Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Green Lantern #49

By Hervé St-Louis
December 28, 2009 - 20:20

Green Lantern John Stewart Goes to planet Xanshi, or what remains of it, and meets many Black Lanterns and former Green Lantern Driq, who was half dead. Driq warns John of the peril of the Black Lanterns, but not soon enough to stop Stewart’s deceased wife, Katma Tui from attacking. John has to rely on his marine training to get out alive. Will he make it?

The comic book world has now fully integrated the version of John Stewart that was a marine in the Justice League cartoon series.  While a lot of juggling and suspension of disbelief has to be done to allow this part of John’s life to emerge, the writer clearly believe this is a good thing to align closely the character with his best remembered incarnation. However, whether this is the first time this part of his past is used or not it’s out of synch with the character. John was known as a thinker, an architect. Now they have him act as a straight shooter and suddenly remembering all of his marine training which he never referred to or used before.  This is how Geoff Johns writes and why I rarely follow his work. He wants everything to fit and will go to lengths to stretch the impossible so everything fits nicely under the rug, no matter how many calluses that gives to readers’ feet. Now if they could only make John as interesting in the comic book as he was in the cartoon series, that would not be in vain. But here, he’s just boring, although the actual fight is interesting.

Benes draws this issue well although he still is a poor storyteller that relies on grandstanding shots of people standing around full of angst without doing much. The section by Marco Marz actually show what a better artist can deliver in but a few pages and how Benes is overrated and out of his league in a book like Green Lantern.

Rating: 6.5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12