Green Lanterns #6 Review and *SPOILERS*

I Believe I Can Fly........ and Make A Construct

Written By: Sam Humphries
Art By: Will Conrad, Jack Herbert, Blond, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: September 14, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

We've come to the end of our Red Dawn story line...... or Red Planet..... or as it's referred to in this issue, Rage Planet and it's time to see if Jessica Cruz can step up to her responsibilities and do more than just whine about not being able to do anything.  Hopefully, she does because as we saw in the last issue, Simon Baz is about to have his throat torn out because he had to go and get over zealous with his whole "I can cure people's rage" thinking and Atrocitus just wasn't having it.  A guy goes and cures a Red Lantern for a couple of seconds and out of nowhere he believes he can get the rage out of the master of it....... I'm all about self confidence, but jeez.  Let's jump into this issue and see if our Lantern heroes can come out of nowhere and get a win against their first foe, even though they're seriously outmatched.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Simon thinking that it's all over because he doesn't see Jessica anywhere and Atrocitus isn't exactly loosening his grip on Simon's throat.  That being said though, Jessica shocks the hell out of me by actually embracing her emotions and allowing herself to create a construct.  I say it shocked me because for one thing, it came out of nowhere and for another, she got to this point by having herself a pseudo schizophrenic conversation in her head that started getting me worried about our hero, but either way, it worked and Jessica is glowing with power.......... Enough to actually take a simple construct and have it grow to the point where she actually brings the Hell Tower down, while the rest of the Red Lanterns just fly around useless.  Maybe a little defense would have been good Skallox or Zilius Zox.  You were brought back from the dead without an explanation, you might as well do something.  

So the Hell Tower goes down and the Red Lanterns just fly off....... defeated in Simon's mind, but what he doesn't know is that during the scuffle, Dex-Starr was able to drop the rage seed in before the tower came down.  I just don't know what the end game is here though because after the tower comes down and the Red Lanterns fly off, Earth isn't affected by the rage anymore.  You'd think that would be a thing that would continue on especially since we find out at the end of the issue that the Rage Seed was actually some sort of embryo that will grow to become the new rage entity.  That's right boys and girls, a new Butcher is being grown in the center of the Earth............ I wonder if it will have a new name?

So in the end, besides for the Rage Seed bit, Simon and Jessica chalk their skirmish up as a win and our heroes return to Simon's house........ after making sure Jessica's sister was alright and Simon could pay for that dinged up teddy bear he got his nephew for his birthday...... which really comes off as a crappy present, but maybe that's just me.  Anyway, they return to Simon's, where his sister and brother-in-law tell him that he has a visitor and that's when Rami, the rogue Guardian introduces himself and gets really pissed off that neither of our heroes are Hal Jordan......... who he shouldn't even know because he's been exiled for thousands of years, but hey, we'll go with it.  As the section with our heroes closes, we see that the reason Rami was banished was because he created a ring that could be worn by anyone........ The Phantom Ring.  Yeah, I don't know what this ring's powers are besides for being able to be worn by schmucks like you and me, but I'm interested to find out.

That's it for this issue of Green Lanterns and even though Jessica's sudden ability to create constructs came a bit out of nowhere, this issue because of that sudden talent became one of the most enjoyable because after Jessica saves the day, Simon and her actually have a conversation that was fun and pleasant to read.  There's mutual respect going on and even joy expressed from both characters over her being a bad ass.  Gone was the bickering and the self doubt that has plagued this series and really brought the fun of reading this down and it was replaced with something that I can't wait to see more of now that we're out of "but I have anxiety" territory.  Yeah, we needed that to have this sort of satisfaction here, but with it being as quick as turning on a light switch, it just feels like it could have been played a little more organic.  With that, the art and colors in this book were fantastic and everything looked amazing.  I just hope that we can continue with the upbeat nature that we had at the end of the book because we're finally getting everything that I wanted this series to be.  Plus, we have ourselves a new development that will add to the problems that Lanterns of every spectrum will have to deal with........ That is, if Atrocitus gets his way.

Bits and Pieces:

Since I've been pretty down on this series, I was shocked as hell at how much I enjoyed reading this issue.  We finally have some decent interactions between our two Lantern heroes and it brightens up the whole feel of the book........ not to mention the great colors and art that are throughout.  I really hope that this series can keep up this momentum because for the first time, Green Lanterns is a series I want to read.

8.5/10