Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #25 Review and **SPOILERS**

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Color Wars

Writer: Robert Venditti 

Artist: Ethan Van Sciver 

Colorist: Jason Wright 

Letterer: Dave Sharpe 

Cover: Van Sciver and Wright 

Cover Price: $3.99 

On Sale Date: July 26, 2017

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Has there ever been a storyline where the Red and Blue Lanterns joined the nationwide gangs the Bloods and the Crips, respectively? Well, maybe there should be.

No, probably not. Instead, check out my review of a far better story concept in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #25, right here!

Explain It!

There’s trouble, right here on planet Mogo, with a capital M and that rhymes with, uh, men, and that stands for…okay, I didn’t work out the actual lyrics of that parody. But there is trouble on Mogo, namely that a bunch of Sinestro Corps members want to murder Tomar-Tu for killing one of their own—as per Sinestro Corps custom, mind you—and Hal Jordan stands in their way. Hal Jordan has a level-headed conversation with the Yellow Lanterns and works out their grievances...ha ha ha! No, of course he doesn’t do that, he uses his ring to punch everybody out of the building, because Hal knows you can’t spell “diplomacy” without “dip.” Or “mace.” Before this can become an inter-luminous incident, however, Guy and Arkillo step in to quell the rebellion, shifting some of the onus off of the Green Lanterns. Really, Hal should be in his own Corps, the Hal Jordan Lanterns. He gets them into so much hot water with his brazen routine. Guy, still holding up Kyle Rayner, shows everyone that the Sinestro Corps symbol was branded on his chest, so no one is innocent in this game of backstabbing and deceit. Just then, Soranik Natu, looking super evil with lots of fear symbolism, shows up and takes credit for injuring Kyle.

She explains that she did it because he hid the fact that Sarko was their kid from the future, who came to the past to destroy them. Yet she doesn’t claim to be so upset about Kyle’s lie as she is that a descendant of Sinestro was murdered. I mean…you’re Sinestro’s only daughter, can’t you just make a new one? Or, since Sarko isn’t even born yet, make the first one? I think she’s covering up the fact that she feels emotionally fucked up Kyle having begged her to become a Green Lantern when he knew it might be the reason Sarko came back in time to kill everyone, or maybe she’s feeling like it was a really late-stage abortion…frankly, I’m not sure what she’s so pissed off about. But to be this mad that a descendant of Sinestro that didn’t even yet exist was killed, it doesn’t hold water.

Anyway, Soranik Natu is able to call a bunch of her old pals to her cause, but curiously, many of the Sinestro Corps want to stay with the Green Lanterns. So be it! There’s a requisite fight, Green and some Yellows against some other Yellows. Most depressingly, this pits Arkillo against Guy Gardner, since Arkillo swears loyalty to Sinestro. But neither of them are willing to take the first swing, so that was heartening. All of a sudden, John Stewart flips some ethereal switch and all of the Sinestro Corps’ members rings deactivate! He hid a failsafe in their lantern, which pisses off Soranik Natu to no end. She takes off with her crew, leaving John feeling very much like a failure. As they dismantle the Sinestro Corps lantern on Mogo, the renegade Sinestro Corps folks are sworn in as Green Lanterns, and Tomar-Tu pleads guilty to his crime. Hal asks that his ring be sent to Xudar, so another beak-faced fin-head can be a Green Lantern, and the request is granted. For a final scene, we cut to the Antimatter Universe, where Sinestro’s severely burned body lies on the inhospitable planet Qward. His sycophant Lyssa Drak shows up and cradles his gross body—I mean seriously, it looks like a chunk of beef jerky here—which seems to make it glow an eerie yellow! And possibly give her an orgasm, I’m not sure.

This is sort of the moment we’ve all been waiting for, and it was alright. I liked that some of the Sinestro Corps hung back to be Green Lanterns (including Space Ape!), I didn’t expect that. I didn’t really love seeing Soranik Natu turn all hideously evil, but I guess I wasn’t supposed to. Though there’s forward movement in this issue, I still feel as though not very many things happened, and too many panels were given over to speeches and chatter instead of artwork. And on that note, the artwork was predictably fantastic, except for a few faces that seemed flat. You could do worse for a Green Lantern comic book.

Bits and Pieces:

Here's a fairly predictable but not altogether unlikable issue of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. The story moves along, but I think the arc could have ended here instead of continuing, though not knowing what the continuation entails I could be quite wrong. It's good enough to stick around and keep getting read.

7/10