“Can you believe I wanted to bake for THAT?”

Green Lantern Corps: Edge of Oblivion is on the home stretch and in this week’s penultimate chapter writer Tom Taylor reminds readers of what drives Guy Gardner and in the end nicely uses that to draw out the true villains in his tale of the final days of the universe before ours.  The clock is ticking for the Green Lantern Corps and there are only two days left for them to deal with the Blackest Knights and find a way back home.

This month’s issue is packed with all the drama, humor, action and adventure that is the hallmark of a great Green Lantern story.  While long time readers are familiar with Guy’s troubled childhood Taylor provides us with another glimpse which helps new readers understand what’s going on under the ginger hood while reminding long time fans that a person’s willpower can come from a variety of sources.  I find that Guy is often unappreciated because of how he presents himself but it is in issues like this one that I hope readers see that there is much more to the character than what’s on the surface.

Once the Green Lanterns get Guy out from under Ausras’ grasp the matter of how to deal with the rest of their comrades under the influence of the Blackest Knights becomes their immediate priority.  Taylor’s previous subplot of Iolande leading a group of lanterns towards Mogo from issue 3 comes back into play this month and their arrival is vital to the survival of Guy’s faction and their plan to ferret out the Blackest Knights.   With only one more issue to conclude the story Taylor’s script moves at the brisk pace of an action film sequence and with how he’s crafted the story so far he is able to set the story up for the finale without bogging the reader down with a lot of exposition.

The final reveal of the true nature of the Blackest Knights is a horrific vision, one which not only snaps John Stewart and his fellow lanterns out of Ausras’ suggestive control, but hopefully the populace of Perduron as well.  Taylor anchors Guy’s tactics of dealing with Ausras and Dismas back to the opening flashback from his youth, making the latter sequence’s inclusion more than just mere character exploration.  Mogo’s involvement in this issue was a welcome treat as the largest Corps members hasn’t had much to do in the story up until now.

The script for this issue gives Ardian Syaf plenty to work with this month as this issue is chock full of action beats.  There aren’t a lot of panels per page which gives Syaf a lot of real estate to depict the frenetic action that the issue calls for.  Syaf excels at expressing emotion and he does a great job throughout the issue making sure that character faces represent what Taylor’s plot calls for.  There is a bump in the road at one point where Kilowog’s uniform reverts to the more classic version but it’s a minor point given the great work overall.

Green Lantern Corps: Edge of Oblivion #5 is a quick read but it’s filled with all the great action and adventure that the story calls for at this stage of the game.  Tom Taylor reveals the true face of the Blackest Knights in an issue where Guy Gardner’s tragic past in channeled into his greatest strength, and Ardian Syaf makes it all look fantastic.  Eight out of ten lanterns.