Comic Info
Comic Name: Green Lantern (Volume 4)/Blackest Night
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Philip Tan/Eddy Barrows/Ivan Reis/Rafael Albuquerque/Doug Maknke
# of Issues: 5
Release Date: 2009
Green Lantern (4) #39
Reprints Green Lantern (4) #38-42 and Blackest Night #0 (March 2009-August 2009). Awakened by the Controllers, a new Orange Lantern has appeared in the Vega System. Larfleeze, also known as Agent Orange, now wants more and is fueled by the orange light of greed and avarice. When Larfleeze wages war against the Green Lantern, the Blue Ring of Hal Jordan provides and new quest and a new desire for Agent Orange…and he will have it!
Written by Geoff Johns, Green Lantern: Agent Orange (also sometimes called Green Lantern: Agent Orange—Prelude to Blackest Night) is a follow-up to Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns. The collection features art by Philip Tan, Eddy Barrows, Ivan Reis, Rafael Albuquerque and Doug Maknke and also features the Free-Comic-Book-Day issue Blackest Night #0.
This run on Green Lantern revolutionized Green Lantern. Johns took Green Lantern in a direction that had never been done before and set-up a great series of stories with a planned goal. As you read, Green Lantern: Agent Orange, it feels like the story is finally culminating.
Green Lantern (4) #40
Geoff Johns really introduced the whole “color spectrum” to the world of the Lanterns which before him had a Green, Yellow, and Pink (though the “pink” weren’t really referred to as Lanterns). With the introduction of Agent Orange, the color spectrum continues to grow and set to lead into the Blackest Night where the “lack of color” Black Lanterns first appear.
I like the idea of Larfleeze (he’s rarely called Agent Orange other than in this story), but I don’t like how he’s used here. I think it is kind of cool that Orange Lantern of greed only can have one master because it causes the user to be too greedy to allow more. This basic concept causes tons of future problem in storylines, but I don’t think it is used enough here. Also they start to mix in the John Stewart/Fatality aspect which develops in later arcs.
Green Lantern: Agent Orange is kind of a stumble in Geoff John’s big Blackest Night lead-up. It feels like it needs more development and could have been expanded to clarify aspects of the story. I don’t know if there were time constraints with the other stories, but it is good to get this story finished to move on to the Blackest Night. In the Green Lantern comic, Green Lantern: Agent Orange is followed by Green Lantern: Blackest Night and ties in with the DC Comic event series Blackest Night.
Related Links:
Green Lantern: Revenge of the Green Lanterns
Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War—Volume 1
