Rebirth Rewind: Green Lanterns Rebirth #1 (2016) Review

Released: June 1, 2016
Writers: Geoff Johns & Sam Humphries

Art: Ethan Van Sciver & Ed Benes

Colors: Jason Wright

Letters: Travis Lanham

Cover Price: $2.99

Review written by Joey Casco of TheWineStalker.net

With so much going on in DC right now that is just not my thing, or really anybody's thing who writes for this website, I figured... why can't we go back to brighter days? Instead of just being down on the now, why not go back to just a few years ago when the comic book company we love was knocking it right out of the park?

Rebirth was the breath of fresh air that was needed. It brought the legacy characters back to their core and told stories that fit that core. So I'm going back to my personal favorite Rebirth book to review it for the first two or three arcs. Oddly enough, after just talking about legacy characters, the two main characters in that book are fairly new. Does that count as irony?

I don't know if other Weird Science reviewers will follow, but somebody's gotta do Son of Superman because that was just outstanding.

So let's do this. Jessica only appeared in two meaningless frames in the Rebirth book that kicked off the initiative, so the Green Lanterns Rebirth #1 one-shot that started their new series is really the introduction of Jessica and Simon into the Rebirth universe. Two new Lanterns who had quite interesting stories of their own in New 52 will have to learn to work as a team after being forced to be partners by Hal Jordan.

Will they predictably bicker at first? Of course they will. But they love pancakes, and pancakes bring everybody together.

Space. Somebody is narrating in boxes with red borders. Who is it? We dunno. But they’re giving a rundown of the first four human Lanterns: Hal, John, Guy, and Kyle. They were all threats in their own way but they’re no longer around to stop whoever this narrator is.

We see a Guardian carrying a box, being attacked by Dominators.

What's in the box?

Oh! With nowhere to go, the Guardian opens the box and bright light with all of the colors of the rainbow escape... and we also escape... to Dearborn, Michigan of all places.

Simon Baz is scrubbing the word "terrorist" off of his sister's garage door. FYI, Simon is of Muslim decent and during his carjacking career ended up stealing a van full of explosives... and was arrested as a terrorist and sent to Guantanamo Bay. He escaped because the Green Lantern ring chose him, and it's all cool now because, I mean, he's got a friggin' Power Ring and what are they really going to do about that? The government checks in with him, as they do now.

Simon tells him to go screw, but the agent reminds him that they made a deal: you get to be free but you need to tell them everything he knows about the Green Lantern Corps. Then the agent helps him clean the garage door because he’s a good guy.

You know what? That agent seems nice. I wonder if we’ll see him again in the next 57 issues (I think  we see him one more time) or if this whole FBI-mole thing will be important to the plot of the series (PSSSST... it won’t).

And then we go on to see Jessica Cruz is Portland, Oregon. A few years ago she was out hunting in the woods with some friends when they were attacked. She was the only survivor. So yeah, she watched her friends die and she's stayed locked inside her apartment since then, until she was chosen by a Power Ring.

That's her sister's soccer game and it becomes well established here how much her sister means to her. But then she gets a message from her ring and needs to leave.

This is where Jessica and Simon finally meet, and they're immediately at odds. Mostly because Simon thinks he's the only GL of the sector. But they're quickly met with a threat.

A MANHUNTER??? Step aside, lady!

Simon promptly gets his ass kicked. And Jessica isn't far behind. But the Manhunter was just a simple drone set up by Hal Jordan! A trick to see how well they could work together. Turns out, not so well.

He tells them that they're partners now and share the same battery. So in order for them to power their rings, they both need to do it together. What if they get in real deep doodoo, one of them dies, and the other is low on power? Now you’ve let the Green Lanterns of 2814 fail because they can’t recharge without the other. Although, I guess that’s the point. Watch each other’s back and don’t let your partner get dead.

Then Hal’s basically like “I gotta get the hell outta here because I’m meeting up with this fool Sinestro to curb-stomp his ass. This whole sector is yours so don’t mess up. And oh yeah, now you’re in the Justice League too. I’M HAL JORDAN AND I’M OUT, BITCHES!” And then he zoomed off into space.

Then we’re brought back to that narrator with the boxes with the red border. He’s talking about a prophecy. Ugh. There are a lot of things that are overdone in comics but the one that annoys me the most is prophecies. This prophecy is called THE RED DAWN, and it's revealed that our narrator is Atrocitus!

Bits and Pieces

Stiff poses and weird necks aside, this issue did a great job of introducing the two main characters and getting a real grasp on who they are for new readers, which is all it really needed to do. Now we go forth and build from that.

7/10