If you follow Green Lantern you should be familiar with the war of light and the emotional spectrum, so you know all about the different colored Corps. For those of you who haven’t been following, here’s a quick run through. There’s the Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet colored Corps. Each Corps represents an emotion, Rage, Avarice, Fear, Willpower (which isn’t technically an emotion), Hope, Compassion, and Love, respectively. Each Corps uses the different emotion to channel energy from their ring to create constructs. Well ever since the relaunch DC has put a member of each Corps together and called them the New Guardians. Bleez represents the Red Lanterns, Glomulus is on loan from Larfleeze, Arkillo comes from the Sinestro Corps, Kyle Rayner is a member of the Green Lanterns, Saint Walker is a Blue Lantern, Munk is from the Indigo Tribe, and Fatality is a member of the Star Sapphires. Now that the history lesson is out of the way, what’s going on with the New Guardians?
From the last issue the New Guardians have entered different planets on the solar system sized ship, known as the Orrery, in pairs of two, Kyle is with Glomulus, Munk is with Fatality, and Arkillo and Walker have paired up. They all find menacing statues and the locals recognize the symbol on Glomulus’ chest and run in fear. So this issue opens with the groups talking about where they are and about the statues. Kyle finds out the person the statues represent is called Archangel. As Kyle manages to inform the other Lanterns of this, Archangel comes through one of his statues and attacks. As the Lanterns regroup the issue ends with Bleez coming back to the Orrery in search of the Lanterns.
The story Tony Bedard writes is engaging, the interactions between the Lanterns makes for a good read. I didn’t think I’d care much for an orange construct as part of the group, but Glomulus is hilarious, he hams it up every chance he’s in a panel with funny faces or sounds. One thing I really liked was Kyle not being able to communicate with the rings of the other Lanterns. It makes complete since that the different rings would need to receive transmissions from the same emotion that fuels them. This originally seemed like it was a going to be a good obstacle for Kyle to overcome, but two pages later it seems like he just says he’s feeling those emotions in a fit of rage. Maybe it worked because he still had residual charges from the other rings, but I thought it’d be more difficult for him to communicate after the way it was set up.
Artistically this series has been very pleasing. Tyler Kirkham’s art is very smooth and fluid. One of the major draws for me has been the way energy discharges are depicted. When Archangel is blasting Fatality(sounds dirty) and she is retaliating, the energy blasts look great. I also really like the cover, and not just because they put Fatality in the most graphic position possible.
I have been really pleased with this series so far and this issue wasn’t any different. There is a good group dynamic that makes the comic enjoyable. If you aren’t picking this title up, I would recommend it.
Art: 8/10
Script: 8/10
Parental Concern: All ages
This series is like a rollercoaster. One issue is awesome the next is like “I am going to drop this title.” It’s nice to see they are finally coming up with some sort of arc here and it is really awesome that it is some sort of origin story on Larfleeze.
