Blackest Night

[RJDiogenes]

I thought Englehart did that thing with the Guardians and the Zamarons when he was on the book-- or did he pick up the idea from Crisis? Anyway, I loved his run on GL. I love almost everything he does.

[Unicron]

Yeah, one issue with the Guardians is that aside from the ones that have actual names (Krona, Ganthet and Sayd), the remainder are purposely kind of one-dimensional. I thought some aspects were handled in WotGL: Aftermath, when several Lanterns attacked the citadel thinking that the Guardians had no real clue what to do, and might appeal to Sinestro's warped sense of order. The Guardian who gives the speech about how everyone in the Corps suffered did good.

[Shiv'kala]

Part of the problem is that when I first started reading, the Guardians had names. Appa Ali Apsa was the Guardian who joined Hal and Ollie on their trip through America in the 70's. He was given the nickname, "Old Timer." His experience caused him to give up his immortality and travel the universe. When the Guardians left with the Zamarons, he was left to oversee the Lanterns. After the Central Power Battery was destroyed following the Corps decision to execute Sinestro, he lived on Oa alone. Somehow, he gained his powers back and, after feeling lonely, pulled cities from the planets he visited to Oa, creating the Mosiac. The Guardians returned and Appa died in the ensuing battle, though John Stewart, given the job of protecting the Mosiac, felt he could still hear his voice. Herupa Hando Hu was the Guardian who initiated their rejoining with the Zamarons and then their eventual retreat from the universe to create offspring. He and his Zamaron mate returned to usher in the next stage of evolution for humanity, giving his life to empower several humans as the New Guardians.

Krona did make mention of this and he even named Herupa Hando Hu, which tells me, that either the Guardians leaving the universe after the Crisis was either retconned away prior to the nuDCU or what Kyle did to bring back the Guardians as Ion returned all the Guardians, including those who died prior to Parallax's attack on Oa.

[Unicron]

Isn't continuity fun?

[Shiv'kala]

Even moreso with the nu52!

[Unicron]

I wonder how long it will be before DC gets its own version of Furmanisms.

[Shiv'kala]

Not sure how many times it's appeared in canon, but Batman yelling, "My parents are dead!" should definitely go on that list!

[Unicron]

Some of the more amusing ones occur within the same issue, and sometimes even by the same character repeating themselves. Getting back to GL, I've found Soranik Natu to be one of the more interesting additions.

[Unicron]

Got my copy of GLC Brightest Day: The Weaponer today. It's looking to be a much nicer tie-in than I initially expected.

[Shiv'kala]

Wasn't a big fan of that arc. Tony Bedard is an interesting case. Usually, when I like a writer, I like them with most of their works and when I don't like a writer, I don't like the majority of their works. Bedard, on the other hand, wrote some of, in my opinion, the most boring Legion of Super-Heroes stories between Mark Waid's departure and Jim Shooter's time on the title. His R.E.B.E.L.S series was, in my opinion, pretty damned awesome. However, his work on Green Lantern Corps left me kind of bored. I thought the Weaponer arc went on for far longer than it should have and lost my attention partway through.

[Unicron]

It was what, about six issues or so? I don't always keep track because I usually buy TPBs, but I suppose I sometimes tend to consider that relatively small if it's part of an overall arc. YMMV.

[Shiv'kala]

I haven't picked up Red Lanterns, but I've heard that it's not that good. Green Lantern: New Guardians is Kyle in place of Hal. Somehow, rings from the other Corps seek out Kyle and so do members of the other Corps. I got the first issue, wasn't in love with it and dropped it.

I just started re-reading "War of the Green Lanterns." I'm curious if it holds up (a) under the nu52 and (b) on its own. "B" refers to the fact that I thought it was infinitely better than the previous years worth of GL stories. Now I'm interested to see if I'm judging it on its own if it will still hold up.

[Shiv'kala]

So, overall, I did enjoy my re-read of "War of the Green Lanterns" and I thought it held up. The strongest parts were the focus on the human Lanterns and especially seeing them work their new (temporary) rings. I also enjoyed their visit to the center of Oa and the reveal of all of the stuff the Guardians had (hidden?) there.

I still take issue with John's handling of Mogo, especially in light of a recent event in Green Lantern Corps. Again, part of this is adjusting to the differences in continuity from when I started reading comics. That John Stewart loved show-tunes and Barbara Streisand. Gerard Jones did a great character study of John in Green Lantern: Mosiac and that John would never have committed the action this John did. I'm not a big fan of using the Marines backstory that was a part of the JLU John in the comics. As the old debate goes, I would have no problem with another character being written as John is, I just don't see why it had to be John. Taking out Mogo as he did should have been the end of John as a Green Lantern and yet the Guardians overlooked it, most likely due to the fact that the story would have had less impact of Hal and John lost their rings. The post-"WotGL" issues did a good job of showing how the Corps reacted to his actions, but it seems to have been swept under the rug in the nu52, though, again, recent events in the comics may bring it up again.

I also was a little annoyed at how Red Lantern Guy was characterized, but I understand why it was done. The original concept of the Red Lanterns was that only Atrocitus retained independent thought and action, while the others were simply guided by rage and almost feral in nature. By the last few chapters of the storyline, Guy was acting as usual, but with some blood coming out of his mouth. At least in Blackest Night, Red Lantern Guy as feral.

My last little nitpick is with Ganthet saying Kyle is unprepared for a Blue Ring. I thought, aside from Hal, who had experience with the yellow spectrum, Kyle handled his new ring the best out of the four. While the others seemed to think it was messing with his mind, I think it was very much in character. I really wished that they had kept him as a Blue Lantern, which would have set him apart and opened up new possibilities for stories. But again, I think it would have lessened the impact of the ending if John was kicked out along with Hal and Kyle gave up being a GL to be a BL.

[Unicron]

I kind of got the impression that the Mogo thing is open to interpretation - no doubt that John was forced to take a very radical action, and wasn't fond of Kyle's inference in Aftermath that he only did it because he was channeling the Black Lantern energy Mogo had absorbed rather than choosing what seemed like the least of evils. The way Krona's message is portrayed to him in the War arc, it's not such a stretch to assume Krona was essentially being truthful and there was little Kyle and John could do to influence Mogo. I think if there's a potential issue with how that aspect was handled, it was that John's hand could have been argued to have been a little too heavily forced. Kyle tried to get through to Mogo with the blue ring, only to be blocked somewhat conveniently by the residual black energy. Energy that might not have even been a significant threat, going by Mogo's comments in Blackest Night when he absorbed the Black Lanterns.

The Red Lanterns seem to in part be influenced by will. Atrocitus isn't feral because he combines his rage and will perfectly, and Guy and Hal were also shown to be able to retain some of their intelligence while under the red influence (though Guy, unlike Hal, also was able to use his green ring and not have it shut down). I think in general the red rings do blind their wearers with rage, but that it's also possible for some of them to gather enough will to at least try to fight it. Laira managed to ask Hal for help in Rage of the Red Lanterns before Sinestro killed her.

[Shiv'kala]

After re-reading "The Sinestro Corps War," it seems odd that Mogo's death has had such a little impact on the Corps. We were lead to believe that Mogo was the Corps means of guiding rings to new recruits and that all recruiting would stop, dead, if Mogo fell. The early Green Lantern Corp issues also lead us to believe that Mogo was the primary mental health expert for the Corp as well, and a loss of Mogo would result in unstable Lanterns.