Green Lantern Corps #45 Review ~ The Blog of OA

2/20/10

Green Lantern Corps #45 Review

2/20/2010

With Guy Gardner fulling consumed by rage, it's up to Kyle Rayner, Kilowog, and Soranik Natu to rally the rest of the Green Lantern Corps to get Guy under control in this week's issue of Green Lantern Corps, the forty fifth issue by writer Peter Tomasi.

Guy Gardner is one tough S.O.B. on this own, but adding the red power of rage to the mix ups the ante a bit, and it takes all the willpower that the Corps has left to keep Kyle in check on the surface of Mogo. Readers will remember that the Corps were ripped from the surface of OA by Mogo and pulled to safety there while the Black Lanterns were all dragged to the inner core of the largest Green Lantern to burn in perpetuity in last month's issue.

While the humanoid members of the corps cannot help Guy, it's Mogo who once again shines in this issue. Mogo forces Kyle to see relive his life through the green and red rings, demonstrating how Guy, like all of us, is the product of all we have experienced in our life. The two page spread by Pat Gleason does a nice job of showing us some of the highlights of Guy's past, including the famous "one punch" altercation with Batman, his high school footballs days, and so on. I thought it was really cool how each memory was in a bubble colored either red or green depending on the type of experience.

There's also some use of constructs in the form of Ice and Guy's father. Without going into too much history, Guy's father was one of those pushy sports dads that really had a bad affect on Guy. If you're still relatively new to the character and want to know more about Guy's past, Chuck Dixon wrote a four part "Yesterday's Sins" story arc in Guy's solo title from the 1990's that's really good. It's never been collected to my knowledge, but some online retailers may have them in back issues. Over at Atomic Avenue, an online comic store portal where hundreds of collectors like myself sell their unwanted books, you can find all four of those issues for a dollar or less per issue.

Once Munk, or Indigo-2, tells Kyle that they cannot remove Guy's red ring without killing him, Kyle is faced with the prospect that there may be no Hope for Guy, pun intended. There are some nice character moments between Kyle and Kilowog as Kyle comes to the realization that Guy may not be able to be saved and the Corps will be forced to kill Guy.

Mogo rises to the occasion once again and sucks Guy into a pool of nutrients and begins to filter his blood, absorbing the red infestation in Mogo's. Now, as cool as it sounds, the one thing that popped into my head was that Mogo has now taken on the Black Lanterns and the red rage within Guy - but could there be side affects? Time will tell if there are ramifications to this or if it was just a convenient way to resolve both problems with no repercussions. At any rate Gleason does a great job of showing the hideous thought of having thousands of tiny things writhing around inside and outside your body and Guy has one of the creepiest experiences since he rejected his Vuldarian powers during Green Lantern: Rebirth.

This works and Guy is once again his old normal self as the red ring leaves to find a new host (let's hope it isn't Mogo). As Kyle helps Guy to his feet we are treated to an uncharacteristic show of emotion from Guy as he embraces Kyle, cementing them as the icon for the strongest bromance in the Green Lantern Corps.

All kidding aside, I think it's a nice show of growth for Guy. There was a time when I couldn't have cared less for his character because there was so much focus on him being a complete a-hole. But he's gone from that to being a much broader character than the one trick pony he was year's ago, and I'm glad for that.

The issue ends with a nice scene of the Corps charging up before they get teleported to Earth by the newly arrived Indigo Tribe to join the fray in Blackest Night.

All in all this was a good issue. It didn't thrill me and I got the overall feeling that Green Lantern Corps #45 was a pause in the story before moving ahead towards the conclusion of Blackest Night. I don't know if that's due to the skip month in the main event title or not, but I just kinda felt like it was a "pause, let's catch our breath" kind of issue - not that that's a bad thing at all. Guy's situation had to either be rectified or he had to control the red power of rage before the Corps involvement could move ahead. But a part of me would have liked for Guy to have resolved the issue a little more independently- I would have liked to see him have a moment like John Stewart did in Green Lantern #49 where he got a chance to shine.

This issue draws us closer to the end of Tomasi and Gleason's run on the title before Tony Bedard and Ardian Syaf take over. Tomasi will be taking Guy Gardner with him on his new Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors title as announced a week or so ago. So it will be interesting to see how Bedard uses Kyle with John Stewart and Ganthet going forward - and maybe even more interesting is the thought that there may be a new Green Lantern added to the ranks to replace John Stewart as Hal's partner if John is permanently assigned to Oa.

All in all this issue gets four out of five lanterns.