So all of these stories have one big thing in common: Death. The opening chapter that promises to give us backgrounds on the players in the rainbow of corps currently clogging DCU's spaceways is not really uneven, it just isn't that good. The art is fantastic in all three stories, but the writing in all three wasn't even as good as the backups we were getting during Sinestro Corps War and the Orange Lantern story.Tale #1 by Geoff Johns and Jerry Ordway is a pretty depressing story where Saint Walker loses each member of his family while on a pilgrimage to find someone to save his world. I never like seeing kids die, and adding in the death of Walker's wife and father just made this seem like overkill. I like that Walker can maintain his "All will be well" attitude when his life has gone down the crapper so much, but man, this was depressing.
Tale #2 by Peter Tomasi and Chris Samnee gives us a little background on the current Mongul. We see him as a boy in awe of his father, the first Mongul, and we get to see how twisted and messed up Jr.'s values are after having a family like that. I'm impressed that Mongul is still a junior and that Superboy's punching didn't re-write Mongal out of existence. This is packed with lots of casual death too, as the Mongul family enslave and kill a spaceship full of refugees. Again, a real uplifting story.
Tale #3 is our first glimpse of the Indigo Tribe from Geoff Johns and Rags Morales. I really liked the designs for the Tribe, especially the weird little octopus man. The "Nek. Nok. Nuk." dialogue was sort of silly (and reminiscent of the Three Stooges!) but I can appreciate the mystery. I found it interesting that Indigo finishes off a wounded GL in this, rounding out the trifecta of death in each story.
Again, the art was beautiful in each of these tales, but man, with all that death, DCU space must be an awful place to be.
Average
2 comments:
The stories in this little book went from great to "Huh?" for me. I really liked the Saint Walker story. It was amazingly sad, but gave great insight to this new character who has become such a major part of the Green Lantern universe.
The second story was okay, but felt a tad too "filler-ish". It seemed like the kind of thing that would have made more sense as a backup in an arc of Green Lantern Corps (where Mongul has been a major player) rather than in this issue.
I'm still not sure I understood the last story, and as a result it stands as a bit of a failure in my book. I just don't know that I understood the point of it. It reminded me of the scene in Dude Where's My Car where they say, "It is an item of great power and great mystery, who's power is only surpassed by it's mystery." I didn't really learn anything about the Indigo tribe except that they are powerful and mysterious and that their inclusion in the issue means they must play some role.... eventually ... in Blackest Night.
I'm going to be a wise-ass and reply
"Nok."
C'mon, isn't that clear? ;)
Post a Comment