Go Go Emotion Rangers!
Look, it's better than the Green Lantern banner because I get the point of this one. It's not hyping a movie that didn't need extra hype, and its for a good cause. But it doesn't change the fact that the "We Can Be Heroes" banner is a huge detriment to the covers its on. Although this wasn't exactly a stellar cover to begin with. Pretty standard. But the banner forces the logo down, which completely blocks Arkillo, and then the light hand of Invictus just makes the whole thing super crowded.
This issue has A LOT of fighting, and a lot of fantastic expressions of all the character development its had. We get an explanation of Invictus' history from the only one who could bring him down to talking, the purity of St. Walker. And I love how Larfleeze's stupidly blind greed is technically responsible for Invictus being so strong. But it starts up a fantastic debate on ethics between a space angel millions of years old, and lanterns representing different emotions. It's really just such an intriguing discussion. But it amounts to little when Bleez returns in a blaze of rage.
And then the fighting resumes, but hidden in the battle is little touches of character moments. The Lanterns are all starting to work together, and strategize in ways that have them rely on each other. And Arkillo comes so close to calling St. Walker his friend. And of course it is THIS character development here that prevents this issue from ending essentially how it began. Kyle Rayner understands this, and uses it to change the nature of the battle, leaving a pretty hefty cliffhanger at the end.
Larfleeze is still around despite not being in the attack party. So happy to see every single moment of this crazy guy.
Tyler Kirkham's artwork makes the action epic, and also does a gret job with the facial expressions. A lot of them are really extreme, but surprisingly don't feel over-the-top.
I'm a little confused about the beginning now though. Have we confirmed that Larfleeze and/or Sayd was the one(s) who stole the rings and sent them to Kyle? And if so, how? But the main problem I have, is that combining that with the end of this issue; where is this series going to go next? Bedard has kind of put fires around to burn all the bridges back to the status quo this series is just barely establishing. Will they still stick together as a team once they don't have a reason to? Bleez sure doesn't have any ties to the others and certainly has lots of her own stuff going on in Red Lanterns, Munk barely has a reason to stick around as does Fatality, although the two of them have more noble guiding emotions that might function as reasons in and of themselves. And if they're going to be pitted against Larfleeze, won't they lose Glomulus?
In Conclusion: 4/5
Overall this was a pretty great issue. Lots of awesome action sprinkled with some great demonstrations of character development. The only major flaw here is that it creates a lot of questionable uncertainties for the future of the series.
