The Good
As the First Lantern continues to alter the realities and strip the emotion from beings from the entire spectrum, one entity finally speaks up: Mogo is here to save the day. Mogo’s death was one of the most intense moments from the storyline immediately leading up to the New-52, but I won’t lie: It’s good to see the ol’ planetoid back and in full working order. Peter Tomasi brings together the most Corps characters from all corners of the galaxy that we’ve seen yet, and does it all for a very good reason. The First Lantern is running roughshod over the universe, and a decent resistance has got to form before everything is consumed. Tomasi also does a great job of eschewing the usual superhero trope of the heroes of different allegiances all fighting before uniting against a common foe by throwing a series of Lantern spectrum-doppelgangers at the various assembled characters, which brings me to the art.
Fernando Pasarin’s art is solid and entirely appropriate throughout the issue, but he also gets to illustrate a six-page battle royale between the Lanterns’ projected spectrum clones and absolutely nails it. There isn’t any dialog, so the reader's eye moves across the page at a frantic pace befitting what’s going on and everything looks crisp, clean and very exciting. This is an underused device, having no dialog through an entire battle, so it’s very striking and works very well in this case. The issue also stands fairly well on its own, following directly from the last issue of Green Lantern Corps rather than the last issue in the First Lantern cross-over.
The Bad
The fight I mentioned above? Without giving away too much: it’s essentially meaningless and reduced to a plot contrivance. In side-stepping one trope, it feels like we’ve plowed headlong into another: the fight that’s there merely because action is expected in every issue. We’ve seen fights like this before and as amazingly staged and as well-paced as it is, the whole thing rings hollow by the end. And as much as I’m glad to see Mogo back, it is used as a kind of titanic deus-ex machina as it’s able to rescue literally every Green Lantern (that doesn’t have his own solo series) from the First Lantern. And all that happens within the first few pages, so there's very little suspense.
The Verdict
I’d recommend this issue to anyone heavily invested in the Wrath of the First Lantern storyline, though those people are likely already going to buy it. Fans of Green Lantern Corps as a title likely won’t be disappointed either, but ultimately the entire issue, no matter how well drawn or paced, rings rather hollow and bereft of focus or character development. Mogo’s return is quickly reduced to an easy plot device and, while I hope it will have far-reaching implications, at the time being it’s merely a drop in the bucket of the greater plot. This entire event is beginning to feel very, very rushed, just as the last Green Lantern event was quickly swept aside as this one began.