Writers: Geoff Johns, Dave Gibbons, Ron Marz, Alan Burnett, John Rogers, Peter Tomasi
Artists: Ethan Van Scriver, Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Angel Unzueta, Adriana Melo, Patrick Blaine, Pete Woods, Gerry Ordway, Pascal Alixe, Dustin Nguyen, Rafael Albuquerque, Jamal Igle, Michael Lacombe
Now I look at it – that’s quite the creative roster when listed and for what? Arguably DC’s biggest and best story of 2007 though you may not know it! Within the Green Lantern title Johns had been laying the foundations for this epic over the course of some 15 or so issues, but the first pieces were laid right at the start. Meanwhile over in Green Lantern Corps Gibbons also laid a couple of pieces, especially in the arc leading to this tale. And after that? All that remains was to light the fuse and get to a safe distance…
Exploding out of the Green Lantern Special: Sinestro Corps Special, this tale of a galactic confrontation wound its way through Green Lantern 21-25 and Green Lantern Corps 14-18. There were also a number of specific character one-shots focused upon major characters, mostly villains and one tie-in with Blue Beetle. All in all, given DC’s tendency to link things together, Sinestro Corps was remarkably restrained as a crossover.
The story? Sinestro, who was once a Green Lantern himself and an upholder of galactic law but who fell due to taking too hard a line, has assembled his own corps. Never lacking ego he has named them after himself and organised them around the principle of fear. His plan is simple, having assembled an army twice the size of the Green Lanterns, he intends to kill them all, destroy their base, Oa, and take over the universe. Were that not enough, in his opening strikes he frees both Parallax and Superboy-Prime from Oa, slaughtering a number of Lanterns in the process. He’s also secured the services of the Cyborg and the Anti-Monitor. Oh and did I mention he infects Kyle Rayner with Parallax?
With such a gathering of villains Sinestro Corps throws down the gauntlet early – this is going to be a big deal, it’s going to involve huge fights and the good guys are in serious trouble. Not only that, but Sinestro has an overall strategy of which the strike on Oa was but the first step. As the Lanterns are reeling from the strike and the deaths, he sends his second, Arkillo, to assault the planet Green Lantern Mogo. In that battle Gibbons draws together various elements from the Green Lantern Corps title – notably the city of Ranx that despises the Lanterns.
Not only is there a massive amount of power arrayed against them, but the Lanterns are held back by their own rings, which do not have the ability to kill. Are they capable of it? Certainly, but they’re not permitted to. Johns poses the question: What is ultimately worth more: upholding principles to the point of extinction or compromising in order to survive to return to the higher ground later? Despite it causing great unease amongst some of them, the Green Lantern’s Guardians rewrite the laws that govern the rings, and grant the bearers the permission to kill. This enables the war to begin to turn in the Lanterns’ favour though they still lack the initiative.
If this were all the Lanterns lacked, things might be OK but they, and the Guardians, have miscalculated: They assumed the ultimate objective for the Sinestro Corps was Oa, for that is the centre of the universe. In the new post-Infinite Crisis world, however, Earth is the foundation point for the multiverse with 51 parallel Earths flowing from it. Take it out and it all collapses. They realise this too late, and the entire Sinestro Corps assaults Earth, drawing in quite literally all the other heroes: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, JLA, JSA – you name it, they’re involved.
What was an already insanely ambitious tale takes another step up as Sinestro Corps members and Manhunters attack, and Earth’s heroes respond alongside the Lanterns. Even so, it may not be enough, the Guardians attempt to counter this by creating a new Ion, who takes on but is unable to defeat Superboy-Prime. Despite that loss the other Lanterns – Hal, Guy and John have taken out Parallax and freed Kyle, so that only leaves the thousands in the Sinestro Corps, Manhunters, Superboy-Prime, the Cyborg, Sinestro and the Anti-Monitor to deal with!
Attention Geoff Johns: Your mission is to conclude this story in a fashion befitting it and to do so in one super-sized issue, do you accept? Of course he does. Johns has only 54 pages to bring this epic to an end and for all he has to cover it isn’t much. There are so many villains to deal with of such a high power level – are these able to be defeated without cheating and reducing their threat level in the space of a single issue? If so, will their defeat satisfy or will it be rushed? It could have easily been anti-climatic. It wasn’t – instead Green Lantern 25 has to be in the list of best issues of 2007.
