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lilli_w12's review
4.0
33 books
243 issues
4860 pages
65 days
That is how long it has taken me to read Geoff John's entire Green Lantern run. This review is for all the books I've read, the review for Green Lantern, Volume 3: The End will be at the end (no pun intended).
A wild ride with highs and lows (mostly highs). A very ambitious run, but one I enjoyed reading. All the writers were good, but my favorites were Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi. Favorite books in the run have been The Sinestro Corps War, Green Lantern: Wanted: Hal Jordan, Blackest Night, Brightest Day Vol. 1, Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps (Tomasi's whole pre-new52 run), Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, and War of the Green Lanterns, in no particular order. The art was excellent throughout, with good character work. Speaking of the characters...
Hal Jordan - The Cocky Pilot:
Hal was really the main character of these books, with his arc of rising from his fall. Hal is my personal favorite Lantern, I've been partial to him since the show, and I really relate to/understand him as a character. He was very well written here, he was arrogant but not too arrogant, quippy but not too quippy. My favorite moments of his were at the beginning, where you could see his composure crack and the guilt seep through. Him wearing different rings felt earned (*cough*Kyle*cough), and he had many cool moments (him as a Black Lantern? awesome).
John Stewart - The Soldier Architect:
John wasn't heavily featured, but he was still very interesting/cool. I love how his constructs were formed, and how he made hard decisions and took the shots. He could be very cold and logical, which I liked (snapping that guy's neck so he wouldn't give up information? awesome).
Guy Gardner - The Angry Jerk:
This series made me really like Guy. I couldn't stand him before, but here he's a layered character, with a sad backstory. He was very blunt, and honest, with a big mouth, who didn't mind standing up to authority. His buddy cop friendship with Kyle was very heartwarming and I liked his attitude/humor. He could still be annoying, but overall I think that made him a better character. He was written the best (in my opinion) in Emerald Warriors, and as a Red Lantern.
Kyle Rayner - The Romantic Artist:
Poor, sweet Kyle. The hopeless romantic idealist. My favorite moments of Kyle's was his innocent naivety, and confusion when the Guardians were doing the wrong thing ("why are you doing this?") and his sacrifice in Blackest Night. I liked that he was an artist and not a typical superhero.
Simon Baz - The New Guy:
He was fine I guess? Kind of disappeared at the end. It was really annoying how everyone asked him what his tattoo meant, I swear it happened like 5 times.
The Supporting Cast:
Sinestro was a very well written villain here. William Hand was sufficiently creepy. The rest of the Green Lantern Corps were good too (Kilowog, etc.), except Sodam Yat. He was built up, then did nothing and disappeared. Disappointing. The other color Lanterns were written well, especially Atrocitus and Larfleeze. Loved Saint Walker and Indigo-1. Carol was a good love interest.
new52:
The whole universe rebooted and almost nothing changed! So there's not much to say about this. They made Guy's family cops, which gave me O'Dare vibes, and was... fine, I guess? Wasn't crazy about it, but it wasn't that bad either. Kind of made me think of how Kyle is there in the first place, did Hal become Parallax in this universe? Guess so. That doesn't make any sense in the new timeline, but I guess Geoff wanted to keep it.
Overall:
A bunch of interesting ideas and excellent characterization. Geoff John's revitalized a character, and this run has been one of the best DC things I've read so far.
Green Lantern, Volume 3: The End -
Ironically the ending saved this for me. Lots of cool stuff happened. Everyone got their happy ending. Had to read a lot of other stuff in the middle of this to understand what was going on though, which was not good. The Third Army, still looks stupid, and Volthoom was kind of boring. Sinestro was the star of this book strangely enough (at the end at least). Satisfactory conclusion.
243 issues
4860 pages
65 days
That is how long it has taken me to read Geoff John's entire Green Lantern run. This review is for all the books I've read, the review for Green Lantern, Volume 3: The End will be at the end (no pun intended).
A wild ride with highs and lows (mostly highs). A very ambitious run, but one I enjoyed reading. All the writers were good, but my favorites were Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi. Favorite books in the run have been The Sinestro Corps War, Green Lantern: Wanted: Hal Jordan, Blackest Night, Brightest Day Vol. 1, Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps (Tomasi's whole pre-new52 run), Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, and War of the Green Lanterns, in no particular order. The art was excellent throughout, with good character work. Speaking of the characters...
