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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You have to have it!, December 5, 2009
This review is from: Green Lantern: Agent Orange (Hardcover)
The concept of the Green Lantern Corps is one of the genuinely genius ideas in comics. 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 various galaxies, given immensely powerful green rings that are powered by will. Lanterns know no fear, or are at least able to overcome it.
The ongoing Green Lantern series chronicles the adventures of Earth's greatest Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, a smart, tough, not-big-into-planning test pilot with a healthy scepticism of authority, a certain talent with women and an indomitable will. Green Lantern: Agent Orange, collects issues 39-42 of the ongoing series, and parts of Blackest Night 0, as well as sections of the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps mini-series, and is one of the best single Green Lantern or comic stories you'll read all year, and there are a lot by Geoff Johns. To be enjoyed to its fullest though, I would recommend also buying the previous volume in this series, "Rage of the Red Lanterns" which is fantastic. This is not essential, but will greatly enhance the reading experience.
(If you're new to Green Lantern and can't afford to start from the first volume "Rebirth," then I would suggest at least going as far back as Green Lantern Secret Origin. That triumvirate of collections should be enough to give you the sweep and scope of the characters and the worlds involved.)
The story pits Hal against one of the most intriguing "villains" to come out of comics in a while, and is a sly allegory on Geoff Johns' part for the obsessive comic fan (at one point, the character declares, in response to Hal grabbing his Lantern, "Don't you dare dent it. It's in mint condition.") Larfleeze, (a combination of "lard" and "sleeze"), is an upright boar crossed with a muppet; with long spindly arms and legs, constantly drooling mouth and a head perpetually ablaze with the orange light of avarice. (Green was taken!) He wields the orange lantern of greed, and is the sole living embodiment of that power, although, he manifests an entire corps of "orange lanterns" from the spirits of creatures he has killed or consumed.
Hidden secretly away in the star system Vega for millenia, Larfleeze is finally disturbed by foolhardly "Controllers," immensely powerful beings related to the Guardians of the Universe, founders of the peacekeeping Green Lantern Corps. Larfleeze had entered into a secret pact with the Guardians, a pact which has now been disturbed by the entrance of the Controllers, and aims to keep his promises no more. He threatens the Guardians with retaliation at their "betrayal" and the Guardians go to the Vega system to investigate. Hal, who is currently suffering from having both a green ring (powered by will) and a blue one (powered by hope) cancelling the other out, gets taken along with the Guardians on this errand. (The background to this development can be found in Rage of the Red Lanterns, the previous volume in the series.) Mayhem, adventure, some horror and much humour ensues, and the reader is delighted every step of the way.
The writing by Geoff Johns here is excellent and represents the best in graphic storytelling in the space opera genre currently being published. While the inherently silly concept of various colored lanterns powered by different emotions, and represented by a different color of the spectrum, would seem childish in lesser hands, Johns manages to bring a level of sophistication and gravitas to the concept that sells it well. Phillip Tan does an admirable job in the early chapters bringing the exploits of Larfleeze to life, but obvious difficulty with keeping a monthly schedule results in sometimes muddy results in the final two issues, and he has to be helped out by the equally capable Eddy Barrows, whose art style is similar enough that the transition between the two is nearly imperceptible. Tan does an excellent job of designing most of the characters in this volume though, and his lush and detailed pencils provides an air of claustrophia to the story that helps ground it and counterbalance its more fantastic elements. The characters and worlds he draws have texture, and his Larfleeze is at once fascinating and disgusting to watch on the page. Some pages though suffer from insufficiently clear panel layout, and like most young artists working today, clarity of storytelling is not always the main priority. Thankfully, there's more to admire here than to dislike, and the art overall on Agent Orange is actually pretty good.
With Green Lantern: Agent Orange, Geoff Johns builds yet another intriguing pillar in this massive and epic tale about the prophesied "war of light," between the various factions of the emotional spectrum. With Larfleeze, he has managed to create one of the single most intriguing, original and exciting characters to come out of the Green Lantern mythos in a while. The four chapters plus a few extra pages of story here seem a little slight if you're looking for a chunky, meaty cosmic saga to sink your teeth into. But on its own, the volume is completely entertaining and satisfying as a significant chapter in the overall Blackest Night saga Johns is working towards.
I highly recommend this!
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17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Agent Orange.. Not to be Confused with Lethal Heribicide, November 17, 2009
This review is from: Green Lantern: Agent Orange (Hardcover)
'The Sinestro Corps War' pushed the 'Green Lantern' series to new heights and opened it up to a myriad of possibilities. After that, