Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #18 Review and **SPOILERS**

Let ‘Er Rip

Writer: Robert Vendetti 

Penciller: V. Ken Marion 

Inker: Dexter Vines 

Colorist: Dinei Ribiero 

Letterer: Dave Sharpe 

Cover: Mikel Janin 

Cover Price: $2.99 

On Sale Date: April 12, 2017

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Okay, so Kyle’s a Green Lantern, Guy and Arkillo have buried the hatchet, the Green Lanterns and Sinestro Corps are working together, Ganthet and Sayd are more energetic and engaged since leaving the nursing home...looks to me like the stage has been set for everything in this series to be okay for everyone forever! Yep, no more conflicts or sticky situations for the Green Lantern Corps, they’ve ironed out the kinks and you can expect business as usual in this title from now on. Why, I bet this most recent issue is all about interior decoration and setting up the volunteer fire department on Mogo. Let’s take a look together when you read my review of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #18!

Explain It!

Any security guard or beat cop will tell you that ninety percent of their job is a boring routine. The trick is being alert for that other ten percent of the time. That’s one of the reasons officers have partners, so they can break each others balls all shift and keep each other awake. I mean, that’s why Gorin-Sunn of the Green Lantern Corps and Space Ape of the Sinestro Corps have been paired, right? Because they seem to spend their entire patrol explaining what little regard they have for one another. Luckily, they’re about to wrap things up and head over to a little haunt Gorin-Sunn likes to frequent when he’s in the area, but first they have to check out some strange signal on a supposedly dead planet. And you can pretty much guess the rest from here: it’s not a dead planet. There are like pointy bird monsters made of mirrors or something and they’ve subsumed Space Ape and Gorin-Sunn because they are pure willpower. Or something like that, I’m sure we’ll figure it out later. I have a nagging feeling I saw these pointy birds, in the Long Ago before the New 52, but a quick search didn’t turn anything up so I’ll keep it moving.

On Mogo, the Green Lanterns are restoring their power battery while the Sinestro Corps builds their power battery right next to them. Like right next door. Look, I’m not saying the Sinestro Corps are bad people, but they bring down property values. They have their unique culture that sort of clashes with Mogo’s vibe. The Sinestro Corps would rather be with their own kind anyway, as evidenced by the huge fight that ensues with the Green Lanterns on account of them being assholes to one another. John, Kilowog and Soranik Natu try to break it up, but only the battered forms of Guy Gardner and Arkillo, arms around each others’ shoulders, can give everyone pause to stop the violence. They explain that they took the lumps for everyone, so now it’s time to fall in line—or else! This is a really great scene that made me smile, though duh of course Guy Gardner is in it. So everyone works together and all is well again.

Speaking of all being well, it’s not well with Saint Walker, Ganthet and Sayd since they couldn’t resurrect the Blue Lantern Corps last issue. Which was confusing, I must say. I swore they were trying to resurrect the Guardians, but a commenter said it was the baby Blues, and they were correct. Anyway, since ol’ elephant-face and the rest of the crew can’t be resurrected, Ganthet and Sayd suggest that Saint Walker fuck off and find a new posse to get down with his crew. Back at Green Lantern Corps HQ, which is really just a room probably not far away from where the previous scene took place, Salaak is trying to raise Gorin-Sunn and Space Ape on his communicator, with no success. He points out a hologram of the last planet they were on, and Hal recognizes it…like maybe he did a big willpower dump on it when he forged his ring from pure will in the first issue of the series. There’s also this business of some moving temporal anomalies, but before they can even discuss it an anomaly opens up, right in the base! And from it tumbles Rip Hunter, Time Master—and he’s wearing a Green Lantern ring!

I really enjoyed this issue quite a lot, I thought it was well-paced and got its point across, while providing the funny moments and characterizations that make the whole thing worth reading in the first place. Aside from the pointy birds in the first scene, and of course Rip Hunter showing up in the last scene, this issue mostly establishes the uneasy but workable truce between the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps. Even the two mugs in the beginning that got sliced to ribbons were willing to sacrifice themselves for the other, though that point became moot. This is V. Ken Marion’s first issue on the book, and it looks fantastic. Right in step with the other great artists rotating through this title. I’m interested to see the action ramp up in the next issue, but I did enjoy this little Mogo vignette.

Bits and Pieces:

There's tension between the Sinestro and Green Lantern Corps, but they seem to be getting along okay in this issue of mostly characterization and banter. The pacing and plotting was great, and I do enjoy smiling while I read my comics. I'm hoping more Green/Yellow partnerships will yield more yuks and camaraderie in the future.

8/10