Hal Jordan - The Cocky Pilot:
Hal was really the main character of these books, with his arc of rising from his fall. Hal is my personal favorite Lantern, I've been partial to him since the show, and I really relate to/understand him as a character. He was very well written here, he was arrogant but not too arrogant, quippy but not too quippy. My favorite moments of his were at the beginning, where you could see his composure crack and the guilt seep through. Him wearing different rings felt earned (*cough*Kyle*cough), and he had many cool moments (him as a Black Lantern? awesome).
John Stewart - The Soldier Architect:
John wasn't heavily featured, but he was still very interesting/cool. I love how his constructs were formed, and how he made hard decisions and took the shots. He could be very cold and logical, which I liked (snapping that guy's neck so he wouldn't give up information? awesome).
Guy Gardner - The Angry Jerk:
This series made me really like Guy. I couldn't stand him before, but here he's a layered character, with a sad backstory. He was very blunt, and honest, with a big mouth, who didn't mind standing up to authority. His buddy cop friendship with Kyle was very heartwarming and I liked his attitude/humor. He could still be annoying, but overall I think that made him a better character. He was written the best (in my opinion) in Emerald Warriors, and as a Red Lantern.
Kyle Rayner - The Romantic Artist:
Poor, sweet Kyle. The hopeless romantic idealist. My favorite moments of Kyle's was his innocent naivety, and confusion when the Guardians were doing the wrong thing ("why are you doing this?") and his sacrifice in Blackest Night. I liked that he was an artist and not a typical superhero.
Simon Baz - The New Guy:
He was fine I guess? Kind of disappeared at the end. It was really annoying how everyone asked him what his tattoo meant, I swear it happened like 5 times.
The Supporting Cast:
Sinestro was a very well written villain here. William Hand was sufficiently creepy. The rest of the Green Lantern Corps were good too (Kilowog, etc.), except Sodam Yat. He was built up, then did nothing and disappeared. Disappointing. The other color Lanterns were written well, especially Atrocitus and Larfleeze. Loved Saint Walker and Indigo-1. Carol was a good love interest.
new52:
The whole universe rebooted and almost nothing changed! So there's not much to say about this. They made Guy's family cops, which gave me O'Dare vibes, and was... fine, I guess? Wasn't crazy about it, but it wasn't that bad either. Kind of made me think of how Kyle is there in the first place, did Hal become Parallax in this universe? Guess so. That doesn't make any sense in the new timeline, but I guess Geoff wanted to keep it.
Overall:
A bunch of interesting ideas and excellent characterization. Geoff John's revitalized a character, and this run has been one of the best DC things I've read so far.
Green Lantern, Volume 3: The End -
Ironically the ending saved this for me. Lots of cool stuff happened. Everyone got their happy ending. Had to read a lot of other stuff in the middle of this to understand what was going on though, which was not good. The Third Army, still looks stupid, and Volthoom was kind of boring. Sinestro was the star of this book strangely enough (at the end at least). Satisfactory conclusion.
the61stbookworm's review
5.0
Simon (new green lantern) is totally awesome! Three cheers for the existence of Muslim superheroes!
tmwebb3's review
4.0
A retread of Wrath of the First Lantern. More focused on Simon Baz, which I enjoyed. Also more Johns too.
shane_tiernan's review
3.0
Read this as part of the "Rise of Third Army" / "Wrath of the First Lantern" event. It was fun, but all these different color rings seem a little cheesy. Also didn't like the way the First Lantern looked. The story was good though and obviously some huge changes going on in the universe.
manuelte's review
5.0
This book closes Geoff Johns' Green Lantern universe that began in Dec 2004 with Rebirth. Looking back, the DC cosmic universe was completely reinvented though this Green Lantern run. It brought back Hal Jordan, waged the Sinestro corps war, expanded the Lantern Corps to the emotional spectrum, had the war of light, the darkest night, the brightest day; and finally the story of the first lantern, which ties to Krona's witnessing the beginning of the universe. At the end of it all, this is an emotional good bye from Geoff Johns to the characters he loved to write, and we love to read.
calistareads's review
4.0
Wow, this was loud. There was a whole lot of action and fighting. It has plenty of excitement. So this story has been going on since 2005, so I came in on it toward the end and there is a lot of threads coming together here at the end and the pieces feel like I'm missing a little bit. Still, I did enjoy this and it makes me want to go back and read the whole thing. It's a huge volume with plenty of dense story telling.
