Hey everybody, it’s time to talk about Green Lantern #6 written by Geoffrey Thorne, pencils by Marco Santucci and Tom Raney, colors by Mike Atiyeh, and letters by Simon Bowland. This issue backs up a bit, and shows us what Jo was doing while Simon went down to the surface of New Korugar to retrieve Keli. Jo takes a moment to tell Simon (and the reader) that her ring functions differently from a standard issue Green Lantern ring…it automatically recharges itself over time without the need for a battery, but the trade off is that the process takes a long time, and her maximum output is lower than that of a normal ring. It felt like a pretty natural way to catch up anyone who hasn’t read Far Sector and didn’t already know how Jo’s ring works. Incidentally, if you haven’t read Far Sector, you really should. It’s one of the best Green Lantern series I’ve ever read, and I’ll be talking about it in detail whenever I find the time.
Then we get something that I was really looking forward to, a conversation between Jo and Sinestro. Throughout Far Sector, we got treated to numerous scenes where Jo would debate corrupt authority figures who always had the advantage over her, but she was always intelligent enough to make an argument that would cut to the heart of the matter, letting her project strength and confidence despite lacking the leverage or support to make a difference. So the idea of putting her in a position to have a one-on-one talk with Sinestro of all people…he’s manipulative yet honest, supremely confidant, and he always plans three moves ahead, so this was a conversation I couldn’t wait to see. And we got it. And I couldn’t have been more disappointed.
Obviously different writers are going to portray Jo differently, it happens with literally every character in Wester comics, but this does not feel like the same character I read in Far Sector. You can tell that an attempt is being made to convey the same kind of confidence she carried herself with in that book, but there’s no substance in what she has to say. She makes a series of short, dismissive statements that feel like a hollow bid for authority…she comes off like a child trying to sound tough. And you could argue that she just wasn’t prepared for this encounter, since she’d never met Sinestro before and was literally researching him on the way there, but the end result is still Jo looking really bad. I will tell you without hesitation that I love this character, but I would never want this issue to be anyone’s first exposure to her, because nothing that I love about her is here.
…and the worst part about all of this is that this bad conversation between Jo and Sinestro came right after that really good conversation between Jessica and Sinestro in the Annual. And because of scheduling delays, both of those issues came out in the same day, so if you’re like me you read them back to back, and couldn’t help comparing them, and it makes the one in this issue look even worse than it would on its own.
Over in John’s half of the issue, we start to get a sense of what they’re up against in the Dark Sectors. According to Kilowag’s message, and Saquari’s telepathically shared memories, we know that there’s a cult-like movement that’s been sweeping across these sectors for at least a hundred years. Emissaries show up on a world and instantly pacify the population through some kind of mind control, with anyone who’s immune immediately targeted and killed by the newly converted, all in the name of someone they call the Lightbringer. Kilowag, Hanu, and a what’s left of the population are almost out of time, so Salaak sends Kenz’s team to rescue them before it’s too late. She’s gone on sixty missions like this before, but only been able to save twenty Lanterns. John goes with her, and then we get the second big disappointment of this issue, the reveal of the mystery man we saw back in issue #1. He reveals himself to be Lonar, one of the lesser known New Gods. I’ve been throwing around a lot of wild theories about this story in general and the possible identity of the mystery man, and I want to make it clear that I don’t mind being wrong. All I care about is that answers we get make the story interesting. That’s the burden of writing a mystery, the journey to discover the answer has to be entertaining, and the payoff has to be satisfying in a way that lets everything we’ve been shown up to that point make sense. Here’s the problem: John calls out the fact that Lonar has appeared to him twice, once on Oa in issue #1, and once on Sergilon in issue #4. The problem is that when you compare the mystery men from those two issues, they are clearly two different people, they’re not even from the same planet. The only visual thing they have in common is that outfit, and maybe that was supposed to what let us know it’s the same guy both times…but I’m sorry, if I see two blatantly different-looking people wearing the same outfit, I’m not going to assume that they must somehow be the same person, I’m going to assume they’re two people on the same team. The entire Sinestro Corps wears the same uniform, I’m not going to suddenly start confusing Jessica and Slushh. I looked up Lonar’s powers, hoping to find out he’s got some kind of shape shifting camouflage ability, or some kind of mental projection power that could account for his wildly different appearances, but as far as I can tell there’s nothing. Maybe Geoffrey Thorne has an expiration for this, maybe issue #7 is going to open with a panel that makes this all make sense and makes me look like an idiot for taking all this time to complain about it, but…this is one of the big questions I’ve had since issue one, and it was answered in a way that feels like cheating. Every mystery has misdirection, I get that, and there’s obviously more to learn that’ll give context to this reveal, but none of that changes the fact that my initial reaction to this was the feeling that a lot of really cool potential just drained out of the story.
That said, this is still a series I really enjoy, and this is the first issue I haven’t liked. So don’t misunderstand my complaints…I’m not condemning the book in general or the writer in general, because the truth is that every run has bad issues. It’s just a shame that this one failed to deliver on two moments that I was really looking forward to.
Comments
Post a Comment