Green With Rage
Written By: Sam HumphriesArt By: Tom Derenick, Robson Rocha, Jack Herbert, Neil Edwards, Tom Palmer, Jay Leisten, Keith Champagne, Hi-Fi, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 20, 2016
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
In our last issue of Green Lanterns, we did something that I really appreciated. We slowed the hell down and just talked about some Hell Towers and Rage Seeds...... and dealt with a little bit of rage infected folks...... simple. In the issue before that one, we got bitch slapped with so much new Lantern information that my head was spinning and when you have a melon the size of mine, you want to keep your head as still as possible because you're always risking a broken neck...... Yeah, my head's pretty big. Really though, there isn't a lot to say about this other than our Lanterns are finally getting into some action as they try to figure out why the world is becoming infected with rage. You think it has something to do with that giant ass Hell Tower that sprouted up in middle America?....... or wherever the hell it was? Yeah, it's a good bet, but let's find out for sure by jumping into this issue and seeing if the Lanterns can keep telling us snippets of information without overwhelming us, while also staying interesting. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins very strange in that Atrocitus, Bleez and Dex-Starr just appear in a burning cornfield, talking about their big plan of creating the Red Dawn on Earth. Red Dawn being strange in and of itself, what with it just making me think of C. Thomas Howell yelling "Wolverines!", it's even stranger to me that Atrocitus and Dex-Starr are on Earth, after we left them in the previous issue on Ysmault. Yeah, it makes sense for Bleez to be here because she was sent in early, but do the Red Lanterns now have fire teleportation that gets them from one place to another? Yeah, this is just for exposition to get the reader caught up, but I would have liked a little better transition for our main bad guy of this series instead of him just poofing in wherever he wants to be. So yeah, we get some Hell Tower talk, some Rage Seed talk and how the people of Earth are full of rage, which makes this the perfect new home for the Red Lanterns, but we've all dealt with this already in this series and ultimately it just leads to Atrocitus telling Bleez to go over to the closest city and wait for the Green Lanterns to show up........ which they do but for some reason that's beyond me, they're able to track the Red Lanterns until they actually get close to them, which is odd, but it at least gets them to Bleez. Before that though, we finally take a step towards finding out what that strange new ring that was introduced in the Rebirth issue actually is when the creator of the ring, the lone Guardian shows up at Simon's house looking for a Green Lantern....... Too bad only his sister and brother-in-law were home.
Where I was happy with the last issue for taking one of the concepts presented to us in this series and exploring it a bit, here we're presented with a whole new concept that I just can't wrap my head around. After Bleez attacks our heroes and separates them, she focuses on trying to bring the rage out in Simon and since we've seen him struggling with his emotions a lot in this series, what with not feeling good enough in the eyes of the Corps to be the only Green Lantern of Earth and the fact that the people in his hometown spray painting terrorist on his house, it seems like a good bet that if anyone is going to give into rage, it would be Simon. Instead of that though, Simon goes and cures Bleez of her rage........ kinda. I mean, we saw when Simon was first introduced that he had the ability to bring his brother-in-law out of a coma with the strength of his willpower....... which was crazy back then, but somehow now Simon is able to use that same willpower-y healing ability to cure Bleez like he was a Blue Lantern..... and it's never really explained how and it's never explained why she slowly started becoming a Red Lantern again and then fully reverting back into rage mode after Jessica mistakenly attacked her, when she thought Simon was in trouble. At first I thought it was an art fuck up, when we see Bleez cured and she's wearing the normal garb of her people, but as the panels progressed, she started rocking her Red Lantern uniform, until finally going full bloody mouthed and flying off to go hide because if Atrocitus found out that she let go of her rage, he'd kill her........ but even with me really looking as hard as I could, I couldn't find a ring on Bleez' finger........ so really, I have no idea what happened here.
In the end, with the information that Bleez gave Simon when she was cured of her rage, about how he needed to destroy the Hell Tower before it was too late, our two heroes fly off to do just that, but find all the ARGUS agents unconscious after being affected by the rage. This doesn't mean things are going to be easy though, even with ARGUS not pulling their guns on our heroes or claiming jurisdiction because out of nowhere Jessica Cruz becomes infected by the rage as well and it looks like she wants to take some of her aggression about being paired up with Simon out on him.
That's it for this issue of Green Lanterns and like we had when the Emerald Sight was introduced, we have this new-ish ability for Simon just thrown at us with no explanation and it's just another of the many subplots that we're dealing with right now that just seems to be there to fill up space and do little else since nothing even seems on the verge of getting explained. Yeah, I could be a patient Patty and just wait it out, but Simon curing Bleez is just so out there because up until this point it could only be done by a Blue Lantern........ which this also kind of makes them useless at this point, but since there wasn't any real cure going on here with Bleez slowly reverting back to her rage ways, I really have no idea what happened...... and this was the majority of the book. Also, while I'm not a fan of Simon becoming the most powerful Lantern who ever existed for no real reason, I do have to admit that this section of the book really picked up in not only art, but with dialog as well because both really struggled in the beginning of this issue. Sadly, with all these developments being thrown at us I find myself becoming less and less thrilled with this book.
