Green Lantern: New Guardians #39 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Justin Jordan
Art By: Diogenes Neves, Marc Deering, Wil Quintana
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: February 18, 2015

Fighting The Future

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

When last we flew through the universe with Kyle Rayner, we saw that after the events of GODHEAD that Carol Ferris and him were taking some time off to try and sort through their romantic debacle.......... Oh what, you don't remember?  Well Kyle went and accidentally used the Life Equation to turn Carol into his long dead girlfriend Alex....... and I'm sure you can guess that she wasn't too happy about it.  Add that to Carol not sure if she loves Kyle because she actually loves him or that she needs to love someone to continue using her powers and you have yourself an expensive couples therapy bill.  While our pair were trying to work out their problems, they were interrupted by a giant fireball crashing down on the planet which led our couple to it's origin point and there they found the dark reflection of Kyle known as Oblivion, that he accidentally created using the Life Equation.  Let's see if Kyle can overcome his dark side and survive his penultimate issue.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins in a odd way where Kyle is sitting in a cafe doodling like he used to when his girlfriend Alex walks in and they have themselves a tender moment.......... Until Alex starts decaying away and Kyle can do nothing about it.  That reminds me of a dream my friend Jay had once where he was making out with what turned out to be the girl from The Ring and all he could think to do was keep making out with her and hoping that if he did it good enough, she wouldn't kill him........ Yeah, Jay's weird.  So things become terrifying but don't count out our White Lantern just yet, Kyle knows Oblivion's tricks and wills the nightmare away and begins his fight to get back into the real world and out of the nightmare that Oblivion created for him.

Back in the real world, Carol and Saysoran........... you all remember Saysoran don't you?  She's the woman five years from now that will go up against Kyle when he becomes all god like and starts reshaping the universe to what he believes is right....... you know crazy and shit.  So remember that because this is totally a prelude to the Five Years From Now New Guardians Futures End tie-in.  Anyway, we have Carol and Saysoran fighting off Oblivion until Kyle finally breaks free from his dark reflection and before the monster can reform himself, Kyle tells Carol to take Saysoran and go do that thing that she doesn't want to do........ No, I'm serious.  It's all mysterious and we learn that it's kept a secret so Oblivion doesn't discover what the game plan is.

In the end, Kyle fights Oblivion as we learn that Oblivion's main objective is to not only kill Kyle but to erase him from existence so that he will never become that mad god in the future and begin reshaping the universe to his liking......... It's kind of odd but Oblivion in a strange slightly demented way is the hero here because he's seen the future and he knows what will happen and by the end of this issue, I didn't really know who to root for because I'm not sure if the Futures End timeline is inevitable or not.  Kyle swears that he won't let that future happen but Oblivion isn't about to just let Kyle walk away not all erased from time like he wants and as our issue closes it looks like Oblivion is about to finish the job but he'd better hurry up because Carol has returned with reinforcements in the form of tiny blue guardian like beings.......... Yeah........ it's the Guardians.

That's it for this issue of New Guardians and I'm digging the fact that Justin Jordan is doing more with the Futures End tie in from back in September.  Here I am being a big dummy fanboy asking myself and anybody else who is dumb enough to listen, "does the Futures End story actually affect the normal continuity?"  I know it doesn't right now, but will it?  It seems that most writers when tasked to tell the story about our heroes in the future just said the hell with it and threw something out there but it looks like Justin Jordan had this whole thing figured out and he's doing us a solid by exploring it more and really giving us some depth to what the Life Equation can be in the hands of Kyle Rayner.  Obviously I like the story but it comes at us with excellent art by Diogenes Neves, Marc Deering and some spectacular colors by Wil Quintana.  Really I think that the colorist is one of the most important people when it comes to Lantern books and this issue doesn't disappoint.  See you next month where we find out the ultimate fate of Kyle Rayner and what the future holds for our hero.

Bits and Pieces:

While yes, at first glance you might think that this issue is strictly a fight scene between our hero and his evil doppelganger; who has aspirations of being Venom from Spider-Man, but when you look closer you realize that this has a lot of depth and is really the crossroads for what will happen to our hero in the future.  It's a solidly told issue with great art that makes me realize that I'm really going to miss this book after it's final issue next month.

9/10