Whoof. This thing was an absolute bear to get through. It
doesn’t help that it seems to have three entirely separate storylines combined
into one collection. Let’s handle them individually.
First, we follow Kyle Rayner as the attempts to master all
the colors of the DCU as he becomes a White Lantern. This had some interesting
artwork from Aaron Kuder, and I liked that Tony Bedard used Atrocitus and Star
Sapphire’s as such strong mentors for Kyle. I don’t know how that fits in with
old 52 timelines. But this seems to be a pretty newly-minted Kyle appearing in
this book.
The second phase of the collection is the weakest. It’s the
First Lantern tempting the New Guardians with alternate timelines and lives they
could have led. The art is wildly inconsistent through this section, with Carol
Ferris’ sections being so tonally different that I found myself skipping some
pages. Part of the problem is that the big threat from the Third Army must have
been resolved somewhere else. Instead of seeing how the ever-increasing mass of
zombies got stopped, the story just sort of hops to a totally different
conclusion.
The final third of the collection feels like another chapter
in Geoff Johns’ long-time GL opus. It gives each corps a moment or two, and
most importantly establishes Hal Jordan as the best Green Lantern ever. Johns
has made his feelings on that score very clear, so at least the consistency is
nice. The First Lantern is so powerful that the frenetic final battle is
essentially a bunch of surprise reveals that he dispatches shortly after
arrival. The strongest moments in this storyline don’t come from the First
Lantern or any other recurring villain. Instead, it is the fallen Sinestro who
captures the best two moments during the closing moments. First, when Sinestro
states his feelings on Hal Jordan, it is a nice connection between longstanding
rivals and foes. The second, I won’t give away, but maybe Geoff Johns does have
a bit of a heart after all.
Aaron Kuder and Doug Mahnke provide the strongest art
throughout the book, with Mahnke’s looking more polished and ready for prime
time. I’ve seen Kuder’s recent stuff, and he’s much better now than in these
earlier works.
This is a FAIR comic that could have been much better if it
was more focused and only collected the necessary chapters of the GL storyline.
Who said trade paperbacks had to include every issue?
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