Bits and Pieces:
More subplots are thrown at us with this issue of Green Lanterns and like we experienced with the previous issues of this series, nothing seems to be coming at us in terms of an explanation. Also, since we've got a bunch of artists on this issue, the art suffers in the beginning of this book and sadly so does the dialog. It eventually corrects itself, but that just leads to head scratching.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins very strange in that Atrocitus, Bleez and Dex-Starr just appear in a burning cornfield, talking about their big plan of creating the Red Dawn on Earth. Red Dawn being strange in and of itself, what with it just making me think of C. Thomas Howell yelling "Wolverines!", it's even stranger to me that Atrocitus and Dex-Starr are on Earth, after we left them in the previous issue on Ysmault. Yeah, it makes sense for Bleez to be here because she was sent in early, but do the Red Lanterns now have fire teleportation that gets them from one place to another? Yeah, this is just for exposition to get the reader caught up, but I would have liked a little better transition for our main bad guy of this series instead of him just poofing in wherever he wants to be. So yeah, we get some Hell Tower talk, some Rage Seed talk and how the people of Earth are full of rage, which makes this the perfect new home for the Red Lanterns, but we've all dealt with this already in this series and ultimately it just leads to Atrocitus telling Bleez to go over to the closest city and wait for the Green Lanterns to show up........ which they do but for some reason that's beyond me, they're able to track the Red Lanterns until they actually get close to them, which is odd, but it at least gets them to Bleez. Before that though, we finally take a step towards finding out what that strange new ring that was introduced in the Rebirth issue actually is when the creator of the ring, the lone Guardian shows up at Simon's house looking for a Green Lantern....... Too bad only his sister and brother-in-law were home.
Where I was happy with the last issue for taking one of the concepts presented to us in this series and exploring it a bit, here we're presented with a whole new concept that I just can't wrap my head around. After Bleez attacks our heroes and separates them, she focuses on trying to bring the rage out in Simon and since we've seen him struggling with his emotions a lot in this series, what with not feeling good enough in the eyes of the Corps to be the only Green Lantern of Earth and the fact that the people in his hometown spray painting terrorist on his house, it seems like a good bet that if anyone is going to give into rage, it would be Simon. Instead of that though, Simon goes and cures Bleez of her rage........ kinda. I mean, we saw when Simon was first introduced that he had the ability to bring his brother-in-law out of a coma with the strength of his willpower....... which was crazy back then, but somehow now Simon is able to use that same willpower-y healing ability to cure Bleez like he was a Blue Lantern..... and it's never really explained how and it's never explained why she slowly started becoming a Red Lantern again and then fully reverting back into rage mode after Jessica mistakenly attacked her, when she thought Simon was in trouble. At first I thought it was an art fuck up, when we see Bleez cured and she's wearing the normal garb of her people, but as the panels progressed, she started rocking her Red Lantern uniform, until finally going full bloody mouthed and flying off to go hide because if Atrocitus found out that she let go of her rage, he'd kill her........ but even with me really looking as hard as I could, I couldn't find a ring on Bleez' finger........ so really, I have no idea what happened here.
In the end, with the information that Bleez gave Simon when she was cured of her rage, about how he needed to destroy the Hell Tower before it was too late, our two heroes fly off to do just that, but find all the ARGUS agents unconscious after being affected by the rage. This doesn't mean things are going to be easy though, even with ARGUS not pulling their guns on our heroes or claiming jurisdiction because out of nowhere Jessica Cruz becomes infected by the rage as well and it looks like she wants to take some of her aggression about being paired up with Simon out on him.
That's it for this issue of Green Lanterns and like we had when the Emerald Sight was introduced, we have this new-ish ability for Simon just thrown at us with no explanation and it's just another of the many subplots that we're dealing with right now that just seems to be there to fill up space and do little else since nothing even seems on the verge of getting explained. Yeah, I could be a patient Patty and just wait it out, but Simon curing Bleez is just so out there because up until this point it could only be done by a Blue Lantern........ which this also kind of makes them useless at this point, but since there wasn't any real cure going on here with Bleez slowly reverting back to her rage ways, I really have no idea what happened...... and this was the majority of the book. Also, while I'm not a fan of Simon becoming the most powerful Lantern who ever existed for no real reason, I do have to admit that this section of the book really picked up in not only art, but with dialog as well because both really struggled in the beginning of this issue. Sadly, with all these developments being thrown at us I find myself becoming less and less thrilled with this book.
Bits and Pieces:
More subplots are thrown at us with this issue of Green Lanterns and like we experienced with the previous issues of this series, nothing seems to be coming at us in terms of an explanation. Also, since we've got a bunch of artists on this issue, the art suffers in the beginning of this book and sadly so does the dialog. It eventually corrects itself, but that just leads to head scratching.
6/10
I too was so confused by Bleez turning back into her Rage costume and I couldn't find a ring on her either. Wish I had something smart to say about that but I've got nothing.
ReplyDeletePut a ring on that Finger!
DeleteHa ha ha good one Jim!
DeleteI was shocked at how bad the art was in this issue. It helped to forget how bad the dialogue/bull crap exposition was. Bad art and lazy story telling are everything that can go wrong with a book that double ships. Im going to give this title a complete story arc, but things aren't looking good for me to keep going with this book.
ReplyDeleteThis issue really has me worried!
DeleteI was really liking this issue, in spite of the art, until it got to the last few pages with the bickering then it went way down hill for me.
ReplyDeleteLOL! I may be the only one who doesn't mind the bickering...though it is old hat by now!
DeleteI feel like they had the bickering at a good level in the last issue, but this one was just the same argument that we had in the Rebirth issue. Even the line of being GL 5 minutes longer. If you are going to continue the bickering you at least have to come up with new ways of doing it.
DeleteYou are right there...that's how I've managed to stay married for so long!
DeleteI thought it was by podcasting for so many hours that you just aren't around enough to annoy her?
DeleteI'm literally 15 seconds into this issue and I'm already annoyed that i have to hear the same old, I'm Simon Baz, the lantern nobody knows or wants. I was given the chose by the ring while i was in prison, not just any prison but the worst. Give it a break already, this is issue 3 of us having to read the same crap. One second as i finish reading this page where I'm sure we'll get to here jessica talk about her anxiety and having to stay in her house forever.
ReplyDelete