Green Lantern (2005 Series) #56

August 1, 2010

Title: The New Guardians Part Four

Writer: Geoff Johns
Penciler: Doug Mahnke
Inker: Christian Alamy, Tom Nguyen, Keith Champagne & Doug Mahnke
Colorist: Randy Mayor, Gabe Eltreb & Carrie Strachan
Letterer: Nick J. Napolitano
Cover: Doug Mahnke & Hi-Fi
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Publisher: DC Comics

Hector Hammond has always been one of those villains who drifts closer to the pathetic side of the spectrum than the really dangerous. Okay, so he’s a really powerful telepath, but he’s also a runt with a ginormously disfigured head, making it kind of hard to take him seriously as a threat. Fortunately for him, one of the things that Geoff Johns has always proven himself great at is taking loser villains and turning them into people to be feared.

This issue Hal Jordan goes in search of Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern, to find out how he managed to trap the Orange Entity inside his power battery. Some of the other Entities that embody the various Corps have been cut loose on Earth (or so Hal thinks) and he needs to track them down. Hal doesn’t know the Entities  have actually been taken prisoner by a mysterious figure who’s been having a conversation with Hector, and is helping him to really cut loose.

At the risk of an obvious pun, in this issue Johns really does run the entire emotional spectrum. We look into Hammond’s mind to discover what it is he really wants (which really isn’t much of a surprise, and in and of itself is a little sad), we shift to the scenes with Larfleeze – a character who never fails to bring the funny – and then we bounce into a final sequence that actually pulls out some genuinely scary moments. There’s a little hope in here as well, with Saint Walker finishing the mission he’s been on since Blackest Night ended, and giving him a really good scene with the Question. Although this issue has a lot of action and a lot of plot advancement, pretty much all of it is built on character, on who these people are, and most importantly, on what exactly they want.

Doug Mahnke’s art is perfectly suited for this issue, giving us some nice alien creatures, some Earthbound monsters, and some good character on the faces of our heroes and villains. The color and ink teams that work on this book deserve a lot of credit too – the artwork looks pretty consistent despite the fact that there are four different inkers at work, and the colors have really never been as important to this title as they are now.

This story feels kind of removed from what’s going on in the core Brightest Day title, but it’s telling a very solid story in its own right.

Rating: 8/10