Hal Pictures Green Lantern Butt's FOREVER!: Green Lantern Corps #9

Green Lantern Butt's FOREVER!

Now with Guy Gardner's Seal of Approval!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Green Lantern Corps #9

Well!  Things just got a little crazy in a hurry, didn't they?

When we left John Stewart last issue, he was just hanging out with Guy at Warriors, making bridges out of toothpicks and being moody.  Guy had been promoted by the Guardians, which was making him a bit giddy, but he wasn't rubbing it in...except maybe to Salaak.  Then the Alphas showed up, and they are feeling awfully cranky.  And they WANT John Stewart!

Naturally, Guy isn't having any of THAT shit going down in his nice bar, and all of the OTHER Lanterns are pissed as well.  This doesn't stop the Alphas from throwing their collective weight around and demanding John's surrender.  And then they show some scenes of John snapping poor Krrt's neck, which REALLY makes Guy mad.  Nobody believes it...until John breaks down and admits what he did and why.  There are various reactions from all of the gathered Lanterns, from disbelief, to outrage, to confusion, till Guy tells them all to back the hell off, and John agrees to go with the Alphas.

Guy immediately heads off to confront the Guardians, naively thinking that his new status actually will mean something.  The Guardians play dumb, saying that they can't intervene, and that there isn't anything they can do, which is codswallop, and Guy rightly enough, calls them out on it.  He also notices that the Earth Lanterns are the ones being picked off, which doesn't sit really well with him either.  They tell him to keep control of the other Lanterns and send him on his way, but he isn't happy at all.

The Guardians on the other hand, are delighted that their machinations seem to be going so well, although one of them notices that Guy's perceptions are surprising and that apparently he IS smarter than he looks, so they might have to marginalize him a little sooner than they thought.  God, they're so...so...EVIL!

Meanwhile a bunch of Lanterns have busted into the Crypts, and Morro is outraged that Vath wants to destroy the statue of Krrt, who committed the ultimate sin of being a wuss...at least in Vath's opinion.  Guy shows up and tells them to chill out and also points out that Krrt wasn't the ONLY Lantern who was ever afraid and that perhaps the rest of them shouldn't be throwing stones.  They sulk and grumble a bit, but do see the reason of his words, and stomp off, .  Really, Guy is just SHINING in this issue.

So, we cut to the trial, and John very calmly and patiently explains what happened, and his motives, and all.  He also notices that the only scans that the Alphas have, show him breaking Krrt's neck, and while that is true, what happened to the hours and hours of torture that lead up to that moment, and how the heck did they even access that moment, when none of their rings were even working?  A fair point, I might add.  When one of the Alphas asks if anyone has anything to say in John's defense, Guy hops right up and launches into what John calls  a helluva filibuster...for all the good that it does. 

Later, John is in his cell and Guy is outside, and they are talking.  Guy is still just outraged, although John seems fairly philosophical about the whole thing.  At this point, Guy tells John how he was all set to kill Sodom Yat, when Arisia spoiled his shot, which is a nice touch, since that happened before the War of the Green Lanterns,and I wasn't sure that it was still in continuity.  Which means that Zardor and Yat are still floating around out there...somewhere.  So Guy was almost in John's position, and he can understand what it is that he's going through.  Then Voz shows up and tells them that the verdict is in.

Guy figures he's going to be a rap on the knuckles...but oh, it is more than that.  John is sentenced to Death.

Sheesh! 

May I just say that Guy is written beautifully in this issue, and so is John.  John seems resigned, and remorseful, but he's calm and stoic, which is more or less his nature.  Still, I don't imagine that he's particularly happy.  Guy is volatile, and angry and stunningly loyal.  What I really don't understand, is WHY the Guardians are going through all of these motions?

