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Red Lanterns #35 - Godhead, Act I, Part V: God is Red

3

The Wheel deals with Guy and Simon. All Lanterns must perish!

The Good

After the events of the previous story line, Guy seamlessly relaxes on a beach. However, he's really there to take down a new growing power and in the midst of that, a group of the New Gods called "The Wheel" head to Earth to kill Guy. Luckily, Simon Baz is there to help.

What this book does extremely well is make sure that it doesn't reveal too much about the last arc, so fans who enjoyed this issue will go back and read more. Writer Charles Soule makes you want to go back and see what happened to Guy in the last arc. The series has a strong connectivity to itself, even in the midst of a larger-form crossover.

Simon Baz is back! Sure, there's way too many human Lanterns, but I'm a bit of a Simon Baz fanboy. The character has potential and he was shelved right after his creation, so I'll take any Baz I can get. I'm intrigued about how this team-up is going to work, since these characters have vastly different personalities, but from what we have so far, I'm liking the results.

We do get treated to some awesome fight scenes with Guy vs The Wheel. Artist J Calafiore draws Guy puking blood onto someone's face like no one else. The fight scenes are pretty brutal and a blast to see. Calafiore and Soule gives readers a "no holds barred" approach to the New Gods and Guy Gardner which is a great fit to the issue. The New Gods fight just as pompous as they talk to the humans around them. They're all about strength and ending the conflict with one move. You learn a lot about these characters through their fighting styles.

The Bad

This issue has a lot of rough edges, and quite frankly, is not a great fit for Godhead, in the grand scheme of things. The last story wrapped up too quickly, and there's no time to deal with the aftermath, so it's shoe-horned into the opening pages of this book. In addition, it feels like this issue treats its readers a bit like they have no clue what's going on in the other Lantern books. Simon Baz explains what's going on to Guy, who truly has been separated from everything that's happening to the Green Lantern Corps, but it's done in a way that feels like it's geared more towards readers than anything else.

It feels like this is almost a "one and done" crossover with no baring on the larger story. By then end of the issue, Guy states that this isn't over, but when you compare this introductory Godhead stories to the rest of the series doing the exact same thing, it comes off as very weak. Obviously, we shouldn't try to be comparing all these books, by different creative teams, but each introductory book has either an impact on the event or a specific point. All RED LANTERNS #35 seems to do is bring both Guy and Simon together.

Art is an extremely tough job and J Calafiore's work is normally fantastic. However, there were some real problems with Guy in the opening scenes. He's drawn with the same statue and build as Ultimate Warrior. If you don't get that reference, then he looks like a guy who never stops working out: a man with 0% body fat. Guy is a moderately muscular person, but this was a bit over-the-top.

The Verdict

This is a decent issue of RED LANTERNS, but not the greatest of tie-in issues. It doesn't add much to the main story and to fully appreciate what it going on, you have to read the last part of the story line, which took place in GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS, but you should be reading that if you're invested in Godhead already. There are some great fight scenes in here and Simon Baz teaming up with Guy Gardner is promising, but overall it was a bit of a let down. It's still good, but not on par with the rest of the issues of Godhead thus far.