"Geoff John's Green Lantern" Just Spectacular

 

    I will preface this review by saying this is a very long run, so expect maybe a semi-long review? It has a bunch of little arcs and such, and I've read through it plenty of times. I also have to admit that reading this Green Lantern run was what originally started getting me into comics as a child. I vividly remember watching Comicstorian's (RIP) videos on this Geoff Johns run and being amazed at how cool all of it sounded, whether it was Brightest Day, Blackest Night, the Sinestro War all of it. I also distinctly remember my mom getting mad at one of the books I borrowed from the library from this run because the cover had different GL members hung up like they were being crucified. All of this to say, with Lanterns going on as well, I had an itch, and so I returned to the run that really made me a big comics fan. Let's talk about it.

    There are some genuine criticisms of the run so I'll get those out of the way at first. Yes, it does become a little formulaic at the end. It's kind of hard to make the stakes of each arc feel just as dire when the biggest event is in the middle of it all. There's basically three events after Blackest Night, Brightest Day, Rise of the Third Army (which can hardly be considered an event since they don't actually do much), and Wrath of the First Lantern. It's a fair criticism. After all, it's why the run ultimately ends with the death of pretty much any of the current Guardians. How can you pretend like the status quo is okay when the entire run is kind of about how these beings that decided it was their job to protect the universe suck at it?

    I will say it's some valid too. I'll admit I had to break up my reading o run through about two days because eventually it can start to feel a little bit like running through the motions. That and I also feel like Brightest Day as an event is incredibly weak. Like I know it's meant to explain all of the weird revivals, but I could not care less about any of the characters they brought back. I did not care about Deadman learning to live, in retrospect it's by far the weakest part of the run by a pretty good margin. Especially because they basically retcon the white lantern stuff to give it to Kyle like two arcs later anyways near the end of the run.

    I will also say that people may or may not have gotten the wrong idea's from this run. This run basically starts off with Johns doing a lot of retcons to the wackier, weirder parts of the GL lore, and ignoring everything he doesn't want to in favour of a bit reboot centering around Hal Jordan, the original (technically it's Alan Scott but I mean in terms of the GLC) Green Lantern. Like they pretty much immediately get rid of that weird Guy Gardner is actually an alien and has secret superpowers bit which frankly I think is a welcome addition. If you don't end up liking Hal throughout this run then your mileage will vary significantly compared to mine, especially if you prefer Guy, John or Kyle. I guess Simon appears in this run but it's just so brief I feel bad for him frankly. While this run did expand significantly on the emotional spectrum, it has not quite gone so well for future authors. Like the Phantom Lantern? What?

    So, a decent argument could be made that Johns paved the way and did indeed make Lanterns lore quite a bit more bloated, but to that I'd argue, I kind of liked it. I mean it did open the floodgates for more writers to basically keep on iterating, and I thought him conveniently introducing a new "uncompromised" version of the guardians at the end of the run was pretty funny but still. Whether it's the Red Lanterns, the backstory behind the Indigo Lanterns which I really loved learning about, or the Blue Lanterns which are one of my personal favourites (I love Saint Walker), it made for not only some really fun and colourful pages, but some great space battles as well. I suppose I do wish some of their powers were a little more different, especially because it feels like fear and will can mostly just do whatever they want, but for the most part seeing them either fight each other or work together was fantastic. 

    In terms of actual arcs I will say the Sinestro Corps war was by far the best part of the Geoff Johns Run. Whether it's Sinestro smiling at Hal Jordan, explaining how he won, and how him forcing the Guardians to let the GLC kill was his goal all along was fantastic. Blackest Night was solid, I think them duplicating the rings and giving them to characters like Luthor or Wonder Woman were cool as well, and it was fine though a little convoluted to be honest. I honestly preferred the GL stuff when they stayed away from Earth. Like I mentioned before Brightest Day sucked, and the only good part about Rise of the Third Army was the run in The New Guardians in which Kyle learns to master the emotional spectrum and unlock his white ring. I will say I do love the ending though. Whether it's Sinestro letting Ganthet live, Sinestro being the keeper of the book of Oa, or all of the main characters growing happy and old. It was really nice. Just don't read into what happens immediately afterwards.

Final Score: 90/100

    Come on I literally said this run is what got me into comic books again as a kid. Not just as someone who watches the shows and such, or reads whatever encyclopedia book I could get my hands on, but like actually reading the comic books. On a side note batcave is simply not as good as readcomicsonline. Like their Geoff Johns run is basically half finished so I was basically jumping around for no reason. Also they should have never introduced Simon right at the very end of this run. Johns doesn't even mention him in the epilogue for his entire thing anyways other than the fact that he's basically an outsider to the core four and just trained Jessica Cruz. Either way Lanterns has me itching for some more GL content recently so I couldn't resist revisiting this run again.