Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Green Lantern Corps #22
DC Comics
Gates & Nelson
In this installment of the Green Lantern Corps an Alpha Lantern gets a partner that is a non-Alpha Lantern. This match also happens to be a pair of siblings, well, at least siblings with one being a robot and the other not. I liked the issue, but only mildly. The story just didn’t make a ton of sense to me.
The issue begins with a flashback to Hal Jordan fighting Boodikka during Emerald Twilight. You remember, right? Hal cuts her hand off after she taunts him a little. It was pretty cool to relive this except that when told with revisionist history Hal doesn’t look like such a bad guy. I’m not a fan of this really because at the time it was the official sunsetting of the character and for him to be a bad guy. Only to be undone a decade or so later. My point? Hal was a bad guy, not a possessed guy. Reversing it is cool, but re-doing is not.
When flashback ends, Boodikka battles Zale, her sister. Also in the fight are all Boodikka’s former bounty hunter gang. Boodikka gets hit pretty hard. In fact, she takes a beating. I actually liked this because she is part Manhunter, which if I’m not mistaken, doesn’t exactly mean invulnerable. It makes sense that an Alpha Lantern isn’t the end-all-be-all. Green Lanterns can fall and Manhunters go down in droves. Boodikka snags Zale’s ring. Kind of like Jordan snagging hers, only without cutting off a limb I guess.
Then the issue gets bizarre. The Guardians interfere like a ref during a bloody boxing match. Basically they like the spunk that Zale shows. So they award a second ring to Boodikka and put Zale on probation by assigning her to Boodikka. Also, Zale has to use Boodikka to charge up instead of her own battery. All of this was very odd. I don’t know what to make of it. Why would an Alpha Lantern get paired with a regular Lantern? Why would they force two who don’t get along to be together? Why does an Alpha Lantern even get a sector?
So there you have it. Questions without clear answers. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a plan. But for this issue it leaves things open and I’m not sure this is the story you want open questions for.
The art was good. As always, the Alpha Lanterns look creepy. The highlight for me was the female bounty hunter group and their various weapons. I found this to be particularly creative. Even their “pets” looked pretty cool.
Generally, this series has been really good. This story leaves a lot of strange results and some dangling threads. This whole Alpha Lantern concept seems half-baked to me. It could work out well, but for this particular issue it just didn’t all add up very well.
3 out of 5 geek goggles.
 Green Lantern Corps #22 |
