Comics! Green Lantern #11

Green Lantern #11

Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Doug Mahnke
Inks: Christian Alamy, Keith Champagne, Tom Nguyen, Mark Irwin, & Mahnke

The Solicitation
• “The Revenge of Black Hand” starts now! • This arc promises the most shocking conclusion of any of GEOFF JOHNS’S entire GREEN LANTERN run! This issue is also offered as a combo pack edition with a redemption code for a digital download of this issue.

No Preview

Why I Bought It
My shop had the non-combo-pack version so I thought I'd give it a spin to see if it was going to be looking any good.

What I Liked
More of the same. Johns and Mahnke have been churning out Green Lantern stories for what seems like decades now. Johns loves to tease his readers with the flash to the future bits. Its always been entertaining and sets up the story quite well.

The conclusion isn't the most shocking of them all. As a reader of this series for awhile now, you know that its just another step in the long story. While I appreciate it trying, it still gives me a moment of "Oh, this is cool."

What I Didn't Like
It seems whatever interesting story device that Johns throws at the story, he takes away just a few issues later. Take Jordan's ring being controlled by Sinestro because Sinestro forged it. Somehow the Indigo Tribe is able to separate that connection and allow Jordan to use the ring against Sinestro. johns barely got much of a story that he could have with the control that Sinestro had over Jordan's ring. It makes me wonder now, does Hal have a battery to charge the ring? does this make him some sort of rogue Green Lantern? How normal is his ring?

I'm sure the questions are meant to draw the reader back, but I tire of this. johns likes to set up little plot devices and then discard them right away. And we've seen this dance before. Hell, its almost like he is setting up a repeat of the Blackest Night story and re-telling War of the Green Lanterns with his upcoming Third Army story. It was great and OK, respectively, the first time around and not something I want to get into again.

So yea, this comic would be good to people who haven't seen this before with Johns, but for me its just old re-treads.

Panel to Remember
Interesting one to see - the panel in Sinestro's "Batcave." He has a table with both a green power battery and a yellow one. Are they both active? Interesting. Might come into play later.

Quotable
"So this is your Bat-cave?" Interesting words by Hal. It does make you realize how old-school Batman-like Sinestro actually is. Maybe that's why Johns was always able to write a good Batman/Green Lantern interaction before?

Grades
Words: 7/10
Pictures: 8/10
Buy Next Issue: I think I may pass. Getting this is trade form may be better for me. It would give enough time between stories that I could miss out on reading Green Lantern and then play catch up.