Green lantern reminds me of Star Trek and all the very weird alien species you see on the show. There are some bizarre creatures in this world. All the power ring colors show up. The first lantern gets free, surprise and they all have to deal with it.
So much happens in this volume. There is a lot of story here. I do like the last chapter and the valiant song of Ode sung to Hal Jordan and his time as Green lantern. It works really well.
There is a half volume between this and Volume 2. I don't understand why you don't just put them out in order and not do these weird half volumes. It is so strange. Seriously. I have to go back and try and catch up on that.
If you are looking for a world building fantasy with superheros with dense characters and plots then this is the story for you. I will keep going with this.
Green lantern reminds me of Star Trek and all the very weird alien species you see on the show. There are some bizarre creatures in this world. All the power ring colors show up. The first lantern gets free, surprise and they all have to deal with it.
So much happens in this volume. There is a lot of story here. I do like the last chapter and the valiant song of Ode sung to Hal Jordan and his time as Green lantern. It works really well.
There is a half volume between this and Volume 2. I don't understand why you don't just put them out in order and not do these weird half volumes. It is so strange. Seriously. I have to go back and try and catch up on that.
If you are looking for a world building fantasy with superheros with dense characters and plots then this is the story for you. I will keep going with this.
gohawks's review
4.0
This story line is completely contained in Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern, so please see my review there for a complete review. With that in mind, there is something to be said here for a more streamlined version of the story. However, this version does not really include the fates of the other Lanterns besides Hal.
rhganci's review against another edition
4.0
(4.5 stars) The size and scope of Mr. Johns' conclusion to his GREEN LANTERN saga seems so much bigger than the modest crossover it appears to be. There are hundreds of issues of plot strands that come together here (many of which I admittedly have not read), and the conclusion is a synthesis, a farewell, a reduction, and above all else a terrific re-insertion of Hal Jordan into the role of Green Lantern going forward.
What follows contains SPOILERS.
The sheer quantity of resolution that takes place in this volume could potentially end the story as we've understood it for quite some time. As Johns notes in the retrospective, the plots that are concluded in THE END tie together everything that began with GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH 10 years ago--and what a conclusion it is.
Although it is very much a big-concept, big action sequence (I actually lost track of where one issue ended and the next began, it moves so quickly), the beginning of this collection starts small by introducing a new character, Simon Baz, who quickly becomes a key player as the bad guys ramp up their aggression and the universe finds itself in eternal peril once again, and who almost immediately shows up in Johns' JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA V1. Simon is a different kind of Green Lantern, almost an apologetic one, whose role diminishes as the predictable and necessary key players such as Hal, Sinestro, Atrocitus, and Saint Walker take their places as Johns tells us, well, "The End" of his Green Lantern story, and specifically of Sinestro's role in that story in and of itself.
The role of Sinestro as mentor-enemy of Hal seemed very much to be centerpiece on which Johns started the New 52, as the first issue tells the story of Sinestro, and not Hal, taking the GL oath and becoming the GL of Space Sector 2814. As the story moves towards its conclusion, that rivalry (the truest rivalry in the New 52) takes center stage, with the same debates and the same points of contention that define this relationship. The final clash in which Sinestro takes the Yellow Lantern back after the destruction of Korugar has all the indicators of really good tragedy, and at that point I felt very strongly that we were about to see the end of Sinestro, though his long-term redemption gets some teasingly short shrift in the novel's final pages. That particular act of structuring really shows Johns' deft handling of impossibly large stories, and with Sinestro narrating his own downfall and the return of Hal Jordan (bookended by rebirth!), Johns can do little more right with his departure from the Green Lantern story.
My sole complaint with this volume was that it omitted one issue of Simon Baz' journey to Oa--probably a NEW GUARDIANS or GREEN LANTERN CORPS issue--in which he and B'dg opened the Book of Black and ended up with Black Hand in the prison. For a volume that already collects 8 issues, this omission seems editorially unnecessary, and even out of the norm for DC and their TPB policies, as the other giant crossover event--DEATH OF THE FAMILY--liberally includes BATMAN #17 in every book bearing that crossover's title, for what I assume is clarity's sake. The omission of Simon and B'dg's adventures in Maryland are not in any way essential to the return of Hal Jordan or the end of the Third Army, but it did interrupt the story's early flow and a rather enjoyable introduction of a character I'm excited to read more about.
