Comic Info
Comic Name: Green Lantern Corps (Volume 3)
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Peter J. Tomasi
Artist: Fernando Pasarin/Cafu
# of Issues: 8
Release Date: 2012
Reprints Green Lantern Corps (3) #0, 8-14 (June 2012-January 2013). John Stewart has been an upstanding member of the Green Lantern Corps for years. When he is accused of murder by the newly appointed Alpha Corps, the Green Lantern Corps much choose sides…but it could be just what the Guardians want. Something is brewing in the universe, and the Third Army is rising!
Written by Peter J. Tomasi, Green Lantern Corps Volume 2: Alpha War is part of the New 52 relaunch of the DC Universe. Following Green Lantern Corps Volume 1: Fearsome, the collection features art by Fernando Pasarin and Cafu. Green Lantern Corps #13-14 were also included in Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army.
Green Lantern has always been one of my favorite DC heroes. The Hal Jordan Green Lantern was a nice gateway to the other Green Lanterns and a strange network of space “police officers” that could come in any size or shape. Of course, two Americans really lead to Corps in this volume, but the fun still comes.
Green Lantern Corps isn’t a revolutionary comic. The storyline is rather basic comic book fodder, but the series is heavily tied to Geoff Johns run on Green Lantern which essentially just continued the story of before Flashpoint. This means that this volume also contains a lot of conspiracies and questionable actions by the Guardians of the Universe…which is a step above many comics.
The Alpha Guardians (and even Guy’s special designation) seems like a bad idea from the get-go. The Guardians have a history of making bad decisions and I would think that more of the Green Lanterns might recognize this as a questionable idea to give a certain among of the Corps even more power. You would think the characters were err on the side of caution, but the Guardians actions seem to be largely unexplored by their “employees”.
The storyline involved in the second part of the collection is a bit odd. The collection contains Guy’s adventures as he became a Green Lantern to set-up Xar and tweak Guy’s origin while introducing his family, but the story largely ties into the next storyline. It does provide a good cliffhanger in this sense, but it also feels like an incomplete story. It feels like it isn’t part of the collection.
Green Lantern Corps might not be groundbreaking, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t fun. With so many character options, I wish they’d branch away from Guy and John a bit and dip back into the ideas of the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps. The Rise of the Third Army proves to be a big moment for the Green Lantern Corps…bring it on! Green Lantern Corps 2: Alpha War is followed by Green Lantern Corps 3: Willpower.
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