Green Lantern Corps: Futures End #1 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Van Jensen
Art By: Igor Lima, Ruy Jose, Rodney Buchemi, Geraldo Borges
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 10, 2014

Remember That Movie Solo?  Yeah This Is Nothing Like That

After reading and loving Green Lantern last week this issue has some pretty big shoes to fill.  We're jumping into Five Years From Now with John Stewart and seeing how well he fares in the future.  See I'm already out of things to say about this.  I miss my recap section.  These one shots are going to kill me.  Okay it's story time.  One time I met James Hampton, the father of Michael J. Fox from Teen Wolf and I was really nervous to talk to him because he had aged so much from when that movie came out and I don't have a proper grip on how time and reality work so I was a little thrown off by his elderly appearance.  But once I shook his hand I immediately saw the actor I loved and I displayed the worst fanboy traits you could imagine.  I went off about how he was the best movie father of all time and how I loved how he tried to help Scott with his werewolf problem by sitting down and talking it out with a nice cup of coco and then in the sequel he was such a good guy that he drove his nephew to college.  I might have thrown him off a little too much when I started yelling at him "Where the hell were Jason Bateman's parents at!?"  Not my proudest moment, but I take away the thought that I'm not sure he even knew where he was when he was assaulted by this strange, head band wearing, giant of a fanboy...........  So let's take a look at Green Lantern Corps Five Years From Now.

Explain It!:

THESE GUYS, YOU REMEMBER THESE GUYS?

Our story begins with a couple of newer recruits guarding Mogo, when they begin an attack on what they believe to be an intruder.  Well as it turns out it's John Stewart and instead of possibly dodging this ship's blasts, he destroys it and leaves the two recruits bound to a piece of wreckage and pretty much tells them to hit what they're aiming for next time and he flies down to the planet.  That's a dick move John, dick move.  Down on Mogo John meets up with a war ravaged Kilowog and Salaak who tells him that they plan on taking back Oa from the new big bad in the universe The Shadow Empire.  You might possibly remember them from the ending of Uprising where they were briefly seen as the puppet masters behind the Durlan siege.  Two of John's old covert team Daggle and R'amey were taken when they tried to assassinate the runner of the Empire of Shadow's operations, who you might also remember from when Van Jensen took over Corps and added new recruits.  His name is Maro and he was that tiny quiet guy and apparently he betrayed the Corps and went all shadowy because they apparently cared about what he had to say.  I take it back John.  That's a dick move.

Okay so John decides that he'll kill Maro and rescue his team if they're still alive, so he recruits a new spotter and makes his way to the center of the universe, where luckily he was right on time to stop Maro from sacrificing Daggle and R'amey.

Now on Oa, John tells his new spotter to take the two Corpsmen back to Mogo and he'll finish the job of murdering Maro himself.  So after fighting some monsters that apparently belong to The Shadow Empire, John catches up with Maro and is about to kill him when Indigo-1 shows up and blocks his shot.  John's furious with Indigo-1 because he believes that she's there to recruit Maro into their tribe and the two argue over which emotional spectrum is better than the other.  Feeling his pain, Indigo-1 teleports them to the remnants of Xanshi, the old home world of Fatality which John destroyed, then she teleports him to Zezzen, where his love turned out to be a Durlan in disguise.  With all the pain that Indigo-1 brings up in him, John lashes out and stabs her.  Now he says it was a mistake, but it looked pretty damn on purpose to me.  As Indigo-1 dies, she transports them to the rest of her tribe, where John finds out that she wasn't on Oa to recruit Maro, she was searching for her replacement to lead the Indigo Tribe against the rising darkness and it seems with John's killing spree he's been on for the last five years, that he's the perfect candidate.  Indigo-1's ring falls off and places itself on John and we see him transformed into one of the tribe as his Green Lantern ring falls off and "Nok" is uttered from his lips.

HEY....HEY..... WHAT KIND OF JOKES DO THE INDIGO TRIBE LIKE TO TELL?  NOK NOK JOKES!  HA!

While this issue wasn't the kick ass issue that Green Lantern was, it was equally depressing.  What's up with these Lantern titles where everything has to have a sad ending?  Hal died, John went from a great dude to a murder machine to one of the Indigo Tribe.  Five Years From Now is a dark place and I really hope our heroes have a better fate and this horrible timeline is stricken from the record.  Besides for all the depressing....... This issue wasn't bad and I really dig finally seeing some Shadow Empire stuff because while it was only two months ago that we were given a teaser of them, it's felt much longer for me and with GODHEAD coming up they almost seem lost to stories deemed more worthy.  Hopefully New Guardians next week will show us a better future for Kyle Rayner, but I've read the solicit already, so really don't get your hopes up.

Bits and Pieces:

This is just an alright issue.  Nothing really to complain about except that it didn't hold up next to last week's Green Lantern: Futures End.  I've been rating these event issues based on whether they blew me away, or whether they make sense to be a part of this event.  While I like seeing the Lanterns Five Years From Now, this one shot didn't do it for me since there isn't enough time to explain the new scourge of the universe that this title would be facing and it really got me interested.  So if you're a fan of Lantern lore, then you definitely should get this, but if your just interested in what's going on in the weekly Futures End title then you can pass on this.  Luckily I'm both.

7/10