Other highlights: the Justice League's check-up on Hal's GL ring and the placement of Jordan's resignation from the JL in the New 52 timeline; Adrian Syaf's stylish renderings of the Dead Zone and Hal's act of self-sacrifice there; the epilogue of events not-yet-arrived, including the fate of Hal and Carol and the rest of the Lantern Corps; the final panel, in which Hal Jordan's role as the greatest Green Lantern is solidified as Johns hands off the book to another creative team. While I was not a fan of the not-quite-reboot of GREEN LANTERN at the time of the New 52's inception, by the time #20 of the book ended, I realized that this story deserved to be told, needed to be told, and that whatever becomes of Hal as JL member and Green Lantern of SS2814, Johns' vision for the character's greatness with provide the context in which it happens.
What follows contains SPOILERS.
The sheer quantity of resolution that takes place in this volume could potentially end the story as we've understood it for quite some time. As Johns notes in the retrospective, the plots that are concluded in THE END tie together everything that began with GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH 10 years ago--and what a conclusion it is.
Although it is very much a big-concept, big action sequence (I actually lost track of where one issue ended and the next began, it moves so quickly), the beginning of this collection starts small by introducing a new character, Simon Baz, who quickly becomes a key player as the bad guys ramp up their aggression and the universe finds itself in eternal peril once again, and who almost immediately shows up in Johns' JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA V1. Simon is a different kind of Green Lantern, almost an apologetic one, whose role diminishes as the predictable and necessary key players such as Hal, Sinestro, Atrocitus, and Saint Walker take their places as Johns tells us, well, "The End" of his Green Lantern story, and specifically of Sinestro's role in that story in and of itself.
The role of Sinestro as mentor-enemy of Hal seemed very much to be centerpiece on which Johns started the New 52, as the first issue tells the story of Sinestro, and not Hal, taking the GL oath and becoming the GL of Space Sector 2814. As the story moves towards its conclusion, that rivalry (the truest rivalry in the New 52) takes center stage, with the same debates and the same points of contention that define this relationship. The final clash in which Sinestro takes the Yellow Lantern back after the destruction of Korugar has all the indicators of really good tragedy, and at that point I felt very strongly that we were about to see the end of Sinestro, though his long-term redemption gets some teasingly short shrift in the novel's final pages. That particular act of structuring really shows Johns' deft handling of impossibly large stories, and with Sinestro narrating his own downfall and the return of Hal Jordan (bookended by rebirth!), Johns can do little more right with his departure from the Green Lantern story.
My sole complaint with this volume was that it omitted one issue of Simon Baz' journey to Oa--probably a NEW GUARDIANS or GREEN LANTERN CORPS issue--in which he and B'dg opened the Book of Black and ended up with Black Hand in the prison. For a volume that already collects 8 issues, this omission seems editorially unnecessary, and even out of the norm for DC and their TPB policies, as the other giant crossover event--DEATH OF THE FAMILY--liberally includes BATMAN #17 in every book bearing that crossover's title, for what I assume is clarity's sake. The omission of Simon and B'dg's adventures in Maryland are not in any way essential to the return of Hal Jordan or the end of the Third Army, but it did interrupt the story's early flow and a rather enjoyable introduction of a character I'm excited to read more about.
Other highlights: the Justice League's check-up on Hal's GL ring and the placement of Jordan's resignation from the JL in the New 52 timeline; Adrian Syaf's stylish renderings of the Dead Zone and Hal's act of self-sacrifice there; the epilogue of events not-yet-arrived, including the fate of Hal and Carol and the rest of the Lantern Corps; the final panel, in which Hal Jordan's role as the greatest Green Lantern is solidified as Johns hands off the book to another creative team. While I was not a fan of the not-quite-reboot of GREEN LANTERN at the time of the New 52's inception, by the time #20 of the book ended, I realized that this story deserved to be told, needed to be told, and that whatever becomes of Hal as JL member and Green Lantern of SS2814, Johns' vision for the character's greatness with provide the context in which it happens.
sherpawhale's review against another edition
5.0
Simon Baz is my favorite Green Lantern. I'm glad Geoff got to tell his story, and go out with a bang on issue 20.