Green Lantern #27, by Marc Alan Fishman – Snarky Synopsis | @MDWorld

January 12, 2014 Marc Fishman 1 Comment

Written by Robert Venditti, Art by Dale Eaglesham and Jason Wright

I gave up going to the comic shop 8 months ago. I did so not because of financial reasons… but reasons of banality. As I lamented on my article last week on ComicMix, I sought to return to the floppy comic in hopes that after some time away from the printed page… my favorite heroes and villains would restore my faith in geekdom. Sadly, I chose to return to an old favorite, Green Lantern. And just as I’d been event-driven into submission by Geoff Johns, I read a single new issue, and Robert Venditti apparently is just Geoff Johns new pen-name. I’m waving a white flag folks. This is why I left in the first place.

 

 

Green Lantern #27 by appearances is a return to a nice one-off issue, after a large event came to a conclusion. For those (like me) who didn’t follow the “Relic” saga here’s what you missed… Apparently by using rings that charge from emotions, all those crazy lanterns were sapping the very essence of the universe to wage war on one another. Relic tried to stop it. Kyle Rayner apparently stopped him with his vagina. Or something. No worries. He died. And Relic too. And so did all of the Blue Lanterns (save for the only one we actually knew, Saint Walker). Issue #27 finds us on Mogo, the new central hub of the GL’s. As they set up shop, a truckload of recent villains, The Braided (??), hatch their latest plot. As mentioned, I’ve been gone a long time. Certainly long enough to have no clue who the Braided are, or why they pose a threat. Combine this with a shapeshifting angry cook to aid in their scheme, and the issue ends with yet-another event facing the emerald legion of will power.

Robert Venditti is most well known to me as the mind behind “The Surrogates”. That creator-owned original graphic novel was bold in it’s concept, wonderfully dense and layered. Venditti here shows no sign he ever was that writer. His Green Lantern book is scripted as flat as the pages they lay on. Characters speak matter-of-factly, and the story progresses devoid of any actual nuance. Hal Jordon, never one to be anything other than cocky-then-stoic barks orders, and then floats to the next scene. And with the disjointed presentation that has us follow the Braided for over half the issue, there’s little to anchor ones’ self to. By the time the issue is over, the plot has plodded its way towards the inevitable start of another war for the corps to fight. To be honest, I could barely stomach reading how the next issues would bleed and connect for more pulse-pounding action.

Art chores are delivered by the stalwart Dale Eaglesham. His detailed figures, lush backgrounds, and truly alien looking cast members continue in the DC house-style; things are shiny, pretty, and well-rendered… and ultimately hollow. There’s simply not much to comment on here, kiddos. Everything is amazing to look at. The colors are bright, varied, and spit-polished with the best photoshop effects money can buy. The lettering, now so engrained to the GL universe, makes everything easy to consume. If the script were less vapid, and we weren’t thrown head-first into another giant, epic, fantastical war for the fate of the universe? It’d be a visual celebration to match the literary. Instead, it’s just window-dressing hiding shoddy craftsmanship elsewhere.

Perhaps I no longer belong in the DC floppy fan-base. I mean, I left the shop over a half a year ago in part because I could no longer deal with the continual epic-event fatigue in books like Green Lantern. And here, I jump back into the deep end, hoping that with the latest event over, I might enjoy a few potent one-shots before the DC editors eventually got cold feet and went back to the tapped well. It didn’t even take one gosh-darned issue to begin again! I can think of no other answer that perhaps I am now in the minority. If the average comic reader is seeking only universe-threatening epic crossovers, then I am no longer on their side. When every fight is the fight to end all fights, you lessen the impact with each successive battle. Kronos used to be an Anti-Monitor level villain to be feared. But with him, then the avatars, then the “first lantern”, and Relic… and now another? Sorry. Hands cleaned. I’m out.

Robert Venditti brings nothing new to a table set so many times by Geoff Johns, that it leaves me with issue #27 to sit as the last shot fired in the war on my love of the character. Where the brightest day and blackest nights were once myths, now simply passed events I’ve been forced to live through. Where evil’s might was once feared, now it’s just another flavor of the month to be crossed-over to Red Lanterns and Green Lantern Corps. The only thing left to beware is how many more events we’ll have to live through until such time that the fans can only remember a time where a single issue of a comic book might actually tell a story from beginning to end. Green Lantern #27 is a waste of ink and paper, if only because it stands solely as set-up to another crossover that will end with a big issue-spanning fight of glow-effects, and screaming. Save your money, and buy Surrogates instead.