Thursday, September 20, 2012

Review Without Research: Green Lantern New Guardians #12

WHAT I KNOW
Green Lantern is about a guy with a ring that can make a bunch of things out of green energy, which is a really awesome superpower. It just doesn't work on things that are yellow, or at least it did at some point and then it stopped doing that but now it only kinda sorta doesn't?! I don't even know. He's part of this intergalactic peacekeeping organization of Green Lanterns, who patrol planets and solve monster crimes and so forth. They're led by baby-proportioned bald alien dudes called the "Guardians". That aside, I don't know much more about Green Lantern. "Space stories" like a lot of his often seem to involve this huge complicated alien cosmology that I can never bring myself to care about.

But wait! There are in fact Lanterns for every color of the rainbow. Like Yellow Lanterns, Blue Lanterns... and, Star Sapphires because "Purple Lantern" would sound pretty silly. Seven colors in all, including green. Each of them is associated with an emotion, like yellow is fear, red is rage, purple is love... and green is... courage, I guess? It's always courage. If the opening blurb is any indication, this is about a team of these guys, which is unusual because they don't usually work together.


SYNOPSIS
The first page drops us off at what is captioned as "The Orrery. A traveling artificial solar system." It's closing in on what a second caption (with tiny arrow!) describes as "Planet Okaara. The Vega System." So you have a tiny system travelling inside a bigger system! No, seriously, it's an actual honest-to-goodness giant orrery. Holy crap!

Meanwhile, on the sun!

The Orrery's sun, to be more specific. There, an energy dude in fancy armor walks out of a statue and monologues about a fellow called Larleeze, and how he should fear him, "the archangel Invictus", who is majorly pissed at him for various reasons and plans to kill him very hard.

Meanwhile, the "The forest of weeds. Okaara."!


Kyle and that dude woman called Sayd establish that if the archangel Invictus didn't make it clear enough, we're in the last issue of a story arc, and there just aren't enough pages in the comic to get everyone completely up to speed. Long story short: Sayd did something bad, and everyone is mad at everyone now.

The next shot establishes that the gang's all here. All seven color Lanterns are gathered, but the orange one, the aforementioned Orange Lantern Larfleeze (whose name was actually typoed on the first page), lies defeated at the feet of the others. Along with them is an awesome guy in greek helmet and goggles, called the Weaponer, who tells them to stop messing around with exposition because the Orrerry's coming straight at them!

Kyle helps Larfleeze get up, because he figures although he's a jerk, everyone needs to team up in order to defeat Invictus. Suddenly, a statue of Invictus shoots out of the Orerry, and out of the statue shoots out a smaller statue... No, actually, it's just Invictus, and he's super pissed! He grabs Larfleeze, and the other Lanterns are all too happy to pull out and their lawnchairs and eat popcorn while the Orange Lantern gets an apparently much-deserved beatdown. However, Kyle pep talks them into actually, you know, helping him beat the actual villain of this story. They look at each other, and then...


Then ensues a beatdown in which, in proper superhero teamup fashion, everyone gets to do exactly one cool thing. Then, the Weaponer asks Kyle if he could have a lift to the Orrery, figuring that "Invictus is the perfect living weapon -- but any weapon that complex must have a kill-switch." Kyle's Indigo pal warps him there, and then he and the rest continue to attack Invictus in order to buy them time. Exactly one page later, it takes one more page for the Weaponer to walk up to the control panel and gain control of everything. Well, that was easy. He also blasts the Indigo Dude (who I'm pretty sure doesn't get named in this issue) through a wall for what appears to be no particular reason.


