Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #8 Review and **SPOILERS**

Out of the Jar, Into the Bottle

Writer: Robert Vendetti 

Artist: Ethan Van Sciver 

Colorist: Jason Wright 

Letterer: Dave Sharpe 

Cover: Van Sciver & Wright 

Cover Price: $2.99 

On Sale Date: November 9, 2016

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

It’s a new arc, and the dawn of a new day here at Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. I made no secret about finding the previous seven-issue(!) story bloated and full of redundancies, but I believe that each time we turn the page there is an opportunity to do better. So let’s begin this arc with open minds and open hearts, and see what’s happening in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #8! Though, since Hal is dead, you can probably call this Formerly Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps.

Explain It!

Now that Sinestro and Lyssa are dead, Hal is dispersed, and Warworld is kaput, Mogo can slide right into that old Center of the Universe groove left by the planet Oa in the first place. On Mogo, the Green Lantern Corps and refugees from Sinestro Corps—but ones that are organized under Soranik Natu, I suppose, not the ones that Sinestro booted off Warworld before fighting Hal—are having a pretty tense meet n’ greet. John even wonders if Guy, who arrived with Soranik’s crew, has been brainwashed, but Guy points out that the other prisoner’s of Warworld’s Fear Engine have already returned to their home planets by way of magic, I suppose. I mean, weren’t these captives taken from points all over the galaxy? I’d think a couple of them would have at least a week of travel.

After like four fucking pages recapping the seven issues we just read, Salaak and Steg are working in the Command Center…of Mogo, I suppose, restoring the long-range communications, when Salaak gets a distress call. He immediately tells John Stewart that Xudar is being invaded. That’s the planet where Tomar-Tu and those other bird-faced orange dudes with sail fins on their heads come from, but the important thing is that it’s a planet being invaded, and therefore the Green Lantern Corps must butt in on it. Talk about cockblockers! John tells the entire Corps to saddle up for Xudar, which immediately strikes me as a fantastically bad idea, and has Soranik and her crew stay on Mogo like good little boys and girls until the Good Guys get back. When the Corps gets to Xudar, they find the planet is being taken over—by Starro!

Yes, you know Starro! That giant space starfish that takes over entire planets by enslaving the populace? Well, he’s at it again. And the Green Lantern Corps, they’re only sort of effective, though Guy does make a pretty cool green construct catcher’s mitt to scoop up a bunch of little Starros for some reason. That’s when Soranik Natu and her Soranik Corps show up to save the day! This pisses off John Stewart royally, because he goes berserk when people don’t follow his orders even though it happens literally all the time, and while he yells as Soranik, the big Starro shimmers away and disappears right before everyone’s eyes! The people of Xudar, however, remain mind-controlled by mini-Starros. John, Kilowog, and Tomar-Tu fly into space to get a better eyeball on the situation, but find themselves held back by some kind of shield…placed there by Brainiac as he shrunk the planet! Or part of the planet, at least. You’ll have to check the artwork.

And I swear to god, if this is going to be another six issues of the Green Lantern Corps trapped in a jar and unable to do anything, while Hal congeals and saves the day or whatever, then you can roll this magazine up and fill it with lard because I’m going to say “fuck it.” Never mind that Brainiac mentions that he’s working for the Collector—don’t drag that Convergence shit in here, I thought everyone agreed that we’d allow Wally West and the original Superman and Lois Lane to come back, but otherwise we were going to back away from that suckhole of a comic book event and pretend it never happened. The art in this book was phenomenal, as always, but I have been burned by one story in this series already, and I feel leery about the way this one is starting. Call it a hunch.

Bits and Pieces:

It's the beginning of a new story arc, and it's already starting to smell a little ripe. Maybe I'm a little gun-shy after the previous yarn, and some fantastic art does make this potential pill easier to swallow. If you didn't read the prior seven issues, you're in luck because there's a pretty extensive recap in this one. Save yourself the time and the twenty-one bucks.

6/10