Sinestro #16 Review and *SPOILERS*

It's Good To Be The King

Written By: Cullen Bunn
Art By: Brad Walker, Ethan Van Sciver, Drew Hennessy, Jason Wright, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: October 28, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Now maybe Lobo is still out there collecting different Lantern hands across the Universe like the psychopath that he is, but Sinestro doesn't have time to wait for his ass, not with the Paling still out and about sucking people's emotion dry and converting all emotional non-believers.  So while Sinestro might be done Rising and all that, he still has a long way to go to make sure that his reign is supreme out there in the big wide Universe.  It's time to call in some help and get to the bottom of this Paling situation, so let's jump into this issue and see how the fear monger himself goes about taking out this mysterious enemy.  Let's check it out.



Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Sinestro and a handful of the Fear Lanterns heading down to Kahndaq to meet up with an old friend.  If any of you didn't read Forever Evil...... well, I suggest that you get on that because it was awesome, but in the meantime I'll let you in on the fact that Sinestro and Black Adam worked together to help take down the Crime Syndicate and even though I loved the idea of those two characters together....... I never thought I'd see it again, so man I'm happy as hell.  Anyway, the Sinestro Corps come down and they're immediately thrown off because the people of Kahndaq, I guess were expecting them and began throwing a grand celebration for their King/God's honored guests........ Well, I guess honored isn't exactly the word because Black Adam and Sinestro spend the majority of this issue trying to one-up each other and it's hilarious.

Once the festivities have begun, Sinestro gets to why he came to Black Adam.  Our leader of the Sinestro Corps wants to know who the Pale Bishop that runs the whole shebang is and apparently, our once mightiest mortal fought The Paling centuries ago, when they came to Earth looking to subjugate it's people.  Thankfully, Black Adam used his might to fight back this threat and the secrets of that battle are secured in vaults of wisdom.  I say thankfully because of all the stories that we got of our heroes in a non-Paled world....... that would be a weird Elseworld.

Because Black Adam is apparently a man of tradition, he makes Sinestro go alone to the vaults of wisdom with him........ and he also makes him walk because apparently this is a sacred pilgrimage and having the ability to fly would simply spit in the face of his people.  It's kind of ridiculous because I know Black Adam to be a man that does what he wants, but I guess you could just chalk this up to Black Adam forcing his will over Sinestro, even if his will only gives Sinestro a few blisters on his feet.

In the end, the one-upping continues as they enter the vaults of wisdom.  Sinestro comments about his time as an archaeologist and Black Adam immediately shoots him down by calling him a defiler of secrets........ but if Soranik gets her way, Black Adam will be a defiler of daughters.  Man, she's into Adam.  Anyway, for all his defiler of secrets talk, Black Adam sure does destroy a lot of shit in this vault when a bunch of undead protectors don't obey his commands and begin charging our two anti-heroes.  After the dead are finally put to rest though, we get to our cliffhanger and man, it's a doozy.  Now this might have been apparent to everyone else out there, but man did I feel like a big dummy when I saw that the Pale Bishop........ who Black Adam apparently killed in their original battle, is none other than a Guardian of the Universe.  It makes complete sense that eons ago when the Guardians purged themselves of emotion, that one of them would see that as the way the Universe should be and start a pseudo Corps of his own under those beliefs.  Hell, the rest of the Guardians would eventually get on the trolley and  try the same thing back in the Third Army.  Too bad that the emotion of Sinestro's ring reawakens this Pale Bishop and our two rulers will have themselves a hell of a battle on their hands in the next issue.

That's it for this issue of Sinestro and with DC being on this six issue mini kick all of a sudden, I wouldn't mind if they threw a little more Sinestro/Black Adam awesomeness our way.  I just love these two together and while the action is a bit light here, I could seriously just read a book where these two sit around a talk because they are so self important that it's hilarious seeing them try to one-up the other.  On top of that, I love the continuation of The Paling story here because we began this story so long ago and things just kept coming up to take us away from that plot, that it feels kind of like a return to form for the Sinestro series that got bogged down with crossovers like the rest of the Lantern books.  For all my love of this book and it's awesome creative team, I do have to say that I could see this book falling a little flat for people who aren't Black Adam fans because as much as I love these two characters together, not much happens besides for their interactions together.  Seriously though, even with that, this is still an good book, that looks fantastic.

Bits and Pieces:

This book always surprises me on how good it is every month and I don't know why.  Here we are 16 issues in and I'm still flabbergasted at how much this is able to grab me and make me love Sinestro all over again.  He is such a great bad guy and his on-going adventures in controlling the Universe through fear is like watching a game of live action chess.......with constructs and space battles of course.  Here we slow things down a bit though, but Sinestro meeting up with Black Adam is a pairing that I've been dying to see again since Forever Evil and the art depicting it is fantastic.

7.8/10