Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #12 Review and **SPOILERS**

Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Convergence?

Writer: Robert Vendetti 

Artist: Ethan Van Sciver 

Colorist: Jason Wright 

Letterer: Dave Sharpe 

Cover: Van Sciver and Wright 

Cover Price: $2.99 

On Sale Date: January 11, 2017

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Unless Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner stop off for chili dogs—which could very well happen in this book—they should connect with John Stewart, Soranik Natu and their respective posses on Okarra fighting Larfleeze. If Hal and Kyle don’t make it…well, the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps and pretty well screwed. So what are we waiting for? Let’s get right into the action!

Explain It! 

The art teams on this series are some of the best in comic books. I love Ed Benes and Rafa Sandoval, and I’ve definitely praised them before. But no one draws Green Lantern like Ethan Van Sciver. Whew! Right from the first page, Larfleeze is sending his constructs to fight the Green and Yellow Lantern Corps, and you swear these things are going to pop off the page. While Tomar-Tu uses his ring to keep his home city of Xudar small, the rest of the Green Lantern Corps attempt to hold back these orange slobs lest they become one of Larfleeze’s greedy army. The Sinestro Corps and the Green Lantern Corps fight back-to-back, but all seems hopeless against the overwhelming tide of avarice-based constructs.

But help is on its way! Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, Sayd and Ganthet are speeding to Okarra to help out John Stewart and his crew. Meanwhile, John Stewart agrees to work with the Sinestro Corps, fueling their rings with Larfleeze’s fear as they break his shrunken city collection. Yep, that’s what they do. They make an obsessive collector freak out while they ruin his stuff’s “new-in-box” status. It’s all so silly, and of course works perfectly because why wouldn’t it? Never mind the dangers these cities might contain—we can see a miniaturized Starro on the inside of the first jar Kilowog smashes, for instance—or that they’re committing successive acts of genocide, it’s all worth giving the Sinestro Corps the juice they need to cut through Larfleeze. Guy is about to smash a vessel containing a miniaturized New 52 Lobo, but just then Hal n’ the Gang show up and Hal stays his hand—“better to leave him on the shelf,” he says. Now that’s a cold dis.

With the core four Corpsmen back together, it’s time for an old fashioned bro-down wrecking party, Green Lantern style. You know, I feel like Kyle, as a White Lantern, should be above these kinds of shenanigans. He did just pull a man from the afterlife, you know. I guess when he’s around his hothead friends, he can’t help himself. In his fury, Larfleeze kills Brainiac, which suits him fine at first—but even a robot becomes one of Larfleeze’s constructs if destroyed by his hand. Who knew? Ultimately, Larfleeze takes off and the city of Xudar is restored to, uh, the planet Xudar, and everyone is happy except Tomar-Tu’s mom because she shouldn’t get a call from her own son now and again? What, she’s not good enough for an important Green Lantern over for soup? She only raised him from an egg and stayed up puking mealworms into his mouth when he was a baby. But no, leave her to the trash like yesterday’s nest. It’s fine for a mother to be so disrespected.

A lot of this issue was pretty silly, I can’t lie. I’d be remiss to say I hated it, though, because the whole premise got silly the minute Larfleeze entered the picture. I enjoyed seeing the fellas back together and the artwork was phenomenal throughout. And I suppose as a reintroduction of Larfleeze into the Green Lantern universe, this works okay. But raising someone’s fear level by destroying someone’s collection right in front of them? Perhaps that hits a little too close to a fanboy’s heart.

Bits and Pieces: 

A contrived ending and some classic hard light construct smashy smashy results in a fairly underwhelming comic book, save for a new minion for Larfleeze and a change in the status of Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps relations. It's a lot more exciting than C-Span, I promise. And with Van Sciver at the pencil it looks a lot better than that, too.

6.5/10