With the the Weaponer having just commited Grand Theft Orrery, Invictus is powerred down. Apparently the further away he is from it, the less powerful he gets, a fact that apparently no one knew until then, but seems to make perfect sense. Most of all, it's convenient! Kyle, using a giant jackhammer (sidenote: the Green Lantern still has the coolest superpower), breaks the statue Invictus emerged from. This was apparently another one of his previously unmentioned weaknesses? The archangel freezes solid, and while Larfleeze starts wailing on him as repayment for earlier, his power ring sputters out and this happens:


Everyone is confused at first, but heeding Sean Lantern's message, they resolve to pick up Green Lantern Annual #1 the next week instead of investigating the matter any further. I'm kidding, but it seriously takes them only two panels to change the subject back to Sayd and the exposition she was about to do. Oh, right! They had a great lie to expose, after all. She resumes telling her story, and once again, there's no real context to give it all meaning if you're not familiar with past events.

Long story short: She went crazy when the Guardians lobotomized her boyfriend, gained amazing superpowers as a result, used them to kill random Corps members and trick the seven Lanterns here into teaming up.

Everyone but Kyle, disgusted that their alliance was built with lies, murder and popsicle sticks, decides to split up. Kyle makes one last attempt at getting them to stay, but even the ones that seem to be cool won't hear of it and-- oh, would you look at that, it's the final panel!



Well. I guess that's settled, then!


REVIEW
My thorough and insightful reviewing method might actually be so thorough and insightful it will blow your minds. I'll likely write a whole entry dedicated to explaining the science behind it, but for now, all you need to know is that I'm reviewing a book by its cover, story, art and action. At the end, I will give it no rating whatsoever, because aggregating it all in a number or letter rating might literally blow your mind. Just in case I'm not clear: Your brain would in fact explode.

Cover Deception: Fierce
They say not to judge a book by its cover, but for a comic, this applies in reverse. The cover is always the most important page of a comic, and the best ones follow the time-honored tradition of lying to the reader in order to get more attention and sales. How does this one measure up?

The caption premises that a great lie will be exposed, and I can only guess it delivers on that, because now that everything's been explained, I know the truth so well that I'm not sure what the lie was anymore. That Kyle's team was assembled based on Truth, Justice and the American Way? Here's my attempt to reconstruct what issue #1 of Green Lantern: New Guardians was like based on what I know:

SAYD: Kyle! Take these rings, quick. I need a team of teenagers with an attitude.
KYLE: Woah, what? Where did they come from? Is that blood on your hands?
SAYD: Er-- No.
KYLE: Okay, I am reasonably certain that you're telling the truth. (Flies off.)

Besides the little caption, the art itself implies a fight between Kyle and the rest of the group. Kyle is depicted restrained by the others' powers, even about to be unmasked... So he's the one with the secret, the one who lied?! And clearly, what happens in the issue has absolutely nothing to do with this. Kyle didn't lie, and the rest of the group is too busy fighting everyone but Kyle to care.

Or maybe... Maybe the fight is a metaphorical one? His teammates' eventual unwillingness to stick with him and help him out leave him betrayed and powerless, unable to use his full potential? In fact, the great lie was the idea that the seven could form a cohesive unit in the first place? Holy crap, this cover is genius!

...Nah, not really. It's total BS. For a cover about a great lie, it sure is deceitful.



True Believer Factor: Elevated
Stan Lee once famously said "Every comic could be someone's first". Stan Lee also once wrote "Read INCREDIBLE HULK #13 to find out what's going on, true believers! -Smilin' Stan". Taking both of these quotes together, I think what he's trying to say is every comic should have a story completely incomprehensible if read without any prior knowledge or willingness to shell out for more comics, for maximum marketectural synergy.

The "LET ME OUT!" moment is just too easy a target. It wouldn't be so silly if it wasn't shoved aside so casually for something that seems like, you know, it must be a pretty huge deal. Or maybe Green/Blue/Maroon Lanterns are used to their rings all pleading for the same thing simultaneously? I mean, it could be, I don't know, the cry of rage from a godlike galactic psychopath breaking out of the Rainbow Lantern Prison or something. Or maybe there's a ghost nearby trapped in an invisible box, who could only talk at a frequency power rings can hear, and they just sort of ignored him like huge jerks. Or maybe there are tiny rainbow slaves inside their rings, and they picked this moment to start a revolution? Maybe I should pick up Green Lantern Annual #1 to find o-- Damn it!