They've decided that they want to stamp out all emotion and that the Green Lantern Corps is no longer what they need.  So...why don't they just...disband it?  They did that before, when they went off to make sweet sweet love with the Zamarons.  If they all got together and told the Corps that they appreciated their services, but that they were no longer on the payroll, what could the Corps do?  Instead, they are pitting them against each other, spreading rumors, going around killing innocents, and just in general, being complete jackasses.  EVIL jackasses.  Have they all been possessed by Parallax? 

I can hardly wait to find out!

12 Comments:

At 4:18 PM, Blogger AF said...

Awesome!!! Totally loved it!!! I'm looking forward to the next issue. The Guardians are showing their true colors now, and poor John is going to 'get hanged'. And your precious Guy is going to be... alienated...

 
At 5:58 AM, Blogger SallyP said...

It HAS been good hasn't it? I imagine that things are just going to escalate from here.

And Guy is pretty used to that actually.

 
At 7:07 AM, Blogger AF said...

You don't sound pretty excited about this issue, do you? And about Guy, he's in danger. I'm really concerned about him, despite the fact that he's not my favorite. But he's an Earth lantern, so, you know, you have to support the locals.

 
At 8:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

aaaand DC cancelled JLI
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/05/grumpy-old-fan-high-noon-dcs-august-2012-solicits/
uswzb

 
At 8:05 AM, Blogger SallyP said...

Thank you Anonymous, I did find out that JLI is ending with the Annual, which is a royal pain in my butt.

Dammit.

And it certainly doesn't have the lowest sales figures, so I don't really understand DC's thinking...but that's no surprise. I can't figure out what is going on over there MOST of the time.

AF, I DO think that both John and Guy are in deep deep doodoo. Which is pretty much par for the course. If the Guardians think that they can twist Guy around to their way of thinking, I believe that they are in for a big surprise, since he will stick with his pals/

 
At 6:20 AM, Blogger Martin Gray said...

Sounds like they fitted a lot into that issue, Sally, but it likewise sounds still not to be my cup of tea - I don't mind annoying Guardians, but evil?

With four GL books I wish there were one not wrapped up in GL mythology. I mean, will we ever see the Invisible Destroyer again? ;)

 
At 11:53 AM, Blogger SallyP said...

Martin, I would have to say that your hopes for the Invisible Destroyer are probably NOT going to be addressed anytime soon.

And yes, I wish the Guardians would go back to just being mildly annoying too.

 
At 4:49 PM, Blogger Lantern Kiaori said...

Guy is the best of the best in this issue, God, I love him.

By the way: you are the only person I know that knows a great deal about Guy so, I have a question: In JLI i think there is a part where thet mention that Guy's middle name is Darryn (or Darryl), but in Warrior's annual 1996, it says that it is Joseph. What do you think?

 
At 12:02 PM, Blogger SallyP said...

Well, concerning Guy's middle name...J'onn J'onnz was chiding Guy for yelling that his middle name was Trouble, when in actuality, it was Darrin. This was established by Giffen and DeMatteis. It was further confirmed in the August issue of 20ll, when they had that wonderful little Flashback issue, and Ice is running around calling him Guy Darrin Gardner.

Later, when Beau Smith was writing Guy in his own book, he came up with the middle name of Joseph, loudly announced by none other than his Mother.

I prefer to think of his full name as being Guy Darrin Joseph Gardner. His parents probably couldn't agree on a middle name, and so they settled for two. His parents were jerks.

 
At 6:40 PM, Blogger Lantern Kiaori said...

hahaha XD quite a name there Guy! thanks for your wisdom!

 
At 7:18 PM, Blogger JLH said...

Also, don't forget his evil clone took the name of "Joe Gardner" based off of his middle name. Though one wonders if his clone still exists in the NuDCU (nobody's used Joe, nor Guy's brother Mace, since Chuck Dixon, who created both).

 
At 5:39 PM, Blogger SallyP said...

I rather miss Mace. He's SUPPOSED to be dead, but we all know what that's worth. And Joe has pretty much disappeared as well, which is a shame. Last time I saw him was in early Birds of Prey, I believe.

 

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