Love's Not So Simple
Ugh, I thought this series was finally DONE with Ed Benes and his horrible exploitive artwork. Sigh, but no, the issue where we have Bleez vs. Star Sapphire just HAS to have the master of T&A on art duties. It's actually reasonably tame for Benes, but the design fails on so many levels. It's INSANELY overcluttered, the character are too big, and it's just so damn stiff. The stupid banner can't even make this cover any worse.
The artwork I'm very mixed on. I think it suited the atmosphere of Stormwatch MUCH better, though the excessive debris is interestingly fitting for Red Lanterns. I actually really LIKE the art, but it doesn't seem right here. Plus the way Sepulveda draws some of the characters is really off. Atrocitus has this tendency to look totally goofy, and Dex-Starr tends to either look totally alien, or like a dog. It's a shame because otherwise I'm SUPER HAPPY to see Dex-Starr becoming more prominent. Sigh.
Atrocitus' part in this issue is minimal, balanced out from the previous issue, but it's more central to the story. He's investigating far and wide now, instead of following some hair-brained lead that makes no sense.
Speaking of which, as the cover might suggest, most of this issue revolves around Bleez and Fatality. And to me, it was just terrible. Milligan's done a great job expanding the idea of the Red Lantern Corps, but he boils down the Violet Lantern Corps into a stupid sexist stereotype. There has been an impressive level of depth to the Violet Lantern Corps in general, though all members have been female, it was never stated to actually be a rule. They weren't totally brainwashed hippies. But then, in Milligan's mind, apparently they're a bunch of gender exclusionist brainwashed hippies.
And then Fatality and Bleez get into some crazy fight that deteriorates into them yelling about the merits of their emotion in the spectrum while in some weird vortex of mixing energy or something, I don't even remember, it made no sense. I was too busy nursing a headache induced by Fatality's painfully awful dialogue, far too wooden exposition and a terrible depiction of the Violet Lantern Corps.
The BEST part of the issue was also the shortest, and of course goes back to my problems on enjoyment almost half the series ago, Rankorr. Rankorr's stuff is by far the most interesting. He's new to space, and when he discovers he's absolutely alone, there's an EXTREMELY GORGEOUS two page spread of space. He thinks some interesting stuff, and I wish we would've focused on him FAR more than Bleez and Fatality's godawful catfight abomination thing.
In Conclusion: 2.5/5
Oh, I forgot to mention, the pacing's a weird mess. The issue starts out with Bleez and co. (Minus Rankorr for whatever the hell reason) already captured by the Star Sapphires. It only flashes back when RANKORR remembers how he got alone. There's little to no framing for anything in this issue, handwaved in later, after the damage of the terrible catfight had already been done to death. Still, despite looking awkward, Atrocitus' story portion moved along decently enough, and Rankorr's stuff was SUPER good. But there was a ton of bad stuff.
