John Stewart goes all CSI and Oliversity slithers back into the spotlight
Green Lanterns are often portrayed as superheroes and sometimes as soldiers, but at the heart of the Green Lantern concept is the role of the ring wielder as a galactic police officer. In Green Lantern Corps #27 writer Van Jensen digs deeper into that aspect with a story that puts some focus on crime scene forensics and weaves the narrative back into the larger Durlan threat that he and Robert Venditti have been building up to since they began their run. It’s great to see the detective part of the job get a little bit of extra attention and while the sequence only lasts a few pages it is a welcome touch as John Stewart as his team track the escaped prisoners to a ravaged sector house.
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| Oliversity returns to active duty. |
There are several characters who make a welcome return to the pages of a Green Lantern comic, namely Oliversity, who we haven’t seen since the 2006 War of the Green Lanterns arc and a brief appearance in Green Lantern #20. Bolphunga the unrelenting, Kanjar Ro and Evil Star are also shown again briefly when the scene shifts to the escapees and it reminded me of how much I’ve missed seeing the Green Lanterns take on threats that weren’t wearing power rings. While we saw the briefest of cameos of Evil Star back in Green Lantern Corps #24 apparently he’s been given a makeover and unfortunately his new look is more than lacking in the awe inspiring department.
The events of this issue intertwine with Green Lantern #27 as we see the Durlan doppelganger of Hal Jordan make his statement to the universe, but this time we see how the proclamation is interpreted by the civilian population with the most poignant moment being the reaction of Feska’s child. The plot unfurls further when the Khund-Durlan alliance is revealed and we learn that while the Green Lanterns have been busy with their own internal threats a great plan has been formulating by those who would seek to claim the universe as their own.
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| Arisia is taking a leadership role in the new Green Lantern Corps |
Bernard Chang’s art is spectacular this issue with the exception of the aforementioned Evil Star design. The issue does suffer a little when the transition it made to a handful of pages drawn by Sean Chen, whose art style appears rather flat alongside Chang’s work. Van Jensen’s script is paced very well and he keeps the tension building until the very end of the issue. There some interesting developments in John’s relationship with Yrra that should play out a little more in the issues to come as their romance continues to grow. John’s schoolboy style defense of his girlfriend shows how easily unnerved he can become, but nothing is quite so contradictory as seeing your fair maiden run someone through for posing a potential risk!
Green Lantern Corps #27 is a great issue despite some artistic inconsistency. While the book is very much hitched to the narrative in the flagship Green Lantern book the issue doesn’t mandate that you are reading it. In all honesty thought you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not reading both titles to get the whole story. Four out of five lanterns.
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