I started reading Green Lantern during Johns run at the start of the Sinestro Corps War all the way through to Johns last issue in Green Lantern #20. I liked his run, a lot. There were moments that it was dull but he gave use some good story arcs along the way. For me the good outweighed the not so good. The ending was a bit of a let down but overall it didn't ruin my overall appreciation for his work on the title.
Now to the point of this thread. I finally read Green Lanter #21 and 22 the first issues of Robert Venditti's run. Before deciding to read the series I thought about taking a break from GL after all I had been reading nonstop for several years now. However I felt that I should see what the new guy was going to do with these characters.
The verdict is that so far these two issues have been good. However Venditti is picking up right where Johns left off. The story still feels very much like it is still part of Johns's run. That's not a bad thing mind you. We get some new elements such as Hal is now the leader of the GLC. A very interesting concept. However I was hoping that maybe we'd leave this cosmic stuff behind for a while. Maybe let Hal Hang in Coast City, be a superhero there instead of flying around space. Or shift focus to the newest human GL, Simon Baz. Leave the flying in space stuff to the GLC title.
For me I'll stick around for the first arc and see where it goes. The writing and the art are solid. Hal as the leader of the corps now is intriguing. I was just hoping that after Johns left a new writer would shake up the title just the way Johns did when he took over.
So has anybody else read this? What did you think?
You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!
Replies
I'm not reading it, but I think I would have maybe picked it up if I heard about a "bold new direction". That didn't happen, though, so I figured I'd give it the rest of my DC treatment with the exception of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman Unchained. As I posted elsewhere, Batman Inc. was my third, but as of today, I'm only reading three titles from DC.
I guess I'm not complaining, though, because I'm reading a whole lot of Marvel and Image right now.
The major difference I've noticed with the GL family since Johns and crew have left is that my interest has flip flopped. Before the shakeup, I thought Green Lantern was by far the strongest title and the rest were pretty weak to downright awful. Since the new teams have come on board, Green Lantern is the one I'm least interested in of the four main titles. The quality hasn't nose dived or anything, but the secondary titles have gotten a lot better.
New Guardians seems to actually have a point besides simply padding, John Stewart's actually interesting for the first time in a looooonng while, and Soule has made Gardner and the Red Lanterns quirky and fun, (still pretty violent but it feels like it's coming from the characters instead of just there for empty, "ain't it cool", spectacle). Meanwhile, Green Lantern's just chugging along, trying to coordinate and put the pieces in place for the next crossover... kind of weird considering the next big threat is coming directly from New Guardians.
I've read the first two issues by Venditti, and it is just a constant reminder of why I don't really dig current GL. I don't want to repeat myself, but you can see my thoughts here.
I read issue 23 last night. While it's still a continuation of Johns run this issue really hit a high on the emotions scale. I mean for the characters. The frustration of rebuilding a new corps and training new recruits is coming across loud and clear through the pages. Hal started out almost ready for the challenge, now he's reverted back to gung ho, shoot first ask questions later Hal Jordan. Kilowog is now the record keeper of the corps, not a position he's particularly cut out for. His aggravation shows. A few new villains are introduced, rather teased. I realized I didn't put a spoiler tag on the heading. So I'll do that first before I keep going.
This issue convinced me to hang on for a bit longer. While Johns told big, sprawling space epics I get the feeling Venditti is going to make these epics a bit more real and personal for our heroes.
Jason, a couple of questions:
1) Who's doing the art on GL now and what do you think of it?
2) Are you reading GL Corps, GL New Guardians, or Red Lanterns? If so, what do you think of them?
I'm not reading any other GL series. I will sometimes check in to see what's going on. It's been awhile since I've read another title so maybe it's time to take a look.
I caught up this weekend on this series. It's still solid and the writer is taking the title in an interesting direction.
However, having read GL since the Sinestro Corps War I've decided to take a break. The story is solid but I'm ready to move on from Hal for a while and check something else out.
I've been taking a financially enforced break from comics in general. I hadn't been reading any of the GL-related titles since that stuff with The First Lantern and The Third Army. I didn't really enjoy much of those stories at all so it was easy to drop the line at that point.
Two days ago, ComiXology had a one day only sale on GL-related titles.
I bought Larfleeze 1-7 because it's Giffen & DeMatteis writing. No, I don't need another reason. I've only read the first issue so far but I liked it.
I bought Green Lantern: New Guardians 21-27 because Kyle is my favorite ring-bearer from Earth. The title is fairly misleading since it stars the White Lantern (Kyle) and a Star Sapphire (Carol) but doesn't feature a Green Lantern. The "New Guardians" I can kind of accept because it does have Guardians of the Galaxy Universe that we only recently met so they're new to us. With DC's seeming eagerness to cancel titles and launch new ones, it is surprising that they didn't do so here. As for the story...eh. I liked it. I certainly didn't love it. Speaking of love, Carol having romantic feelings for Kyle is an interesting twist. Issue 27 was my favorite of the seven issues I read. Overall, I'm glad that I paid only 99c an issue for them.
I'm not a big Hal Jordan fan so I passed on most of the primary Green Lantern title. The solicitation paragraphs didn't intrigue me enough. I bought 23.4 because I enjoy Sinestro stories and Annual 2 because it wrapped up a story that also had an issue of New Guardians. The Sinestro story was decent. I liked reading about his history from the point of view of someone who very nearly worships him. The annual, which was the finale to the "Lights Out" crossover, was OK. I liked Relic--he also appeared in several issues of New Guardians--but I actually dislike Hal more now than when I started.
Speaking of disliking Hal, having him ask Guy to voluntarily become a Red Lantern was a pretty scummy thing to do. Issues 21 & 22 were very good at setting up the new status quo in Red Lanterns. I may not like that Hal asked Guy to do such a terrible thing but I like Guy's motivation for doing so. I'll pick up more issues of this title when I can.
I completely passed on whatever the title with John Stewart is. Yeah, I was so unimpressed by the synopsis that I don't even remember the name of the book. I like John a little more than Hal but he's still not someone I care about that much so I completely passed on the issues.
Now, I almost went back and bought all the issues on sale that I hadn't bought in round one of purchasing. I figured the price was right and even if I didn't love them then it was still worth a shot. It was past midnight EST, though, and the sale was over.
One thing I missed when looking over the issues that were on sale was the presence of Simon Baz. What happened to him?