Comics! Green Lantern #12

Green Lantern #12

Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Renato Guedes and Jim Calafiore

The Solicitation
• BLACK HAND has been freed from the INDIGO TRIBE, and now he’s more powerful than ever!
• What horrible plan does he have in mind, and to what lengths will Hal Jordan and Sinestro go to stop it?

Preview

Why I Bought It
Let's see how things will begin for what I can imagine is going to be Blackest Night, part 2. Now with More Guardians!

What I Liked
I can see how Johns is trying to work this story. And it always seems like he is trying to write something greater. There is always great potential in his stories, i just think they fall a little short of what he could do. This book is trying to set up everything again, and I like it that Johns keeps going to this same well. I have to accept it in order to keep reading. He really is a great writer of superhero soap opera.

What I Didn't Like
So Hal Fries Black Hand's brain. And then says that they can't repeat that trick again. But him and Sinestro and trying to destroy him the same way they did before, by combing a couple of colors of the spectrum. That irked me a little.

The art was surprisingly inconsistent. I say surprisingly because the art team for this book is usually there month in and month out with a team of inkers and it still managed to look the same throughout. Here we get some detailed work at the beginning of the book that I would really like to see more of. Then, around the middle/end of the book, it goes super cartoony in the style of Scott McDaniel. Then flips back to detailed work.

We get our cliffhanger ending again. And I get that the whole 'have Hal be wear the ring of each corps" thing has been the thing that Johns has been building towards, but this is getting to be a tired cliche for me. You would think that if a character went through all this "development" that he would be changed. All I've seen with Hal changing as a character has been that he is with Carol again. I think. Or Cowgirl. Hell, he has a chick, and that shows that he appreciates life, right? That gives him something to fight for, right?

Panel to Remember
This book had a lot of weirdly angled panels. The one that was consistent for me and one that really stuck out at all was the page taking a look at the other corps. All the other ring bearers have very inhuman eyes. And the look on Saint Walker's face is more of panic to me than of hope. Those eyes should have been calm and serene.

Quotable
"No one is safe." - And with the guardian saying that, we have another Batman reference for a second issue in a row. "No one is safe" is obviously from Batman Year One, and last issue's reference to Sinestro having a Batcave is showing that Johns must have had Batman on the brain when he was writing this.

Grades
Words: 7/10
Pictures: 3/10 - If I have to struggle to find one memorable panel, and the inconsistent artwork throughout just wore down on me.
Buy Next Issue: I already have the Annual, which will focus more on the story and how I think it will progress from here.