Customer Reviews

Green Lantern Corps: Recharge

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With Hal Jordan back from the dead and John Stewart in the JLA, what's a Green Lantern to do? Re-establish the Green Lantern Corps that's what! Collecting the five issue mini-series written by Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons and featuring art by Patrick Gleason, Green Lantern Corps: Recharge focuses on GL's Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, and Kilowog as they all play a part in the training of rookie Green Lanterns on Oa. Unbeknownst to them however is a new threat to the universe which is slowly crawling towards Oa, and the combined powers of all the Lanterns in the universe may not be enough to stop it. While Recharge isn't a revolutionary yarn of the DC universe, it is a fast and fun action tale nicely weaved by fan favorite writer Johns and Watchmen artist Gibbons, whose Infinite Crisis tie in, the Rann/Thanagar War, is better left to be forgotten, even if this has some ties to it. Gleason's art is reminiscent of Chris Bachalo's work on various X-Men titles, which means that at times it can be too cartoony for it's own good. Perhaps Gibbons would have been better off providing the pencils here. Despite all that, GL: Recharge is still a more than solid Green Lantern story that doesn't deter from the legacy of the emerald heroes, and this is worth picking up for GL fans.

The idea of the Green Lantern Corps is one of the genuinely genius concepts in the DC universe, and Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, mostly achieves success at exploring it to it's fullest potential. Superficially similar in nature to the Jedi Knights of Star Wars, the Green Lantern Corps are essentially space police, and their tales chronicle the exploits of sentient representatives from various solar systems around the galaxy, given immensely powerful rings that are powered by will (instead of lightsabers).

This trade paperback collects the mini-series that relaunched the concept at DC comics after it had been allowed to die for a period, and is a fun, action filled, epic, sci-fi, generally exciting story that will make anyone who's interested in science fiction, space, aliens, and who also likes large casts, a happy reader.

The writing here is very tight, with well realized characters who are distinct from each other, and with plots for each chapter that move briskly along and waste little time on exposition. The character of Dr. Soranik Natu is one of the most interesting new additions to the Corps and the DCU in recent years. Johns and Gibbons make a good team here, with an interesting plot involving the Spider-Guild, although the end is a little too convenient and stretches credibility more than necessary, given how grounded the rest of the story seems, ironically enough, though set against the fantastic background of space. Both writers give the Corps some nice touches/flourishes/details, which help cement the world they're trying to build. Although they don't discuss the science of the rings, (which I find unfortunate and a missed opportunity), the rings are almost characters in themselves, acting like personal communication devices. When characters go into "warp" the rings announce beforehand that their wearer is about to come out of "hyper-space" and each ring repeats the same mantra when it selects a new recruit. These little touches give the world a solidity and believability that helps ground the fantastic elements of the series. Johns and Gibbons also work more than any previous writers to make the Corps resemble an actual military or uniformed force, with lanterns saluting and the suggestion at least, of ranks.

Two niggling things for me about their approach though is first, the obnoxification (I know it's not a word) of Salaak. Although my memory is fuzzy, Salaak served on the Earth Bound GLC with Hal Jordan and Kilowog and both respected and befriended these two characters. His brusque manner with them here makes little sense and contradicts what we know about these characters relationships. Finally, for some odd reason, the writers chose to make Guy Gardner the main focus of the series, instead of Kyle Rayner, who at least supported his own book quite successfully for an extended period. Guy Gardner is a divisive type of character in my view. He's especially antagonizing to me for some reason, and I find it hard to take him too seriously as a character, due to his general obnoxiousness and dislikability. He's often played for comedy, and when not handled properly, undermines the seriousness of a series. For the most part, he's handled well here, but as a character, I don't enjoy him. My personal theory is that far fewer people actually like Guy Gardner than DC thinks. It's a matter of personal taste, and some people do think he's great. But he's nonetheless front and center of this collection. It doesn't suffer for it too much in my view.

