Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #5
Gosh, that's a lot of blood spewing there! Guy must be developing a SEVERE iron deficiency by now. Anyway...on to the newest issue! And it's a doozy. As you all recall, our intrepid quartet was jumped by a bunch of rookie Green Lanterns, all being controlled by the nefarious Zsrdor guy. They've managed to get the drop on our boys and girls, much to their chagrin. The Rookies seem to be convinced that they have actually captured some Sinestro Corp members and are all hot and bothered about getting to execute them. Naturally, Guy, Kilowog, Arisia and even Bleez aren't going to take this without a fight, and since they are the veterans, they manage quite nicely.
Bleez starts barfing blood, which although crude, turns out to be quite effective, even though Kilowog is seriously disturbed. Guy however, figures out that pain seems to distract the Rookies from their programming, and that it is possible to show them the truth. Naturally, they start just whaling on them, which is painful, but effective. Brought back to their senses, the poor Rookies are highly confused, but thankfully back in their right minds. Our heroes are about to get them back to Oa, when Zardor...who is a poor loser apparently...decides that he's not going to have any of THAT, and convinces them all to Blow Their Own Brains Out.
Yuck!
Guy immediately takes off after one of the rings, which naturally is flying off to find a new recruit. Kilowog on the other hand, is just stunned and horrified. He's been having a bit of a hard time of it lately, after all the GL's that were lost during the late troubles with Nekron, which is why he gave up being the trainer. Arisia is doing her best to comfort him, but I can foresee that Kilowog is going to be having some troubles in the future no doubt. Poor Kilowog. Bleez just seems to hover in the background slavering to herself, but that's what she's there for.
Guy is successful in catching a ring, and using his Honor Guard status, inputs an override code...Mace00l...to retrieve and index the dead Lantern's last locations and actions. Heh. Mace! He used his dead big brother's name for his code! I love it. The ring complies, and then asks if it can go and find a new Rookie, which is polite of it.
So...they now have a location. Arisia is still worried about Kilowog's state of mind, as they all head off to the planet Kralok, when Guy starts bleeding from the mouth, and then just barfs up a HUGE ball of blood. Man, they are having a crappy day! Kilowog and Arisia are horrified, Bleez is delighted, and Guy is just resigned to the fact that it's all coming out now. And lo, a bloody spectre of Atrocitus rises from the blood ball and demands that Guy and Ganthet stop screwing around and honor their pact!
Oops.
Well, now Kilowog isn't sad anymore. He's Pissed! Pissed as hell! So Guy has to explain, that in the aftermath of getting the Red Ring, he kept having nightmares. Being Guy, he just sucked it up, and hoped that they would go away, and they did...for a while anyway. But as he was sprucing up the rebuilt Warriors, it all came rushing out, and he saw a huge bloody vision...or actually a combination of ALL his visions...and it was pretty gross. He saw Krona collecting the entities, although he doesn't KNOW that it's Krona...and the Guardians, and he and Hal fighting...he sees it all. And I'm pretty sure that for once in his life, he was sensible and told Ganthet about it, and THAT'S why they teamed up with Atrocitus. Makes perfect sense to me! More sense than what Hal is doing at any rate.
Whoboy! And that's the cliffhanger. Now if I were Kilowog and Arisia, I'd give him a hug. Somehow I doubt that's what's going to happen, but I'm just saying.
I enjoyed the HELL out of this book! But I have to admit that it's not for the sqeamish.
posted by SallyP @ 7:25 AM
7 Comments:
Is the ring he wears have an emerald for the green or just some other material?
But what is Guy actually doing? At least Hal is trying to prevent the entities from harming people on Earth. All Guy has been doing in this series so far is take a very leisurely spin around the universe doing pretty much anything EXCEPT try and stop the entity thief (Krona)and Zardor. It's issue 5 and the series has been so decompressed that it really fails at building any tension or urgency for this mission that Guy is on.
What is Guy DOING? Well, he's more or less the one who discovered that all of the Green Lantern rings are being drained of miniscule amounts of energy by someone or something unknown. It's not much per ring, but added up, it's an enormous amount of power being siphoned off.
That sounds pretty important to me. Plus they saved a whole planet of slaves. I would assume that there is more to the visions that Guy saw as well. Unlike Hal, he doesn't KNOW that Krona is the entity-napper.
Plus he's trying NOT to get into a tangle with Hal...so why would he go to Earth, where Hal IS?
I'm not sure if you are referring to Guy's ring or what? I don't believe it is actually made from an emerald, it is fashioned by the Guardians and the battery, to the best of my knowledge.
While I think Loghain is correct that this story line is in the modern "decompressed" style, I've not yet felt like it was dragging it's heels, and what's more, it has been exciting and has been organically building an interesting story instead of just dumping our heroes together and then dumping them toward a threat. Tomasi isn't the next Alan Moore or Grant Morrison, but he is an enjoyable writer, at least to me. His runs on Nightwing and of course GLCorps have always been highlights of my comics buying, and this title has been no different.
The prologue wherein we discovered that Gathent and Guy had made a pact with Atrocitus (I forgot what ish that was in) and the grave danger implied in the first issue of this series certainly suggested that Emerald Warriors was going to be fast-paced, cop-on-the-edge drama ala The Shield.
While I agree with the comments that the series has developed into a slower decompressed storyline that I wasn't quite expecting, I have not been disappointed with it in the least. Also, I hadn't thought about the possibility that Guy may be (at least subconsciously) attempt to prevent his visions of the future in an indirect way because he doesn't want to go head-to-head with Hal, but that makes a lot of sense.
Those two were once barely able to stand the sight of one another, but they have truly developed to great friends and comrades. I don't think Guy wants to see that sacrificed and may be attacking the problem via a method that doesn't exactly align with what Atrocitus expected.
The book doesn't exactly match up with what I expected it to be (and that's my problem, not the book's), but Tomasi has built up more than enough faith within me for me to start giving him or this book a hard time.
My prediction: the next issue is going to involve a big fight with Zardor, which our heroes are not going to decisively win and there's going to be a big reveal that's going to raise the stakes considerably. And someone's going to have a status quo change. I'm looking at you Sodam and Kilowog!
PS - I thought the reveal about why Guy signed on with Atrocitus was wonderful and wonder if Tomasi had this in mind when he first had Guy get taken over by a red ring. Also, the mass mind-controlled suicide was extremely creeping and terrifying.
There is also the promise of the upcoming War of the Green Lanterns, which is due in a couple of months, so all three of the Green Lantern books, have to more or less arrive at the starting line together...which is porobably another reason that Peter Tomasi is being relatively deliberate with his pacing.
But I'm not complaining. I'm just so happy to have Guy and Kilowog that I could plotz.
Again, no complaints on my part. I'm loving what Peter Tomasi is doing. And I love the mere fact that we have three Green Lantern books out every month. Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day.
I liked how Guy's blood vision spilled into what's happening in each of the other books and while I believe Guy is going to do everything he can to prevent his clash with Hal, it's inevitable. And that's gonna be both bittersweet and awesome. Like Guy, I don't want it to happen - but drama makes for some good reading.
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