Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Green Lantern #57

By Colin Andersen
September 10, 2010 - 17:58

I’m really glad that Geoff Johns has managed to find a central story for Green Lantern to follow again. From the beginning of this current run of Green Lantern, Johns had been building up to his Blackest Night storyline, but once that was over, it seemed like the series had nowhere to go anymore and just kind of meandered for a while. Now, Johns has gotten the story back on track with a mystery character collecting the entities that represent each of the various colored Lantern Corps. While it’s nice there is an actual story to follow now, the book still isn’t nearly as focused as it once was and definitely suffers for it.
   

This issue picks up where the last issue left off: with Hector Hammond having eaten the Orange Power Battery and becoming possessed by its entity. However, don’t expect that plot to hang around long. It is mainly used as a tenuous method to send Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Orange Lantern Larfleeze to Las Vegas to help Carol Ferris fight off the violet entity. Most of the issue is actually Carol trying to find a way to capture the entity to power her Corps’ failing power battery. This is a much less Hal-focused issue, which is fine, but the issue itself just seems strange and almost like filler even though there are some important moments that occur within the issue. I did not much care for the resolution of the main conflict of the issue, nor did I understand entirely why the conflict began in the first place, though I suppose it makes sense given the story Johns is telling. What bothered me the most was the way the Hector Hammond plotline was dropped so early in the issue and never seen again; it just seemed like at least a little more could have been done with it.

    Where Johns continues to excel, however, is in the voices of the characters he writes. Hal continues to be the concerned, but arrogant space cop, but Carol and Larfleeze benefit the most from the writing this issue. Carol finally gets a chance to distance herself from the her stereotyped role as Hal’s love interest. She’s fleshed out here and given a real personality that makes choices of her own and is trying to control her own destiny instead of just being caught up in events. The end of the issue even introduces a somewhat cliché little twist, but one that might make Carol an even more interesting member of the book’s cast. I’ve enjoyed Larfleeze as the comic relief character since his introduction, but lately he’s been growing increasingly less interesting as his routine began to grow stale. Luckily, Johns addresses this as well and gives Larfleeze some more personality beyond just his greed while still making the greed a part of him. Possibly most importantly, there’s a hint as to some of Larfleeze’s back story here as well that I’m hoping will be explored more in the future, He might just be a much more sympathetic character than all his previous appearance might have led readers to believe.

    I used to really not like artist Doug Mahnke’s pencils but ever since he took over Green Lantern, he has been winning me over on a monthly basis. Though his work here isn’t as good as it was during the Blackest Night crossover issues, it still looks really good. He draws a really great Larfleeze and even manages to make the goofy, retro armor violet entity has in this issue look pretty cool. It is pretty clear, at least to my tastes, that his strong suit is not drawing all of the human characters, but the ones that are much crazier looking. His Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris have a tendency to drastically change bodily proportions, especially on their upper half, but all the aliens Mahnke draws look great.

    Green Lantern is certainly not as good as it was during, or even before, Blackest Night, but it is finally beginning to catch up some. If you weren’t a GL fan before, this probably won’t be the issue to win you over, but if you were, then this issue will be a good bit of fun. I’d like to see the overall plot of the kidnapping of the entities start to get explored some more in the near future, but so long as the character writing stays strong, I’ll be back every month to see what shenanigans the various Corps get up to.

Rating: 7 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12