Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artists: Tom Raney, Marco Santucci & Andy Owens
Color Artist: Mike Atiyen
Cover Artist: Bernard Chang & Alex Sinclair
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
The Green Lanterns are under attack! Their Corpsmen are scattered, their Central Power Battery has been destroyed, and the Guardians are in a comatose-like state. But they’re not leaderless as John Stewart steps up to rescue the GLs he can find, while new GL Jo Mullein tries to get things under control back at Oa and figure out what happened. Green Lantern #7 shows both try to figure out new mysteries and threats to the Green Lantern Corps and beyond.
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Review:
So, that cover is a big load of false advertisement. Here’s a quick SPOILER: Kilowog is not in this comic at all. In fact, this comic book does everything in its power to keep John and the reader from the story they came here for. If you’re hoping for a cool story about John Stewart and his team of de-powered GLs going to rescue Kilowog and his team deep in hostile territory, similar to Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down. Well then, you’re waaaay out of luck.
This story is a massive detour that serves only a few tangible purposes that I’ll get into in the Spoilers section, but it’s mainly a pointless detour. The character Lonar, the New God of Journeys, takes John on what appears to be an important moment in DC cosmic history, but looking back on it, it feels like this story only had one real goal in mind that could’ve been achieved in a more organic story. There are some cool points mentioned here and there, but this trip through time proves to be pointless and only drags things out for John’s story.
The second story is oddly enough the better of the two. It’s more action-packed, has a clear plot, and has a stronger emotional center to it than the first half. The story picks up with Jo Mullein and Simon Baz getting Teen Lantern from New Korugar before she caused a galactic war with Sinestro and his entire Corps. They’re essentially trying to gather themselves after everything that went down in the prior issues.
There’s not much development on the series’ wider plot, but it does have a clear emotional center to it. This story establishes this tense situation between Simon and the Thanagarian commander of the United Planets over Teen Lantern’s actions, and it’s a classic case of “they’re right but they’re a jerk about it” for the UP commander. During all of this, Jo steps up as the leader trying to de-escalate things, which is odd considering her general hot-headedness in her Far Sector series, but it works for now.
It all comes together as the story goes on and it’s clear the focus of this story is Simon Baz and Teen Lantern’s relationship and how much they mean to each other. It’s a little heartwarming to see, but it only makes the wisdom of keeping Teen Lantern active an even more dangerous idea for the GL’s safety. Hopefully, Geoffrey Thorne doesn’t cut her any slack and has her actually deal with real consequences so she can properly develop as a character and as a hero.
Spoilers:
So, the main story isn’t about John and the GLs rescuing Kilowog, but about Lonar, the New God of “journeys” taking John back in time (somehow) to see the first contact between the New Gods of New Genesis and Apokolips with the Oans of Maltusia, the future Guardians of Oa. This sounds cool but it only confuses DC comics’ already extremely messy continuity even further. It doesn’t help that the art for this part of the comic just looks fine. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great either.
Despite all that, the real point of this story was so John Stewart could get some unexplained power-up after getting hit by a New God weapon from Uxas, the birth name of Darkseid before his apotheosis. And that’s it. After he gets the power-up, Lonar just returns him back to the present and that’s where the story ends. It feels like this could’ve been done a lot better in the mission to save Kilowog, as John undergoes a change through a trial by fire kind of thing.
Final Thoughts:
Green Lantern #7 takes an unexpected turn with its main story that heavily veers away from what the cover and synopsis are promoting. The “journey” that John Stewart has in the first half feels like an unnecessary side-quest, and the purpose of it will only become clear in later issues but not in this one. However, the second story is the stronger of the two with a compelling emotional center, some good tension and action, and a heartwarming conclusion. Here’s hoping the next issue gets things back on track for John Stewart and the Green Lanterns.