Green Lantern #40 Review: Oh No...
Reading time: 3 minutes
It’s with great pain that my eyes crossed Green Lantern #40, a story that seemed like a desperate attempt to revive the Green Lantern franchise. Author Robert Venditti took over the reigns from Geoff Johns in Green Lantern #21. His stories immediately shifted towards large status quotas and huge new events of the cast of Green Lanterns that we have previously seen with Johns. Initially, I was interested to see what the two creators were bringing to the comic, but Green Lantern #40 was a painful mix of melodrama and crass storytelling that the worst DC Comics have been lighter on lately.
The issue paints a clear point to readers with a cover that has protagonist Hal Jordan beating the snot out of Kilowog with the power of Krona’s gauntlet. This same circumstance was crafted for Batman when Dick Grayson up-and-left the Nightwing personae to become Grayson. To be fair, that issue wasn’t spectacular either, but it was a status quota decision that came a little more naturally out of an event that led to good storytelling. Just because this comic may or could lead to good things later on doesn’t mean that this issue should be excused for it’s immensely lacking quality.
A smackdown fight between Kilowog and Hal just still seems unprecedented for their friendship. This all recalls the Emerald Twilight storyline that saw Hal do something even more ridiculous than this. I know Robert Venditti is an author that plays the long game, and I want to think that the plan for this storyline is ultimately going to make sense in time. This story is just not indicative of high quality.
Kilowog is much too eager to start throwing some punches at Hal right away. The worst part about this ridiculous sequence is the anatomy on the fight scenes. Kilowog’s body rendered by Billy Tan is durastically different from page-to-page, with some being downright horrifying results. Hal and Kilowog’s relationship has been a mainstay within this era of Green Lantern, and spending half an issue making the two ‘enemies’ is a little hard to swallow. Even if this whole thing is some kind of ruse, it’s just feels to hard and fast to really have any lasting impact on the series. Hal’s fast decision to leave the Corps. in the scene before this is equally both silly and puzzling. It’s hard for me to buy into whatever his plight his within this issue.
Jordan is seen blazing off into the sunset into the back of this tale, it’s hard not to think anything but this is going to be the permanent new status quota for the franchise. Jordan’s deceptive nature wasn’t served as the way it should have first, and it’s disappointing to see Venditti shake something up in the Green Lantern mythos that he could have more fully explored in a post Geoff Johns era. I never get the sense throughout this installment of the comic that the story is moving toward something that does have an established plan on where to go next.
Green Lantern #40 is a dark reflection of what shouldn’t have happened after master storyteller Geoff Johns left a truly beloved franchise that he helped reinvent gasping for breath. Comic Book News UK will continue to report on whatever the shores bring next for Hal and company in this Days of Future Past version of the quality within the Lantern books.
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