The Good
Over the last few issues of GREEN LANTERN CORPS, one of my biggest complaints has been a lack of central John Stewart and company stories. This issue teaches me the hard lesson of being careful what I wish for as I get what I wanted, but not in the way I’d planned. John is now a vicious, violent special operative going on a rescue mission to Oa, fallen and now occupied to the now prolific, far-reaching Shadow Empire. He picks up another of his former recruits, now a fully-fledged Lantern, and goes in search of his targets, but finds so much more than he was looking for. Va(aaaaaa)n Jensen goes back to what made me love this book in the first place: a small, intimate character-driven story that casts the Green Lantern Corps as the police of space, even when they're at war. The portrait we’re painted of Stewart is one of a man who’s been through the absolute wringer and come out the other side fundamentally changed, but Jensen doesn’t fall back on easy tropes or cheap shorthand: John feels like he got here organically. It didn’t happen overnight and it’s given him such a bleaker outlook on life and existence in general, including on the sanctity of life. It’s incredibly tragic to see him reconnecting with important people from his past and hardly show a twinge of regret and only the most basic recognition of them.
The art on the book is a mixed bag, which would follow there being so many artists on this issue. Linework is handled by Igor Lima and Ruy Jose with Rodney Buchemi and Geraldo Borges. Marcelo Maiolo colors across the board, giving the whole issue a sense of cohesion and continuity both within itself and with previous issues in the series. The visuals look generally good with a more grounded, realistic look that’s not easy to pull off on a book that takes place in space and stars some of the most bizarre aliens in the DCU. The flow of the issue is also easy to follow, going seamlessly from one location to the next in spite of the book’s many destinations.
The Bad
The art changes abruptly and, while it’s never bad, there are definitely some stylistic differences that I didn’t care for. The details and linework became muddier and less distinct, lessening the emotional force of the imagery.
Like many other Future’s End stories, this feels like it could have, and perhaps should have, been stretched across an entire arc and fits in with his main storyline. Not just seeing how John Stewart got here, I understand that’s a concession of the central storyline, but this issue’s plot resolves too neatly for my taste in a way that isn’t the fault of any of the creators, but a fault of it only being allowed to be a single issue. I hope we come back here as this is one of the most interesting issues, both of CORPS and Future’s End I’ve yet read.
The Verdict
If you’ve enjoyed any of Jansen’s run on GREEN LANTERN: CORPS, but perhaps dropped off during the crossovers, or at any other point, you owe it to yourself to pick this issue up. Even though it’s only a single issue long, the storyline is a return to form and it’s a story well executed. It feels like an excellent combination of a victory lap but also the set up for a new, incredibly interesting potential storyline.
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