Green Lantern Corps has quickly become one of DC’s best titles and it has even surpassed Green Lantern in quality. Tomasi has been doing an incredible job on this title. Emerald Eclipse has been a fantastic follow-up to Sinestro Corps War while also building up Blackest Night. I’m sure that Green Lantern Corps #37 will be another great read.
Creative Team
Writer: Peter Tomasi
Artist: Patrick Gleason
Inkers: Rebecca Buchman and Tom Nguyen
Colorists: Randy Mayor and Gabe Eltaeb
Story: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Art: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Overall: 8.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: The issue begins with Sodam continuing to turn Daxam’s red sun yellow in order to empower all of the Daxam people with Superman-like powers. Before his deathm Sodam does an inner monologue:
“I am Sodam Yat. Green Lantern of Sector 1760. I was born under the Daxam Sun. Now I gladly die inside it.”
Sodam succeeds in turning the whole sun yellow as Mongul looks on.
When Mongul ask his ring what happened it tells him that the core of Daxam sun has been infused with Ion’s powers to turn it completely yellow. One of the Sinestro Corp members contacts Mongul and tells him that there is a problem down on Daxam. But, before the Sinestro Corps member can finish his message the signal dies. Mongul then grabs the anaconda snake Sinestro Corp member, who was cut in half by Sodam in the last issue, and heads back to the Daxam.
We shift to Daxam where Arisa sees that Sodam has succeeded in turning the sun yellow. Arisa tearfully says goodbye to Sodam. Suddenly, the ground below her starts to crumble due to some laser beams being shot out from underground.
Arisa goes underground and sees all of the Daxam citizens unable to control their eye beams. She tells all of the Daxam people that they must gain control of their emotions. Sodam’s dad tells her that they now have the power to get revenge on those who took their planet from them.
Arisa speaks up and tells all of the Daxam people that they cannot go against Mongul and the Sinestro Corps by fighting them head on. She tells them that she has experience fighting the Sinestro Corps from the Sinestro Corps War and that they must follow her if they are to win this war on Daxam.
Arisa says the first thing they must do is form into an underground resistance. She then ask for those Daxamites who know the cities infrastructures. Arisa then says that they must train before going up against the Sinestro Corps from every corner of the planet. Arisa finishes by saying “To save Daxam, we may have to kill it.” (So now Arisa has turned into a female version of John Connor.)
Elsewhere, we see Ash killing some vampire aliens that were hiding within a part of Anti-Monitor with stakes that he created from his Green Lantern ring. Ash says it is revenge for the death of his wife, Tasha. Suddenly, Saarek appears behind Ash without Ash noticing. Saarek tells Ash that Ash’s wife would not want to see what has become of her husband with all the deaths he has caused.
Ash grabs a hold of Saarek’s cape and tells him that he does not care that Saarek can talk to the dead. Ash tells Saarek to never talk about Ash’s wife again. Saarek reiterates that Tasha would not want to see her husband cause all of the deaths he has caused in her name. Ash tells him to shut up. Ash asks Saarek what he is doing in a sector Saarek is not under his protection.
Saarek asks Ash the same question. Ash answers that he is in a mission given to him by a Guardian. Saarek says he is on a mission given to him by a Guardian as well. As they talk they both find out that the Guardian gave them the same mission: find the corpse of Anti-Monitor. They also find out that Scar was the Guardian that gave them the same mission in case one of them failed.
Ash then points out that Saarek’s ears are bleeding. Saarek says it is because he can hear the dead calling him much more clearly right now. Both of the Green Lanterns decided that because they are on the same mission that they might as well team up. They then take off to finish the mission.
Over in Oa, Guy Gardner is trying to fight off a Sinestro Corps member and a prisoner who escaped his Science Cell. As the Sinestro Corp member is about to bite Guy’s head off Bolphunga the Unrelenting appears to save his nemesis by cutting of the Sinestro Corp members head off and saying “Feast on my blade, fool! Only Bolphunga the Unrelenting kills the Lantern Gardner!”
Guy and Boolphhunga proceed to fight back all of the Sinestro Corps and prisoners from the Science Cell. During the entire scene each man tells the other that once this is done they still have a score to settle.
On another part of Oa, Kyle, Kilowag, and other Green Lanterns fight off the Sinestro Corps and prisoners released from the Science Cell. As they fight, Kanjar Ro is fighting on the side of the Green Lanterns against the attacks of the Sinestro Corps.
As Kanjor is about to be hit by some missiles constructs from the Sinestro Corps he is saved by Kyle. Kyle tells Kanjor that he should consider himself lucky as the Green Lantern Corps does not allow their prisoners to be murdered by other prisoners. Kyle then tells Kanjor that if Kanjor decides to help Kyle then Kyle will put a good word in with the Guardians to reduce Kanjor’s sentence.
As all of hectic fighting on Oa is going on, Lyssa Drax takes advantage of the battle and rips off a piece of the ground in order to go underground to find the Book of Parallax. She makes it underground and comes across the Book of Black. As Lyssa looks through the book, Scar comes up behind her and smashes her head against the pages of the Book of Black. Scar then has the book absorb Lyssa into its pages. (That was sick.)
Back on the surface of Oa, all of the rookie Green Lantern are becoming frustrated with being locked up and decide to combine their powers and escape the protective bubble they were in. They then go join the fight. But as soon as they come across some Sinestro Corps members, the Sinestro Corp easily dominate the rookie Green Lanterns. However, before the Sinestro Corps can kill all of the rookies, the Sinestro Corps members are all killed by a powerful blast from out of nowhere.
