Green Lanterns #7 Review and *SPOILERS*

Don't Tell Mom I'm A Green Lantern

Written By: Sam Humphries
Art By: Ronan Cliquet, Blond, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: September 21, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

I know I've probably said this at the beginning of all my reviews for Green Lanterns, but here it is again.  This was the title that I was looking forward to the most when the Rebirth titles were announced.  After reading a bunch of issues though, I wasn't impressed at all.  It was just the same thing over and over again and that includes characters, who were constantly bickering or yelling about how they couldn't do something.  Thankfully, in my mind, that all changed last issue, where we saw Jessica finally step up and become the Green Lantern we all wanted her to be and to my surprise, we also saw a change in Simon, where he was legitimately happy for Jessica and with that, the bickering turned into congratulations and general happiness, which I just freaking loved!  Let's continue our journey with the characters we saw from last issue now that they've destroyed the Hell Tower and Simon introduced his family to his partner, who he's proud of.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue opens up and immediately pisses me off because there's Jessica pulling her same old anxiety shit, but I guess from here on out I gotta tell myself to chill out and have some patience because this opener was made for everyone who was getting tired of that because right away Sam Humphries yells "PSYCHE!" when he shows us that this is all do to Jessica having to spend the day with Simon's family for Halloween and I just laughed and laughed because not only is it funny, but it's also legit.  I've got a lot of anxiety and spending the day with people I barely know scares the shit out of me and instead of saying that she's done with her big character trait that we've seen Jessica have all this time, she instead just sees the craziness of family life and says "Nope" and attempts to fly away....... That is until Simon stops her and tells us that he needs his partner to back him up with making cookies because his mother is coming over and he seriously needs help.  

While we've seen that Simon is pissed at the world because he's been labeled a terrorist, here we get a little more of the backstory in why he's ashamed at all of this previous ill conceived notions like stealing cars, racing and whatnot and that's because he's never been the son his mother wanted in his eyes and because of that, he rebelled, which led to more thoughts of being a terrible son....... and it's a never ending cycle.  The one thing that he thinks he needs to do to get his mother's acceptance is make the cookies with the recipe that she brought with her from Lebanon when she first came to America.  Also, it's a holiday tradition in the Baz family and Simon's sister is making him cook them himself as a means of punishment for making them keep Rami The Rogue Guardian inside the house.  After this backstory that gives us some perspective on Simon, we see Jessica and him working together to get the cookies done, using their power rings and even though it's not them vanquishing evil, it's just as good as they race the clock to make sure they're all done before his Mama gets there.  

In the end, Simon's mother arrives and initially looks down on her son for being so reckless in being a Green Lantern, but eventually she gets on the GL trolley and thinks that maybe for everything that Simon's done in his life, it was always leading to this as a way to not only serve his impulsive nature a bit, but to also do some good in the world.  Family time is going to have to end though because when our heroes go to see what Rami is up to, we see that he's left the house because he believes that the Dominators have followed him to Earth.

That's it for this issue of Green Lanterns and thank whatever god you believe in that the momentum Sam Humphries started in the previous issue continues here.  I mean, I was so worried that we'd get back to not a lot going on with characters that aren't likable, but like the first scene made me think, maybe I just have to chill out and be patient because I loved this low key issue that just allowed our heroes to shine in a normal light that's done more for their development in my mind than the whole of the first story arc.  It's issues like this, where we get to see the characters outside of super heroics that makes them worth reading and after reading this issue, I definitely still believe that.  The dialog was great, the humor was perfect and we got more to Simon's backstory than we ever have before, all with vibrant amazing art carrying us the entire way.  This series is back on my radar in a big way and I can't wait to see what adventure Sam Humphries has for us now that he's finally able to get away from that initial Rebirth story arc.  

Bits and Pieces:

Green Lanterns continues to surprise me because as we saw in the previous issue, it seems that all the nonsense that we dealt with in the first few issues are over and now it's time to get to who these characters are and what kind of heroes they can be.  Yeah, we don't have a great big threat going after our Lanterns here, but the situation is definitely perilous for Simon and I loved seeing our Lantern heroes getting together and actually being caring partners.  I love the recent writing of this series and the art has just been great.  

9/10