Green Lantern Corps #1

Oh yeah. It was so nice to get back to the Green Lanterns, after the more or less throwaway issues the last couple of months. They weren't BAD...but I did miss Peter Tomasi and Fernando Pasarin. Emerald Warriors is no more, but we have the same creators doing Green Lantern Corps, and although it is Guy and John instead of Guy and Kyle...I'm happy. So happy.

We begin with some nice Green Lanterns in their local Sector House, taking out the trash. This usually means that these poor Lanterns might just as well be wearing red shirts, and that's exactly what happens. A bad guy of unknown origins, but obviously powerful makes mincemeat out of them.

Now that we've set up the threat, let us move onto more pleasant things. We have Guy Gardner sitting all alone in a planetarium listening to the spiel,which I find oddly amusing. He then realizes that he's supposed to be at a job interview, where, he is immediately mobbed by the other applicants. Guy IS a celebrity after all, which is something that I tend to forget. The others are so excited, they want him to do stuff with his ring, and pose for a picture, and tell them who his favorite sports teams are and so on and so forth. Guy handles it all with more grace than I would have imagined...especially the part about being second the Hal.

Oh Guy.

It turns out to be a job being a High School football coach, which is actually something that I can completely see him wanting to be. The nice lady interviewing him, thinks that he'd probably be quite fabulous at it...but they can't hire him because he'd be too big a liability, the possibility of the school being attacked by his villains is too high.

Damn.

Next, we move on to John Stewart, who is meeting with several dignitaries and such, about putting up a building. He's trying to explain to them, that building it with superior safety features is a GOOD thing, and they only want to do the minimum safety requirements, because otherwise it will be too expensive. They are also impressed with the software displayed by his ring, and immediately start thinking of ways to make money off of it. John explains that there IS no software, it's just his mind, but they really don't understand...or want to. He's getting more and more frustrated by their stonewalling him at every turn, and finally loses his temper and takes them for a glowing green ride, which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but he's getting awfully fed up with their devotion to budgets instead of strength.

Meanwhile, on the watery planet Nerro, bad things seem to be happening. At first I read the name of the planet as being Nerrd...which cracked me up.

So...after a long day of trying to fit in, back on earth we have this lovely scene.



Since Guy is back on earth joining the Justice League International, I guess that he's given up living on Oa for the time being, which is just as well. It's rather nice to have Guy and John back on earth for a change. But they have learned the hard way that it is impossible for either of them to have a "normal" life anymore.

They do wend their way back to Oa, where Guy makes his usual theatrical entrance, while John is more staid. Salaak pretends to not care, but I'm sure he's glad they're back. They aren't too happy about the dead Lanterns, and round up a posse to go and check things out, including Hannu, Vandor, Isamot, Brik and Sheriff Mardin, which is an eclectic bunch to be sure. I haven't seen Sheriff Mardin in AGES! They get to Nerro, and are a bit surprised to find themselves on dry land, when it is supposed to be a water world.

Oops. About that.

Gosh darn it, the art was so pretty. Pasarin has a very different style from Pat Gleason, but it is amazing how much his Guy is based on Gleason's Guy. The colors just glow, and it is all very polished and pretty. I LOVE it when Tomasi has these little character moments. It's nice to be reminded that Guy loves working with kids, and that John is an architect. I was quite impressed with John in this issue, sure he is stoic, but there was a bit of that old crusader zeal popping out that I haven't seen in him for a while. I thought that Tomasi did an excellent job of showing John in an interesting light.

I was a bit surprised to see that Sheriff Mardin is no longer short and round, but apparently the standard svelte comic book female shape. And Brik isn't made out of rocks anymore either, apparently. Does EVERYBODY have to be "pretty"?

Still, all and all it was fun to see Guy and John working together for a change. They usually are paired up with either Hal or Kyle, it's nice to see the two smart ones together. They also seem to be coping with their private lives a bit better than Hal, even if they are having some problems fitting in. Can you imagine Hal working with kids?

Good. Good stuff.