Teh Green Lantern

So I started this post awhile ago, and it didn't work out well because I was in the throws of a fever and in general things were pretty aweful.

So lets try this again shall we?

Green Lantern- Sinestro Corps War, Rage of the Red, Emerald Eclipse, Agent Orange- Essenitally, I bought the entire run up to Blackest Night. All I am missing is the sins of the Star Saphires but I am okay with that. I missed some important stuff and I'll get it eventually but nothing that is overly critical. First and foremost Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps are incredibly intertwined to the point where it would be impossible to read just one book at a time. More over it means that once it is collected into trades you have no choice but to submit to a non linear reading experience. Now me? I love non liniear reading expereinces and once I gave up putting things in order and learned to love the bomb things became much better for me. Still it wouldn't kill them to take a page or two from marvel's play book.

Marvel space is one of the biggest suprise hits to come out of Marvel in the past few years. Out of nowhere a couple of people totally rebooted Marvel's space program, reintroduced all the major players who underwent massive changes and then they charged fowards with a decidedly average event that lots of people seemed to like. Then Annihilation Conquest came out that cemented the new formula. There is the main evnt book, and two satellite books, Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy. Now the two Satilite books are nessisary for understanding the main event they both just sort of happen off to the sideand you need them to fill in some minor gaps but it isn't SUPER necessary to read all three books. It would really help if DC adopted something like this both for the Sinestro Corps war which is a mess even in its collected format, and the lead in to Blackest night.

In fact it seems like DC got all its events backwards. Countdown to Final Crisis was an unmitigated disaster. Morrison didn't want any lead in what so ever to FC he just wanted it to happen. Darkseid caught the universe with its pants down and he nearly ended everything ever. It was awesome, but it shouldn't of had a countdown leading up to it. Whereas Blackest Night very speficially had a countdown over the course of both the green lantern books and yet... yet they didn't make any real attempt to organize it in any real way which confuses me. Now Blackest Night? Blackest Night is an event that involves the entire DC line of comics. Nothing was left untouched what so ever, and I have no idea how they managed to coordinate it or if they even bothered to. The three main books that cover the evens all came out at the same time and I'll own them in a couple of weeks but I have no idea how to read them. Ultimatly I will get a non linear experience either way but I know there is an intended order. It is just that isn't the way they are collected. Oh well.

Is it good though? Oh my yes. My my yes. I was never really very interested in the Green Lanterns. Spaaaaaaaaaaaace cops just never really got me all that excited, also that horrible fucking rhyme they say every time they charge their rings makes me want to go find the nearest poet and punch them in the face. HATRED. Yet the Sinestro corps war got such good press that I became curious. Also some of my favorite moments during the Final Crisis involved the Green Lanterns and Hal Jordan so that is how I became stuck in. It is good stuff. The strange thing though is that it isn't just Geoff that is knocking it out of the park, Peter J. Tomasi holds the torch exceedingly well on the companion book. The thing I like about the both of them is that they have very similar voices so that the two books intermingle quite well. It isn't the Twin Peaks syndrome where you can almost immeadiatly tell when Lynch isn't directing an episode. But yes, it is big, epic, and lots and lots of fun. The Sinestro Corps war lost me a few times because it kept throwing around charecters who I was supposed to know, and I didn't. However! It worked out eventually because one of the companion volumes I bought had a summary of who everyone was and I mean EVERYONE! The summary pages took up over half of the trade. Like I said I am glad I bought it though as when I go back to reread the Sinestro Corps war I will have a much better idea of what is going on. Also reading everything that happens after the war gave me a much better understand of who all the key players are and why they are important. I look foawrds to giving it all a reread sometime over the course of the next couple of days.

I got to admit when I first heard of the whole emotional spectrum coming home to roost during the lead up to blackest night I rolled my eyes and uttered a heart felt "oh fucking god are you kidding me?" I mean come on you don't get much more cliche than Red for ANGER, blue for hope, violet for love, yellow for fear... I forget what indigo stands for, I think its heart though so go planet! No seriously though it is a pretty unusually awful idea. The war of the light is still an idea that I find to be fundamentally stupid. So imagine my suprise when I find myself entertained by what I am reading. It would be an easy thing to screw up, VERY easy and yet they do an increadbly job selling it. The rise of the other lanterns happens suddenly and I like how it bewilders the emotionally dead Guardians of the green lantern corps and how massivly poorly they react to the universe changing around them. I also like who they respin Sinestro into a sympathetic charecter and I am really interested to see how he will act during the Blackest Night.

The thing is though, what comes next is the Brightest Day, and I am not paticularly sure if I am still going to be interested after that. There's going to be white lanterns. The internet spent weeks patting itself on the back when they "figured" that out. I remeber reading an interview where one of the authors talked about how heavily hinted at the white lanterns were. *Eye roll*. I'll still give it a shot. After all I was amazed at how good the whole "rise of the color spectrum" was. I dunno. Ah well my battery is about to die and it is about time for me to go to work so I am going to leave it here.