Geoff Johns, arguably DC’s biggest scribe right now, struck again and with gusto this week. Starting his career at DC with the Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E maxiseries in the late ’90s, Johns has produced one of the most solid bodies of writing in mainstream comics. His strength seems to be writing things that should not work and making them incredibly enjoyable. Following this trend, he has been one of the architects responsible for the best weekly comic ever 52, the rehabilitation of Booster Gold, the reentry into continuity of Midwestern vigilante Wild Dog, the fixing of Hawkman’s unbelievably broken continuity, and most significantly the resurrection of Silver Age Green Lantern Hal Jordan.Making it his mission to reconstruct the Green Lantern mythos, Johns has retconned Jordan’s disgraceful death in the early ’90s and laid the blame of his betrayal of the Green Lantern Corps and subsequent usurping god-like power from the Green Lantern central power battery on his possession by the sentient manifestation of fear itself. The project of reconstructing of the Green Lantern mythos in a characteristically Johnsian seemingly ill advised and radical way was continued this week in the final chapter of this year’s blockbuster Sinestro Corps War maxiseries taking place in The Pick of the Week: the super-sized and much delayed Green Lantern #25.

Johns’ most absurd act in this issue came early on when renegade Guardian of the Universe (the god-like sponsors of the Green Lantern Corps) Ganthet revealed to Hal and the other Green Lanterns of Earth (”Space Sector 2814″) a prophesy foretelling the coming of still more colored lantern corps based in the emotional spectrum created by sentient life, beyond the willpower-based Green Lanterns and their nemisis the newly formed yellow, fear-based Sinestro Corps. The coming years will see the rise of love-based violet lanterns, hate-based red lanterns, compassion-based indigo lanterns, avarice-based orange lanterns, and hope-based blue lanterns. The idea that their is a color-coded emotional spectrum created by sentient life that can be tapped into to create great power is a bad enough idea. Having seven separate color-coded corps based on this premise seems like the hokiest idea ever. Only Johns could make this terrible idea work and I have complete faith in his ability to.

Also this week, we got two more Sinestro Corps War tie-ins. This was very ingratiating to me since before earlier this month, DC hadn’t published sight nor sound of it in like… it was so long ago, I don’t even remember. Further wrapping up the saga we got the one shot Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Ion #1 and the Sinestro Corps War epilogue in Green Lantern Corps #19 (above). This was DC editor and JSA architect Peter Tomasi’s second issue on Green Lantern Corps continued to impress me. This issue was more a personality piece, dealing with how members of the Corps were dealing with the aftermath of the death and destruction left in the wake of the defeat of the Sinestro Corps. Despite how ugly the characters seem look to me, I can’t help but love the art in this issue, Gleason’s pencils and Rollins et al’s colors and inks kicked my ass. Dig it:

(scan borrowed from SallyP)

This was pretty much the most ingratiating week in comics for me ever, because on top of all this Green Lantern yummily goodness, we got the best issue of Tomasi’s Black Adam miniseries so far with lovely dialogue between the mass murdering, villain-turned-renegade-hero-turned-international-fugitive Black Adam and his former Justice Society partner and good friend Atom Smasher taking place at at roadside diner and a beautiful cover by Makhne and an issue of Johns’ All-New Booster Gold with some incredibly colorful dialogue between Booster and his robot friend Skeets. On top of that we got a solid issue of Countdown and two Countdown tie-ins that were a pure delight as the Challengers of the Unknown hunted for Ray Palmer in a world where Superman has succeeded Stalin as Soviet premier and the Green Lanterns of three Earths did battle against Monarch. That series is picking up. I want to encourage DC not to have too many more weeks like this in the near future or I will be completely broke.

Also of note, thoughtful, Japan-based comics blogger Diamondrock’s blog Title Undetermined had its second anniversary yesterday.

Happy Holidays, y’all.

Sphere: Related Content

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 10:56 pm and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Related Posts

• A dissenting view on "the Dark Knight" - July 20th, 08
• hera gallery's all-rhode island comic book show - July 17th, 08
• It's a... class scrum!!! - March 27th, 08
• This Week in the MOVIEverse - March 15th, 08
• I Believe in Harvey Dent - March 11th, 08