Green Lantern - New Guardians #22

The Creative Team:

Writer:  Justin Jordan

Art:  Brad Walker, Andrew Hennessy

Get Caught Up...

Kyle Rayner, the sole White Lantern, has a new mission:  glorified babysitter to the remaining Guardians, keeping an eye on them for Hal Jordan and making sure they don’t behave like their predecessors.  In their adventures they come across a newly awakened threat, the mysterious Relic.

What’s Good?

I’m loving Jordan’s take on this book.  He’s sending Kyle Rayner in an interesting direction and managing to tie New Guardians into the overall Lantern Universe in an organic way.  His relationship with Carol Ferris was unexpected, but I like her presence in the book as both Ferris and Star Sapphire.  

Relic as a villain is presented in a really appropriate manner for a Green Lantern title.  His motivations and abilities are not obvious and he undoubtedly has a fairly hefty backstory that is going to play out over the course of this storyline and probably into the upcoming “Lights Out” event.  I like a good mystery.  Sometimes it is nice to have the cards laid out in front of you, but other times I enjoy a slow reveal in regards to why a character is behaving in a certain way.

While Relic is mostly shrouded in mystery, we do know he is a remnant from a previous universe.  The most interesting part of this issue was the reveal that he is very familiar with the power of the Light, and that the White Light is a new aspect of it to him.  I am looking forward to finding out more about Relic and his impressive power set.

Walker and Hennessy’s art is just getting better.  I have long believed that the key to being  a successful Green Lantern artist is being able to believably draw non-human forms of life and not have them come off too goofy-looking.  Walker and Hennessy deliver on this front.

What’s Not So Good?

While I liked the inclusion of Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire and how she was written, she seemed somewhat shoe-horned into the action by the Guardians.  I’m not sure why they chose her out of all of the possible options for rescuing Kyle from Relic’s clutches.  

While I like the mystery about Relic, there is a problem.  The only one we can learn answers from is Relic himself.  This is going to lead to one of my least favorite tropes in comics:  self-exposition.  It is a hard narrative to nail without coming across overly cheesy.  Without someone else aware of Relic and his past, we’ll undoubtedly be treated to a Bond-villainesque speech about his history.  A history that I for one hope does not tie back to the old DC Universe.  I’m not interested in seeing the old DCU.  This is the New 52 era.  Stick to your guns, DC.

What’s the Verdict?

Another solid effort from the New Guardians team.  This is easily my favorite of the current iteration  of the Green Lantern Universe.  Well written and gorgeous to look at.  If you jumped ship from Green Lantern after Johns’ run, at least check out New Guardians.  For the time being it is independant from the rest of the line and giving us a pretty fun “big story.”

Oh, Yeah, And....

I am still somewhat upset at what has become of Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris’ relationship.  It seems like it was left in one place at the end of Johns’ run and then careened in a completely different direction with the beginning of Venditti’s run on the core title.  I don’t know if this is Venditti’s decision, so other writers have to have their characters play into the situation or if this is DC’s famously over-reaching editors finally getting their fingers into the Green Lantern world.  it seems like they left Johns alone to do his thing, but without him protecting the line, what’s going to become of it?