we have to see how the other lanterns are angry or jealous about the fact that there are four Earth Green Lanterns? This one adds nothing new to the mix.
Finally, the lanterns are all called into battle. There is no real significant dialogue here as it appears everyone just sort says "we'll deal with this argument/fight/insubordination later" and off they fly. This doesn't really tie up anything beyond putting the characters in the same place (mostly) for the final splash page.
There are four artists on the book ranging from watercolor style to standard house Green Lantern style. None of them help to make this story any more interesting and unfortunately none of them excel at the emotional aspects of the story, which is exactly what is needed here. Some of the characters, like Boodikka, are basically robots and are virtually incapable of showing emotions facially. The art feels like its going through the motions just as the story does.
Green Lantern Corps has been a solid read for a long, long time. This book simply should have ended with issue 62. It seems like this book had some ideas but they weren't shaped into a cohesive story. Was it a rush job? Perhaps but either way this is a skip-able book.
1 out of 5 geek goggles
