Pick of the week: Green Lantern Corps #24
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Patrick Gleason
I’m not sure what is going on lately in comics, but there is just a steady level of mediocrity flowing through most of the mainstream titles. This is why ‘Green Lantern Corps’ has been so refreshing. I just started reading GLC during last year’s Sinestro Corps crossover and I was surprised by how entertaining this book was for not featuring any DC comics mainstay heroes. Since Green Lantern has his own title and the Green Lantern Corps is an endless array of disposable heroes to tell stories about. What makes this title such a good read is that it focuses mainly on two Green Lanterns, Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardener and there backup Green Lanterns from other planets made up of other species. Since these are not big name characters, especially the supporting cast, interesting stories can be told in this book that allows for unconventional characters and story telling to take place. Its not a rarity to see a character from this book go through horrendous events or even die because they are allowed to tell actual stories here without having to be bogged down by the confines of the editorial staff.
Recently the cast of this book has been dealing with the clean up effort from the Sinestro Corps war and making sure there are no other Yellow Lantern rings out in the galaxy and discovering a known villain has a Yellow ring already in his possession and is recruiting members to his cause.
Peter Tomasi has been writing this series for a while and is also currently writing Nightwing and wrote the great mini series about Black Adam. Tomasi is on the fast track to not only being one of my favorite new writers at DC comics but is also one of the best kept secrets DC has.
On art duties is Patrick Gleason who is another talent DC has and will hopefully be put on a bigger title in the future. Gleason’s art has become more and more polished as the series has gone on and is dynamic but keeps a gritty animated style that works so well for all the action scenes and various alien races that are featured in this book.
Green Lantern Corps is a fun cosmic title that gets better and better as the series progresses and is allowed to flourish and find it’s stride. While the mainstream books are so bogged down in continuity and crossovers its nice to have a fun comic that surprises you and exceeds beyond expectations in art and story while not even starring any mainstream characters.