“Nothing’s going to be the same, is it?”
If Green Lantern: The Lost Army #6 seems rushed that’s possibly due to Cullen Bunn needing to leave the cast in a state where Tom Talyor and Ethan Van Sciver can take the ball and run with it. Whether the new creative team will make Green Lantern: Edge of Oblivion a true continuation of Bunn’s story or make it something altogether different remains to be seen, but with the closing issue Bunn and artist Jesus Saiz cram as much in as they can.
The finale is packed with action as the fight is on for the fate of Mogo, who once again finds herself a battleground. More members of the Corps have found Mogo before John Stewart and company arrive, including Simon Baz who is at the center of it all. With the band back together they find their backs against the wall at the Central Power Battery while the Lightsmiths make a desperate attempt to mine Mogo for whatever emotional energy she contains during the twilight days of Relic’s universe.
As the series ends I find myself a bit disappointed that the only thing we’ve learned over the course of six issues is that the Corps is stranded in end days of the universe before our own. The greater questions of why and by whom remain frustratingly lacking as do the reasons behind Krona being there as well. Rather than try to give us some of that information this issue muddies the story ever more by transforming several members of the Corps, including Mogo, into something else entirely. What kinds of lanterns these are we simply don’t know and although they carry the colors of some of the other Corps of the emotional spectrum they logos remain true to the power of Will.

As a reader it’s hard to know where the disappointment should be pointed. Bunn has stated in interviews that this story was designed to run twelve to thirteen issues and his plan was to have it dovetail into what’s going on over in the Sinestro series. But short at six issues for reasons unknown we simply don’t know how Bunn changed his original idea and what DC Comics may have asked him to do in order to facilitate where Taylor is taking the story. In the end the finale falls flat despite containing several high points.
We see via flashback John coming home that for him the return from the armed services finds him alone with no one to great him. It’s a poignant scene which helps to further John’s character, but as so many of these flashbacks have in the past it feels disjointed from what’s going on a long time ago in a universe far, far away. In a head scratching moment John peers through a crack in the Source Wall, through time and space, and sees Hal Jordan on the other side, sealing up a the fissure. The scene clearly doesn’t jibe with the events of Green Lantern #46 unless this is some future event that hasn’t occurred yet.

Another plot thread left dangling is the matter of Krona and Relic, a pair who present perhaps the greatest threat of all. Krona has clearly seen through John’s attempt to deceive Relic and in making the latter aware of the lies Krona positions himself as Relic’s only ally in the final panels of the issue. It seems just as the story has gotten to an interesting place it’s all over and there’s simply not enough room left to have a satisfactory closing.
Jesus Saiz’s work shines this issue given plenty of opportunity to give the reader some fantastic imagery. His work really does look better when he colors it himself and thankfully that’s the case this issue. Saiz is consistent and solid from cover to cover with the exception being his underwhelming depiction of the Central Power Battery.
Green Lantern: The Lost Army #6 ends the series leaving the reader with a sense that there was so much more to this story than we got to read, that there was a greater tale to be told had Cullen Bunn been allowed to realize the potential the series started with. It’s no surprise that the finale doesn’t end so much as leave the reader with a “to be continued” not knowing how the next creative team will finish the job. Full of sound and fury but signifying nothing this last issue ends on a mediocre note. Six out of ten lanterns.