There's also the obvious issue of this being the last part of a story arc. There's a bit of clunky dialogue in the first few pages that kind of reads "Everybody got that? We're getting you back up to speed!" but if you don't at the very least know who Larfleeze and Sayd are, you're basically boned. Invictus is also a bit puzzling at first, but they do a good enough job to establish him as a super-powerful guy on a vendetta the exact details of which quickly stop mattering, since his basic plan is to toss the planet everyone is on into the goddamn sun, which is nothing if not effective.


Sexiness: Quite
I'll level with you: I don't have the slightest idea what makes good artwork. I do, however, know what sexy is! So I'll be rating this comic's art based on its sexy characters, specifically sexy women in skintight costumes. Luckily comic books have these in spades!

Sexiness in this issue is handled in part by Bleez, the Red Lantern demon lady who at one point helpfully informs us after taking a hit that "For Red Lanterns... Pain is power..." then proceeds not to really use that power. There is a roughly 100% chance that someone who works at DC has a fetish for BDSM devils.

Also MAXIMUM SEXY is the Star Sapphire, called Fatality (hahahahaha), who the issue's first group picture helpfully puts in the front row. That way, we can enjoy her sexiness while the other characters who are actually doing and saying things go out of focus. Good call!


Goofy Battle Moment: Hilarious
Comics are almost always jam-packed with action! Which makes it hard to rate them side-by-side, which is why I'll be focusing on the goofiest battle moment in this issue. If a fight doesn't devolve into slapstick, I'll want no part in it. Bonus points if it's completely unintentional.

Most of the issue is a big beatdown in which everyone gets to do a thing. Right after the team gathers in that cool shot shown above and starts flying towards Invictus, the ever-eager Bleez decides to do her thing right away. She's so enthusiastic that her battlecry warrants three exclamation maHOLY SHIT WHAT

Her Red Lantern power is vomiting a ton of blood that then goes FWOOSH!? That... I don't think there's anything I can add to that.


THE FINAL WORD

In all my years of irrationally hating comics, I've learned to recognize the smell of retcon, and I'm positive that this is what I'm looking at right now, even though I don't have the slightest idea what's being retconned. It might be because the big reveal is handled through a full page of exposition and then everyone goes "Well, I guess that's settled, bye!" like something is being swept under the rug?

There isn't all THAT much going on, but at some point in the big fight against the Big Evil Strong Guy it's like somebody realizes that they're running out of pages. He's then defeated with a Deus Ex Machina, he takes two pages to die an easily-undoable comic book death (they keep saying he's "frozen", so yeah, he'll be back), they take a page to deal with the sudden inexplicable "LET ME OUT!" thing and set up the exposition, there's one page of exposition and then one last page of, well, "kthxbye".


And the most mind-boggling thing to me is the Weaponer. Throughout the book, he keeps being hinted at as being neither ally nor enemy. Kyle describes him as "not exactly one of us", then hopes sending him on the Orrery wasn't a mistake. No one actually REACTS to the Indigo Guy being comically blasted out, not even Indigo Guy himself, and there isn't even a token remark that maybe, you know, it would be a good idea to give chase once they wrapped up the two or three things they still had left to do in as many pages. I mean, an artifical solar system shouldn't be THAT hard to catch up to, right?

So in the end, this issue has little to offer if you're not already invested in the characters, and even if you were I'm not sure the shocking reveals would be that shocking and the character interactions that interesting. The main tension is in how Kyle will manage to keep the ragtag group holding together for one final fight, and there's a cool moment where he pushes each team member's buttons to convince them not to just sit there. The rest of the time, however, all he can do is scream for everyone to stick together, making him seem not like a great leader but more like the only team member with an actual brain. The big superhero fight in the middle is a pretty cool, triumphant moment, but its resolution feels anticlimactic and the aftermath abrupt and disappointing.

It seems to be in a hurry to wipe the slate clean for the advertised #0 reboot issue, but in the process negates the hero's achievements and makes the ending both sudden and unsatisfying.

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