"Green Lantern: Earth One" A New Spin that is Too Short for it's Own Good

 

    Let me level with you. I mostly decided to read this comic because people keep on sharing the artwork from this series, especially since Lanterns is about to wrap up its first season and everyone seems to be buzzing with excitement. Even still, I had decently high hopes, people seemed quite adamant this was a good Green Lantern run even if it was two volumes at best. And I have to say? It's pretty solid. I don't think it particularly reinvents the wheel, but there are some changes to the GL mythos that I think people can appreciate. Let's talk about it.

    During Geoff John's famous Green Lantern run much of it was about showing the Guardians of the Galaxy as the villains they were, with the creation of the Manhunters and everything they chose to hide about the universe and their workings. This series does not change that aspect, but it feels more liberating in the sense that it doesn't feel shackled by years of lore and mythos it has to work around. Like Johns had to deal with Parallax, the weird timeline, and the yellow weakness but this series has none of it. No one trusts the guardians, and Hal Jordan is just someone learning to grapple with a universe that just became that much bigger.

    Honestly, my only complaint is that you don't really see the Lanterns making any sort of particularly creative designs. I know not everything has to be like the mainline universe, but I would have appreciated to see at least one of the Lanterns people remembered and loved making a nice construct. In that sense it seems the power of the rings in this story are a bit weaker, and a bit more simplistic, kind of like how it can feel in the Absolute universe. Other than flight and translation it's simple power/energy blasts, and maybe a small construct or two but it doesn't feel like a ring that can conjure up anything your mind puts to it.

    Even still, I think they manage to make a pretty compelling story despite it, especially given the short runway this series had. Like in Lanterns, this Hal Jordan is a little older and seemingly a bit more jaded, though not quite as much as his counterpart in the show is. I do quite like his interactions with Kilowog in this universe, it's quite adorable watching these two souls try and sift through fiction and reality as they find their place in a universe that is understandably not sure what to do with them yet. Arisia being leader is cool. Sadly, yellow lantern John only shows up in the second volume so I don't quite have much of a read on him yet and what's different about him.

Final Score: 70/100

    This run is simply too short for me to give it higher score. It certainly has a great art style, and I think it does a decent job of differentiating itself from the main run so far. However, I don't think it's done enough yet, and part of it isn't it's fault, but I can only score what exists, not what could be. It's a real shame this won't be continued because I quite wanted to see them expand more on Qward and that dimension. It would have been nice to see their own take on the emotional spectrum, if it even existed in that universe since these rings do not choose their owners, and in fact I don't think the words will or fear have even been mentioned in related to the rings yet. Either way, I still think it's short enough to be worthy of a good 40 minute or so read.