Finally, Patrick Gleason puts his best foot forward in this series. A clearly talented penciller, he is also sometimes his own worst enemy. His command of anatomy is great, his backgrounds are never skimpy and his human characters at least, are expressive and convincingly different looking people. I especially like how he draws realistic looking yet beautiful women. He's also generally pretty consistent, which is rare, although his work in the last issue of this series is clearly rushed in comparison to the earlier issues. However, Gleason really needs to improve his stortelling. He will routinely use larger panels for money shots and then shunt off important events to small panels to the side, where it is difficult for the reader to follow what's going on. His storytelling is ok, but could significantly improve. Additionally, while his backgrounds are detailed, he might think about getting out of his own way, and letting his panels breathe a bit. His work is so dense, and he uses many heavy blacks, that it is often difficult to keep track of what's happening in each panel. You will often find that you have looked at a panel and won't be sure about what's actually happened in it, which is the worst thing any penciller can do. In addition to using less heavy blacks in his own work, an inker whose line work was thinner, and perhaps a touch lighter, would seriously improve Gleason's overall "look." It's not that the work is bad, it's that his strengths are also sometimes his weaknesses, and I think a greater emphasis by him on clarity of storytelling over everything else, would greatly improve his work.

All in all though, I enjoyed this collection so much I got all the other GLC collections right away and started reading them back to back. I think you might too, if you bought it.

This was a great read and is worth the purchase. All of the major Green Lanterns appear with most of the action switching between Guy and Kyle with thier rookie lantern and KIlowag with two rookie lanterns. If you have any interest in Green Lantern I suggest you start here as it is a who's who of the big time Green Lanterns.

Never was a big fan of Guy Gardner, but always liked Kyle Rayner, so it was a split on that. But the story was very interesting and a good way to get the Corps back up and running.

Very exiting book!. Who say Green Lantern is only Hal Jordan. No sir. There's the Corps, which is not only Ryner, Gardner and Killowog. This time around theres new recruits with emotional and character complexities that makes the story sweeter than I thought it could be.

This is a great read before Sinestro Coprs War given that it'll give you insight on some of the Corps new blood. I like how the story goes so far. The only bad I can found on this book is that is SO damn thin!. But anyway...

Get it!. Is good stuff.

Highly reccomend this story for new readers to the Green lantern world. This nicely establishes the relations between the more known and veteran lanterns and how they will be interacting with the new recruits.

This one is a good introduction to the GLC, the script is carefully paced so to not overwhelm new readers with a lot of unfamiliar faces.

First, a gripe. Gleason's art is too cartoony for my tastes especially when compared to the art in the main GL book. Now to the story, I liked it. I always liked Kyle and John but Guy wears on me but I guess he's supposed to be polarizing. I look forward to reading the tales of new GL's and their villains. The art made it hard to always follow along but still pretty good overall.

Great writing, great art. Funny at points. Love Gy Gardners sense of humor. Definately worth reading

This is where it all started. The present cast of the GLC monthly had their genesis in this trade, where veterans like Guy Gardner, Kilowog, and Mogo were joined by rookies Soranik Natu, Isamot Kol, and Vath Sarn. Parts of this story and its' focus on the enlistment of raw recruits were related to the concurrently running Rann Thanagar War saga. A new Lantern from each respective planet was introduced to the Corps and to each other, with détente being accomplished between them despite their reservations via their unexpected partnership and the ensuing mutual peril that arose from it. The situation with Natu was entirely different. The native of Korugar had to overcome her own long term animosity towards the Corps due to her planet's past dark experiences with her kinsman and former Lantern and Korugaran tyrant Sinestro. This diverse group of quirky personalities must put aside all of their own petty differences and biases in order to deal with an outside threat from the always entertaining Spider Guild. The Guild are building space webs throughout the galaxy that are in actuality black holes which are sucking up and destroying suns, with Oa being next on the agenda. While the ending has a serious cheese factor to it, it does score high on the feelgood scale and thus successfully accomplished its' mission, to launch the monthly ongoing with a literal and figurative bang. This book exemplifies the importance of laying the proper foundation for any new venture and in the process did an exceptional job in doing just that.