Green Lantern Vol. 5 # 45 - Love Hurts

I'm still fairly new to this whole Green Lantern business, but this was one of my favorite issues so far, in fact, I liked this more than the main Blackest Night book. I read it about 4 times just trying to find something new, find something I didn't see or catch before. The art was fantastic and the story, while jumping around a little bit, gave me a grand look at the world outside of Earth in the Blackest Night event. 
  

------SPOILERS------

We start out with John Stewart witnessing a swarm of Black Lantern rings shooting through space and calling from back-up. Unknown to him, they're entering into the astroids around him. The cryptic message, "Worlds have died." is thrown out and on the next two pages we see that the Black Rings have formed a planet from it's piece with the caption, "Worlds will rise." It's a jarring image and only continues to make you wonder what Black Lanterns real objective is. 
 
We then find Carol Ferris fighting off the Sinestro Corps, while also fighting off the Sapphire Ring's mental control over her. The Zamaron queen believing that Carol's time as Star Sapphire before may have given her a resistance. There is also a throw-away line about how Ferris may be perfect for taming the Predator, a.k.a. the Violet avatar.  
 
The battle is really brought to a halt when Sinestro himself shows up and begins breaking out all the captured Sinestro members that the Sapphires were intending to convert to their side. He questions Carol's motives for taking up the ring again, this time willingly. He believes that even if she is doing to save Hal that it will all be for nothing and that Hal will never really love Carol back and that love is a lie. Carol demonstrates her powers and puts Sinestro in a Sapphire crystal where we see that he had a relationship with Abin Sur's sister. As he frees himself he's about to go all out on Carol when he is stopped by the Black Lantern Abin Sur. 
 
Across the Universe at the Red Lantern Homeworld we witness the Alpha Lanterns trying to procure the body of Liara, only to themselves witness a rain of Black Rings, one which lands on Liara's finger. 
 
The story comes to a close with one of my favorite new characters, Agent Orange, as he watches the battle at Odym through his lantern. He's interrupted by a swarm of rings too, all of which animate the corpses around him, causing me to wonder if that means his constructs are gone. This of course is shown in another wonderful 2-page spread. I also really loved that when the Black Rings were buzzing around, all he really wants is his own one. I love Larfleeze!  
 
I loved this issue, it was pretty great. The Art was good, the Story was good, even if some people think it was too hard to follow. 
 
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Wow just wow Sinestro telling Carol she doesn't have to be here and that he holdes no ill will toward Ms. Ferris. That Star Sapphire coming back making Sinestro relive his lost love which was Abin Sur  daughter. Wow. Very Harry Potter like and both of them being caught by the black lanterns how will each survive. Cause we know they have to killing them would just be so wrong.

I'm pretty late to party with this review. To be perfectly honest I got a little burned our on Blackest Night and as a result some of the titles in the story arch sat on my desk until now. I'm glad I read this one because it takes all the played out conventions of Blackest Night stories and ignores them ie. the dead rise and create havoc for loved ones, OMG AWESOME this will surely never get old. Well it did and that's why this issue is awesome. No Hal Jordan. Check this out: No Hal Jordan. And beyond that we get a confrontation between Sinestro and Carol Ferris. It's not one of those Blackest Night confrontations with the whole "I know stuff about you because I straight downloaded 'em" it's real characters dealing with defining issues.
Do the dead rise in this issue?
But it's used more to ramp things up than to show that "Hey the dead are rising. Crazy guys, crazy." I'm going to catch up on more Green Lantern and Corps so don't be surprised if I post more reviews. 
 
And remember "I'll never be a good girl". Thanks Carol.

My first thought when putting this issue down was this:
I'm starting to like that the Green Lantern title is becoming more than a Hal Jordan book.
 
This issue really nails how HUGE this entire story has become. I don't think Hal Jordan appeared once in this entire issue and I didn't care at all.
 
Because Geoff Johns is showing me that GL's supporting cast can be infinitely more intriguing. 
 
I find myself liking Sinestro more and more with every issue. 
There's something really provocative about a character that believes what he's doing is right even though his methodology is completely psychotic. Sinestro believes in the Green Lantern Corps, he believes in order, he believes that the universe is something worth fighting for, he even grudgingly likes Hal Jordan and believes in him. 
But Sinestro is also a murderer, he's in charge of a corps full of murderers, and he'll continue to murder if that means he will bring order to this universe. He'd kill everyone Guardian if he could because of their lack of emotion and vision and it drives him nuts. I love it.
 
Geoff John's treatment of Carol Ferris is very good. 
I don't want to characterize her as a hopeless romantic... Because she's not. 
She truly is in love with Hal Jordan and it's never gone away. After their break ups, after the years apart, even after all the hurt she's still there for her man. Johns nails what it's like to love someone unequivocally and the embodiment of that is Carol Ferris.
 
This issue doesn't really take the Blackest Night storyline any further. Black rings are still being dispersed across the universe and people are rising from their graves.
 
Abin Sur shows up. Like you didn't see that coming?
 
The Black rings are affecting every corps across the galaxy.
And I have to admit I kinda laughed when I saw Larfleeze's reaction to the situation he finds himself in.

I thought this issue was good, but did they get it right? Was this supposed to be a Green Lantern Corps issue? Where is Hal ? This issue felt more like a GL Corps issue than a Green Lantern issue. This issue has the Green Lanterns Corps, Blue Lanterns Corps, Sinestro Corps, Black Lanterns Corps, Red Lanterns Corps, Orange Lantern Corps, and the Star Sapphire Corps, but no Hal which is typical of the GL Corps volume. When I got to the end of this issue I honestly forgot this was Green Lantern, I thought it was GL Corps. But with that said, I thought it was an ok issue. I give it 3 out of 5. The story was entertaining, it did touch basis on each Corps, and it had a lot of fighting, over all it was entertaining. The best part I thought was when Agent Orange was surrounded by a bunch of Black Lanterns. “OOOoooOOoOOooooooOOooo A Black ring?!” “Where did you come from?!” “GIMME!”