We then see that the blast came from the Alpha Lanterns that have finally come to join the battle. One of the Alpha Lanterns then calls for the Phalanx Directive to re-capture all of the Science Cell prisoners and Sinestro Corps. All of the Green Lanterns combine their powers together and create a giant sphere to capture all of the Sinestro Corps members and Science Cell prisoners.
As that is going on, Scar is standing in front of the Green Lantern Power Battery saying that it is time. We see some black stuff start coming out Scar’s body. Scar screams out “The door needs to be opened. Now. The book commands it. Demands it.”
All sudden the black stuff coming out of her body forms into the symbol of the Black Lanterns on the wall. Scar then disables the protective armored shell protecting Oa.
As that is going on, the Green Lanterns finish encasing their enemies in a huge green sphere only to have the protective shell above them starting to crumble.
The next thing we see is the Green Lantern Power Battery starts shattering. Guy ends the issue by saying “Aw, c’mon, you gotta be kiddin’ me! I guess one minute is too much to ask for around here.”
Commentary
The Good: Green Lantern Corps #37 was another phenomenal read. Tomasi packed this issue with stuff going on in every single panel without overwhelming the reader with too much.
One of my major complaints with Green Lantern over this past year has been that Johns’ is too focused on developing Blackest Night that there doesn’t seem much going on in Green Lantern other than introducing the various Lantern Corps. Tomasi’s approach is the complete opposite.
Tomasi only uses the upcoming War of Lights as a backdrop of what is going on in Emerald Twilight. Tomasi has Mongul taking over the Sinister Corps, Sinister finding his daughter and going after Mongul, Daxam being taken over, the continued war between the Green Lantern and Sinistro Corps, the Red Lanterns attacking Oa, Ash and Saarek looking for the remains of Anti-Monitor, and Scar manipulated everything to fit with her plans with the Black Lanterns. That is a lot of things that Tomasi is juggling and he does it in a way that does not lose the reader.
I love the opening with Sodam turning Daxam’s sun yellow. We know that Sodam is not dead and will probably return during Blackest Night with full access to the Ion powers. And that his Ion powers will probably be accessible without the needed permission of the Guardians. Still, the knowledge that Sodam is not really dead does not take away from the sacrifice that he made in order to give his people hope. It will actually make the moment when Sodam returns much more dramatic. This is because we see how important Sodam and Ion are to the upcoming War of Light and that the Green Lantern Corps will need his powers in order to survive the war.
I thought the reaction of the Daxam people, especially Sodam’s dad, was great. Even though they now have Superman like powers and many of them have been inspired by Sodam’s sacrifice; they are still people who are ruled by their emotions and hatred to all things different from them. Depending on how Emerald Eclipse ends I can see DC having a war between Daxam and New Krypton in 2010 since there are now two worlds with all the inhabitants having Superman like powers in one universe.
It was interesting to see Arisa become much more assertive with Sodam now gone. It was a good character moment for a character that has been mostly one of the background Lanterns up to this point. Tomasi did a nice job showing why Arisa was picked to be a Green Lantern with how she was able to rally all of the people in Daxam behind her and lead them into battle against Mongul’s Sinistro Corps. I always like it when secondary characters get these types of moments. Especially for a title like Green Lantern Corps that has such a huge secondary cast.
I also liked how Tomasi contrasts the quite before the storm feeling on Daxam with the wild and riotous battle on Oa. All of the fighting going on Oa was intense and chaotic. I like how both Guy and Kyle had to both team-up with villains that they locked up in the Science Cells. It adds to the unpredictability of the war being fought on Oa as everyone from the two Lantern Corps and the escaped Science Cell prisoners are all fighting to protect their lives.
It was also good to the see the Alpha Lanterns back in the pages of a Green Lantern book. I think the last time we saw the Alpha Lanterns was at the beginning of Final Crisis, It seems like they disappeared since then. It was weird that they were nowhere to be seen while Oa was being invaded by the Sinestro Corps and the Red Lanterns. But, I guess their absence only made their appearance towards the end of the issue even more powerful.
My favorite part of this issue was everything that Scar was doing behind the scenes while the war going on in Oa. The scene where Scar slams Lyssa Drax’s head into the Book of Black and then has the book absorb Lyssa was just sick. It helped to emphasize just how dangerous Scar is and how there is a lot about the Black Lanterns that we do not know about.
Scar taking down the defensive armor that protected Oa was a neat plot twist. It will be interesting to see how the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps react to Scar’s actions. It certainly seems that Scar is not longer hiding the fact that she is working for the Black Lanterns.
I am also interested to learn how the mission that Ash and Saarek are on conlcudes. I am curious to see how the goal of finding the remains of the Anti-Monitor ties into what Scar is planning.
Patrick Gleason’s continues to do a great job with the art. Gleason and his team of inkers and colorist did an impressive job conveying an incredibly hectic feeling in all of the battle sceens. I especially loved the part were Scar slammed Lyssa’s head into the Book of Black as Gleason and his team managed to show how brutal that scene was.
The Bad: The only complaint I had with this issue is that we did not see Sinestro and Soranik at all in this issue. I would have liked to have seen a follow up to their fantastic scene from the last issue and hopefully Tomasi has both characters more involved in the next issue.
Overall: Green Lantern Corps #37 was another solid read. Tomasi has made Green Lantern Corps so much fun that it is able to not just stand out on its own from Green Lantern, but actually surpass Green Lantern in of quality. If you are looking for a comic that is just pure fun while also playing up the events that are going to happen in Blackest Night, then I would recommend picking up Green Lantern Corps.
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Kevin