Green Lantern Corps (vol. 1): To Be a Lantern

With Hal Jordan’s “rebirth” as Green Lantern in the DC Universe being the commercial success that it was, a spinoff title to capitalize on that success was inevitable.  Fortunately the concept of an interstellar police force is big enough to handle two titles with different approaches.  Where “Green Lantern” is “The Hal Jordan Show,” “Green Lantern Corps.” is home to all of the other Lanterns that have been created over the years (and weren’t killed when Jordan was possessed by Parallax).  This first volume of the ongoing series does a good job showcasing the kinds of adventures that can be had with this diverse group of individuals.  Parts of it may be predictable and even a bit silly, but it’s an endearing kind of silliness and its “interstellar cop show” vibe won me over in the end.

Dave Gibbons, best known as the artist of “Watchmen,” writes the first six issues (and illustrates three of them) collected here.  For those of you only familiar with the man through his landmark work with Alan Moore, the man is a capable writer though his strength seems to lie in crafting high-concept superhero work.  I don’t know what this says about me as a reviewer, but I was more entertained by his “Batman vs. Predator” mini-series than his much-vaunted original graphic novel “The Originals” (let’s just say that it wasn’t, and we’ll leave it at that for now).

The man is perfectly at home in the cosmos of the DCU, as I’m sure he’s drawing on his experience in contributing to the early days of the very-long-running British sci-fi anthology “2000 A.D.” in his work here.  That’s because the silliness that I mentioned earlier was inherent in that series.  Go read some early “Judge Dredd” and you’ll see what I mean.  It’s evidenced here by concepts like a sentient city voiding its sewer system bowels, lizardmen torn between duty and their mating instincts, sentient planets acting as therapists, a mercenary named Bolphunga, and more.

These are only some of the trappings of this volume, as it’s above-mentioned purpose is to showcase the many different Lanterns that make up the Corps.  Chief amongst these is Guy Gardner, their resident arrogant hothead who winds up helping a fellow member avenge her murdered partner, having his well-deserved R&R interrupted by Bolphunga, and teaming up with a rookie to solve a kidnapping in a sentient city.  In addition, you also have Natu the Lantern from Korugar who has to deal with the stigma of inheriting the infamous Sinestro’s ring, and Vath, whose temper threatens to destroy his partnership with the lizardman Isamot.  

There’s still more members to this cast and while the large cast allows for lots of different stories to be told at the same time, it comes at the expense of characterization.  Each of these individuals has about one dimension between them.  Gibbons does the best he can with this issue and while it works for a characters like Guy, who keep running into situations that run counter to his hot-headedness, it doesn’t work so well for others.  Natu, in particular, winds up having a pity party that lasts the length of the entire volume.  While the stories themselves aren’t much deeper, they’re still enlivened by the outlandish sci-fi trappings that Gibbons cooks up.

He also supplies some very nice art for the second half of the volume.  It may not be flashy, but it’s very expressive and conveys the action, drama and humor efficiently and without complication.  Patrick Gleason, on the other hand, illustrates the first three issues and he’s very heavy on the flash and the detail.  Some of his characters come off a bit too overwrought, but he does a good job realizing the various alien worlds and cultures that are featured here.

This isn’t a comic that you have to own, but it does well by its “cops in space” premise and utilization of the Green Lantern mythos.  It’s also reasonably reader-friendly by the standards of most DC titles.  Even if you didn’t know about Sinestro and Korugar, you’d still be able to understand the characters and their motivations.  (That could be because of their one-dimensionality, but I’ll give credit where it’s due.)  Fans of “Green Lantern” and superheroes in space would do well to give this a look.