Revenge of the Green Lantern

This volume collects issues #7-13 of the current Green Lantern comic helmed by Geoff Johns, and is the second book in the series following Green Lantern (Book 1): No Fear (or third, if you slot in the mini-series Green Lantern: Rebirth as the one that re-started it all). Featured artists include Ivan Reis, Ethan Van Sciver and Carlos Pacheco. As stated in the title, I found this volume to be a great starting point for getting into the current Green Lantern mythos. I had grabbed this on a whim one night off the magazine rack at a video rental store, and was sorely impressed by the material despite not knowing much prior Green Lantern history. This is one of Geoff Johns' strengths as a writer - despite references to heavy continuity, such as Hal Jordan's turn to evil in the 90's Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight & A New Dawn story line, Johns is able to boil history down to its essentials, encapsulate it for the reader, and move on. Where others use simple editors notes (ie. "See Green Lantern Vol. 3 #50) or lengthy dialogue recaps, here quick flashback panels built into the narrative illustrate history by the easiest way to understand it - visually. In other instances, history isn't explained because it's not important to the story - the Black Mercy Plant made famous by the Superman tale "For the Man Who Has Everything" reappears here to great use, but you lose nothing if you've never read the original classic (collected in DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore and other places). Similarly, the Black Mercy is only here because villain Mongul stole it in the first chapter of Infinite Crisis, but again that's a tangent that doesn't apply to the story being told. And yes, "Revenge of the Green Lanterns" arguably works better than "Rebirth" and "No Fear" as a gateway book, mostly because it eliminates the requisite continuity knowledge of the former and raises the stakes much, much higher than the latter. The first two chapters feature the classic Green Lantern/Green Arrow team facing Mongul and the Black Mercy, followed by a revealing and often humorous character study as Green Lantern teams up with Batman and mends fences with him. The book then skips ahead One Year Later (a jump followed by all DC titles during that period) with the mission to rescue a group of lost lanterns and confront one of Green Lantern's great enemies. The artwork by Ivan Reis here is especially impressive and beautifully inked and coloured - a precursor to the epic pages of Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, Vol. 1 down the line. If you haven't gotten into one of the best superhero titles on the market, this volume is an easy and highly recommended place to start. And it only gets better from here.

This comic series is just amazing. I have read a view comics in the past, but the style and story of this series has got me hooked.

Great story. I wish I would have read the volume before this one. I enjoy team ups.

First off,I will recommend this book as a companion to the awesome Green Lantern Rebirth. It's a great follow up which shows GL's relationships with other heroes,primarily Batman and Green Arrow,as well as the Green Lantern Corps whom he destroyed years ago when he was the evil Parallax. Great art is provided by Carlos Pacheco,Ethan Van Sciver(Rebirth)and the amazing Ivan Reis who pencils the title story. This graphic novel is a must read for any new GL fan or GL fan in general.It has great character interaction as well as loud and widescreen intergalactic action. Highly recommended.

Green Lantern: Revenge of the Green Lanterns is a somewhat uncommon collection in as much as the seven issues it collects (#7 - 13) don't contain a solitary storyline the way most hardcover or trade paperback collections do. There are three distinct storylines although I suppose you could make a case for them being loosely tied together if you really reach. The opening story finds Green Lantern and Green Arrow battling the children of Superman Arch-villain Mongul as they have come to claim the Earth in the name of their late father. The story isn't significant so much for the battle against the pair but rather the back-story of how Hal and Ollie see their lives after they've been infected by Mongul's alien plant known as Black Mercy. The second story arc finds Hal teaming with Batman against a foe known as the Tattooed Man who can bring his tattoos to life. Again, this minor threat isn't the main thrust of the story but rather it's the mending of the relationship between Batman and Green Lantern after the events in Infinite Crisis. Much life most of DC's other superhero titles, Green Lantern is getting re-booted with a clean slate so to speak. Finally we get to the title story arc. When the Green Lantern Tomar Tu, thought killed by Hal in the whole Parallax storyline, comes crashing to Earth in his spaceship he mutters that he will kill Hal Jordan. Back on the home world of the Guardians, Hal recalls those terrible events in which he killed several fellow Green Lanterns which still earns him much distrust in the Green Lantern Corps. Hal believes that perhaps the others he thought were dead may still be alive and wants to investigate, but the sector, known as Blackest Night, home of the artificial beings known as the Manhunters is off limits and Hal is denied. Of course, he goes anyway, joined by Guy Gardner, off to the Manhunter's world known as Biot. They discover thousands of Manhunters being created including hulking behemoths known as Highmasters that use Green Lanterns as batteries and amplify their powers by a hundredfold. But who the mastermind behind the Manhunters is the real surprise. While I could give or take the first two stories, the Revenge of the Green Lanterns arc was extremely well done. It's a rousing superhero tale at its best with great villains and the return of many friends we thought long gone. Geoff Johns is one of the best pure superhero writers around and proves it again. It's obvious how much he respects the characters, a rare thing these days. Credit also artist Carlos Pacheco whose jumping-off-the-page action recalls fond memories of Neal Adams at his peak. The book may not be worthy of a hardcover, but it is a very solid collection. Reviewed by Tim Janson