Green Lantern #40

The Guardians have dispatched Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and a crew of mostly unnamed GLs to raid the Vega system. At Sayd's urging, the corps will no longer stay out of Vega, and they are targeting all the galactic criminals who have been hiding from justice for years and years. At the urging of the corrupted Guardian Sayd, the Guardians themselves are heading to Vega to take on Larfleeze and his Orange Lantern Corps. Geoff Johns confirms the theories about the Orange Lantern Corps, they are energy constructs made up of anyone consumed by Larfleeze or an Orange Lantern. We see the GL of the Vega system get chewed up and immediately he regenerates as an evil Orange Lantern. It is a neat idea, and it seems Johns will be doing back-up stories of the Orange Corps. The backup here was entertaining and introduced a fun (and hungry) new villain. I am really pretty impressed at how well Geoff Johns is differentiating his corps. They all have different feels to them.

I didn't realize how much I'd been missing John Stewart in this title until he showed up here. I also got a real kick out of seeing the squad of GL's accompanying the Guardians into the Vega system. The whole sequence really had a police raid to it, which is a perfect fit for a space-cop book. I believe the only non-headlining but still-named GL is Torquemada, the magic-wielding GL. I hope he doesn't get killed off. I love the variety in that 2nd tier of GLs, and he's a neat part of that group. I find it interesting that Sayd didn't accompany the other Guardians to Vega. There's no way the Guardians will be slaughtered again, right? Since Ganthet is no longer part of that crew, I could actually see the Guardians' ranks thinned quite a bit, but I don't know if I'd like the idea.

Phillip Tan's art seems a bit less sketchy this time. Almost like he had more time on the first issue, but that extra time didn't actually make it better. I enjoyed his take on Fatality-Sapphire at the opening of the book and his Orange Lantern designs are fantastic. Overall, Johns is trucking along nicely with the rainbow corps story. He's won me over and I'm excited to see where all this goes.

Good