Comics! Green Lantern #13

Green Lantern #13

Geoff Johns: writer
Doug Mahnke: penciller
Christian Alamy, Mark Irwin, Tom Nguyen, Keith Champagne, & Marc Deering: inkers

The Solicitation

• “Rise of the Third Army”!

• Earth’s new Green Lantern battles The Justice League!

• Meanwhile, The Guardians begin their final step in the destruction of the Lanterns by releasing the first of the Third Army soldiers!


Preview

Why I Bought It
I wanted to see if we were going to get more out of this Baz character or not. Let's see what we find.

What I Liked
More slow burn development just how Johns likes to write. Seriously, it isn't bad at all here with the developing back story, and at least we get a little more detail behind why he wears a mask. now to explain that whole gun thing...

For a Rise of the Third Army book, we get about 3 pages devoted to it. That's it. And that's about all you need to call this book a tie-in. It made me laugh, seriously. Because if you started with issue #0, those pages will throw you off just as much as Jordan and Sinestro's short appearance last issue did. Although to be fair, they get a better show time in this issue when they deliver the message to Baz about what he has to do with the ring.

What I Didn't Like
I'm going to preface this with a minor disclaimer: I don't like politics in the comic book world full of superheros. That being said, from time to time the President has to make an appearance. OK, cool. Sometimes it is a stand in or caricature of the current administrator. That's all cool. But then I spotted something a little off. Either it was the art, or I'm just reading too much into it.

We get Obama. And he looks like Obama on the first panel he appears in. Then on the next page, strange things pop up. His nose gets a little straighter with a pointy end. And his hair is the more alarming of it, because the artist has drawn him with slick back hair, the same hairstyle as any of the Muslim characters in the book. I'm not pointing fingers and calling things out, I just think that is kinda a weird thing. And I don't like it.

Also going with the second issue of Baz's story, we get the special guest stars. For this book, it is a last minute panel reveal of the Justice League. And boo to that, they came out swinging for some reason. Oh wait, that is a comic book superhero rule: heroes must fight when they fight meet up. Boo to that.

Panel to Remember
On the first page. We got a profile of all the previous Green Lanterns and more details about how the world sees and views them from the "ground level." And I'm kinda surprised that they don't know who Kyle Rayner is. Interesting.

Quotable
"...assimilate." - It is what the Borg/Agent Smith/Crap excuse for a Third Army thing says they want  to do to Baz. I'll just shake my head right now for that.

Grades
Words: 6/10
Pictures: 7/10
Buy Next Issue: Let's draw this out and rely a little less on stereotypical superhero writing, shall we? Oh wait, probably not.