Green Lantern Corps #63, by Marc Alan Fishman – Snarky Synopses #14

August 29, 2011 Marc Fishman 1 Comment

Green Lantern Corps #63
Written by Scott Kolins
Art by Scott Kolins, Daniel HDR, Freddie Williams II and Joe Prado

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thank you, Dylan Thomas. Had I an unlimited budget… I’d tattoo this little portion of the poem onto the chest of a burly weightlifter. I’d pump that muscleman up on roids, crack, and meth… and then unleash him, rabid, on the offices of DC in New York. Why? Because I’d hope when the frothing maw of an angry and juiced up nut-job came screaming into the offices, with these words scrawled on his bare chest… it might register to the staff (be they editorial, artist, or otherwise) that their books matter. Green Lantern Corps #63 is proof that above all else, DC Comics has relegated itself to whimper, limp, and slump across the finish line before the massive reboot of September. It’s perhaps the shoddiest made, simply most unreadable piece of crap DC has released in years. And I say this having purchased Aquaman in the aughts.

Let me preface by saying when I purchased the issue, my expectations weren’t high. After the “oh, who’s paying attention anyways” ending to War of the Green Lanterns… all GL books as of late have been on cruise control. The books themselves are akin to taking a road trip in your Dad’s ’87 station wagon, with the NPR blaring, and your mom knitting some socks sitting shotgun while you bake in the summer heat because your Dad says the A/C sucks up gas, and he ain’t payin’ no $3.87 for unleaded god damnit! But I digress. The books have relegated themselves to just doing one-shots. Be it “Emerald Warriors”, “Corps”, or even the flagship “Green Lantern”, they’ve been awash in late 90’s era angst and drawl. Characters in-fight, and cuss, and yell, and mope. It’s boring. And here, the last issue of the first volume, and writer Scott Kollins (who is pinch hitting for Tony Bedard who was credited in the previews…) gives us an anthology.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I personally LOVE the anthology format. When done correctly, a small smattering of short fiction, all loosely tied together can provide a venerable playground for a comic book. Hell, my own company, Unshaven Comics, did a whole series via anthology. But here? Kolins undersells the fans with rehashed, regurgitated, revoltingly predictable stories in a book that makes it’s way to 20 or so pages by way of a 4 man art team. Never once during my reading of it did I think “Wow, here’s a book that took some serious time on the boards!” From the art to the writing, the sum of the parts congeals into a final splash, with a final delivered line that acts like a sullen tombstone to this once decent series. “We’re the Green Lantern Corps. We don’t like each other. We fight amongst ourselves. We don’t trust the little blue guys who sign our paychecks. But we fight together because we’re the galaxy’s only hope!” …My ass.

The book itself is told in several parts, as I said. The first deals with Alpha Lantern Boodika. For those not paying attention (and well, I feel like maybe I’m the only one who did…) she was good, then bad, then blown up, then restored, and now is back… again. You get me? Nah, neither do I. The alpha lanterns were taken control of by Cyborg Superman, and through some Deus Ex Machina, they were given back their sentience. Or something. And Kolins wastes several pages retelling us all of this. And what is the new nugget of truth this story reveals? Boodika is ready to fight. Give me a moment. I need to breath into this paper bag. So. Blown. Away. Aside from that nugget of awesometasticness… we get a story starring G’Hu and… crap, I don’t even know. And when my personal favorite lantern, Kyle Rayner, makes and appearance? He gets into his 786,522,345th fight with another green lantern. Why? Cause now the space corps with thousands of different alien species is now xenophobic. Yeah. Can you hear my eyes rolling? Shhhrrlllop. And this is how they decide to end the first volume of the book. Five years of stories, congealing into an anthology that doesn’t even tackle the large story beats that were paramount to the book’s success (when the book WAS a success).

The art work is just about the only saving grace for this issue. While having to have 4 different artists for a single 20 page book is about as smart as betting on the Cubs to take the world series, at very least the pages are rendered professionally. Like I’d said above though, not once during this short read did I find anything worth the money I paid for in the issue. Hell, had DC comped this book for me, I might have sent them the $2.99 back with the book itself in hopes they shelf the book and let the series die at #62. 4 people on the art means 4 different styles, with far too short a time to enjoy them. Without any room to breathe, the artists hard work is too cramped to be enjoyed. By the end of the issue when we reach the climatic two page spread, we’re too bored by the 19 previous pages of whining and in-fighting to care about this supposed “bigger picture”.

Suffice to say, DC’s starwipe in September has brought with it a general malaise in their publishing this past month. While some books have gone out with a nuclear bang (I can’t recommend Scott Snyder’s Detective Comics #881 or Gail Simone’s Secret Six #36 enough), Green Lantern Corps #63 is the perfect example of when a company, creative team, and all people who are supposed to care about their product just phone it in.

Next time DC, just hang up.

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Marc Alan Fishman is a digital artist, writer, and co-founder of Unshaven Comics. When Marc isn’t knee-deep in graphic design, he’s also a contributor to ComicMix.com, an occasional stand-up comedian, as well as freelancer extraordinaire.