Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage, Part II

Oh...my. While I may occasionally wax a bit sarcastic, or piss and moan because they've killed off some of my favorite characters, (oh Beetle and Booster!) for the most part, I LOVE comics. And as I have probably made apparent, I love Guy Gardner. Which is why I am so revolted by this second part to the Howard Chaykin opus, called Collateral Damage.

For one thing, it has no plot. The premise was SUPPOSED to be that Guy is brought in as an arbitrator for peace talks between Rann and Thannagar. Leave aside the facts that the people who are getting together have NO authority to do anything. Nor for that matter does Guy, he's been told to stay out of the whole Rann/Thannagar mess by the Guardians. So really there is no point to the original idea. Then they bring G'nort into it. This isn't really even G'nort, I have no idea who this repulsive little creep is. THEN they drag in a weird subplot with Tormocks and Vuldarians, which makes even less sense.

When the second chapter opens, Guy is standing in his wrecked (slightly) bar having a hissy fit. The dippy Rannian shows that she has no idea of anything that is going on, since she gets the Vuldarians and Tormocks mixed up. Then we jump to a couple of blue Tormocks (I think) doing the nasty. Then we jump back to Guy being interviewed by an obnoxious cop, for well...really no reason at all.

Then we jump to Guy getting yelled at by the Guardians. They are basically stupid, and he is basically really really rude. I also don't understand quite why they are even having an argument. They said he wasn't to interfere, and really, he HASN'T! All he's done is insult a single Thannagarian and a single Rannian(former GL), and get attacked by a bunch of Tormocks. Exactly how is that interfering with a war?

Now, boom, we are in some sleezy dive on an unknown planet, and he's talking to the stupid Rannian. I'm sorry, but she's REALLY dim. I don't quite know the purpose of this, as all she does is insult him, and all he says is that now it's "personal". Ooohhh! Cue scary music!

Next is a double page of space being filled with red tendrils of some sort of icky life form apparently created out of the "bad energy" created by the war. I kid you not.

Then, Guy is walking through some clapped-out space station with the Thannagarian Major, who at least seems to have a brain. They engage in what is supposed to be witty banter, and AGAIN Guy says that the Tormocks attacking his bar has made this "personal", and invites her to join in.

Wow, back to the evil blue Tormocks, who are busy killing Vuldarians.

Turn the page, and bam, back to Guy and Faux-G'nort floating in space where they insult each other a bit and then G'nort says that he may know where the Tormocks are, and they fly off.

Turn the page again, and we are back to Tormock/Vuldarian slaughter. Yawn.

Turn the page, and all of our "heroes" are on a ship heading towards the Tormocks...maybe. Guy is STILL whining about how wrecking his bar made this fight "personal", and fake G'nort is telling him that he's a monster for not caring that they destroyed his planet. Turn the page...wait, for the FIRST TIME in this entire book, they are still in the same scene! Zowee! Let's go fight some Tormocks! And apparently single handed and without even breaking a sweat, Guy punches a few blue bad guys and squishes one's head with his foot. Who knew that it could be that easy? I guess that all the other Vuldarians getting slaughtered were really pussies.

Now fake G'nort yells at him for not getting there in time to save the Vuldarians, but it turns out that it's ok, since there is a big urn just FULL of Vuldarian DNA. Exactly who put the DNA into this urn, or why is not explained. Nor do they seem to really do anything with it.

Suddenly, they are attacked by the red tendrils of EVIL SPACE GOO! "The neuroviral toxin has grafted onto the very tissue of space itself...creating what can only be called an anti-matter anti-body...which attacks the sentient nervous system...creating physical, emotional and mental havoc." I guess that's bad then.

Guy's ring pipes up declaring that they are all wussies and don't have the will power to withstand the neurosthenic assault. Actually about the only thing that I like in this is the fact that Guy's ring talks, and is a bit of a wise-ass too. Of course, Guy summons up the willpower needed to break free, and incidentally rescue all of his traveling companions. They of course all yell at him, and say that it is only because he's a raving egomaniac. The dingbat from Rann then starts moaning that the whole peace process has been a waste of time and that it is all Guy's fault.
At this point the Thannagarian Major has had enough and gives her a nice smek, which really is the only high point in the entire book.

Then Guy is back on Oa, getting reamed out by the Guardians...again. They are still mad that he "interfered" with the war, which he didn't really do, but at this point who cares? Then faux G'nort stands up for Guy and says that he saved the Vuldarian DNA. What is really interesting is that the Guardians don't seem to have a clue who G'nort even is! Odd that. So everybody now displays what jackasses they are en masse, Guy insults G'nort a bit more, G'nort insults Guy a bit more and flies off to his own planet. Whew!

Almost to the end of the tunnel. Guy is back making time with some severely underdressed young lady in "Warriors", and giving her a highly inaccurate account of the recent dealings, when who should show up, but the hawt Thannagarian Major, they leave together and presumably have an interesting evening.

The art was painful, and the dialogue even more so. Chaykin just jumps from scene to scene, each being two pages long for most of the book, first they are on earth, then on Oa, then somewhere else, and it is just so jumbled and convoluted. The entire Tormock/Vuldarian plot makes no sense at all, since it was all tied up in Beau Smith's book years ago. The whole peace talks plot made no sense either. As far as I can tell, this was a way for Guy to get his bar beat up a bit and hop in the sack with a hot alien babe, and that's about it.

Go back to reading Green Lantern Corps and forget that this ever happened.