The issue revolves around various axes: the future of the Lanterns in light of the new laws and the dangers that heralds, Hal versus Sinestro, the Guardians versus the Anti-Monitor, Superboy-Prime against everyone, the Lanterns versus the Sinestros. Nor is this everything – the sheer amount of plot and grand spectacle Johns packs into the issue is staggering. Everyone gets what’s coming to them and if some fates are left a bit more open than would be expected, the final pages make it clear: This isn’t over. Oh the Sinestro Corps are defeated, Sinestro is captured, Earth is saved, the Anti-Monitor is vanquished, but there are more stories to come. This is another impressive achievement: Johns very explicitly flags up that this will be continued, that the story began in 2005 with Rebirth and will conclude in 2009 with Blackest Night, but you don’t feel cheated. Instead it’s a very clear indication that this is all planned out, the only question: Are you going to be coming on this ride?
The Tales of the Sinestro Corps were, far from being optional extras, fairly major pieces of the story, with each delving into a particular character: Parallax, Cyborg-Superman, Superboy-Prime, Ion. Each set up plots that conclude later, the majority in Green Lantern 25. The art was generally pretty good, of them all Parallax was probably the weakest as it seemed to do little, but its plot paid off later in how Parallax was expunged from Kyle Rayner. On the other hand the The Blue Beetle tie-in was adequate but I’m not sure it was needed.
The only other weakness the story has is not embracing its status as a crossover right from the start. At the start Sinestro Corps was sold as 2 stories that would run through the respective Green Lantern titles for 5 months, readers would have the choice which to read and both would be freestanding. While this is understandable, DC wanted to avoid giving the impression people had to buy issues, once the scale of the story became apparent people did start buying both. The issues literally started disappearing out of shops! The down side of this being that each title’s recapping of the other became tiresome. Fortunately this is the only real weakness in the project but it’s probably something to be bourn in mind for future projects: If the story is good enough, people don’t mind buying 1-2 extra titles.
One minor point is there are a couple of places where the story suffers from excess, whilst these are minor they do detract from an otherwise great story. The Cyborg pays a visit to his wife’s grave, then rips it open, grabs her corpse and rips it apart. Later, over in Green Lantern Corps, the battle between Ion and Superboy-Prime ends up barrelling into a cemetery, where it continues. Both have a distasteful aspect to them, which may be the point, but neither is either really required – the story would do just as well without them.
Back to the good points and one huge achievement by the artists – they all delivered stunning art, for a story like this relies upon art to depict it and what the writers are asking isn’t minor. A galaxy-spanning war involving thousands of participants and numerous battles, each of which needs to be rendered uniquely. It’s a massive task.
Whilst the art of Ethan Van Scriver has been known to fans for a while, Ivan Reis has been less well known, I’m using past tense as that’s unlikely to be the case post-Sinestro Corps, for his’ work here has really sparkled magnificently. Splash pages are sometimes derided for occupying too much space at the expense of the story, but used correctly they are an invaluable tool and Reis demonstrates this superbly. His splash pages are packed with detail to the point where you can look at them time and again and still spot something new. He’s equally adept at conveying emotions, from the sadness in the aftermath of the strike at Oa to the elation of the final victories.
Nor should I overlook the artists who gave Gibbons final Green Lantern Corps story some amazing visuals, from the entry of Ranx, to the planetary assaults engaged in and the final outcomes. It’s in Green Lantern Corps we see the first application of the newly authorised lethal force and it’s a great moment. Another is the rematch between Kilowog and Arkillo, with the latter getting a decking from the Lanterns Sergeant-Major.
I accept that, at best, I’ve only sketched the broad outlines of this epic story and detailed some of the creative teams’ achievements but that’s all that can be done here. After all, the story spans some 14 issues, 2 of them double-size. If you’ve read this story you know there are many wonderful moments that can’t be conveyed in a review; if you haven’t I’d hope I’ve got you curious enough to give this a try – if only to see what people are talking about.
For myself, it’s a wonderful story that really shows off Green Lantern as one of DC’s flagship titles. It brings to a conclusion some 2-3 years worth of work. At its best, a long run on a title is satisfying because of the way a skilled writer will spin and assemble plots together like a mosaic. At the same time it also has a surprising ability to provoke the reader to thought: Could Sinestro have a point? If so, what of it? On the surface it’s a bright colourful tale, but underneath, there’s a good amount to ponder. At the other end of the scale it has moments of incredible action and heroic feats, which is surely the point of any comic that claims to be about superheroes.
Ben Crofts is resident in Essex, works in London and has found comics and philosophy mix surprisingly well.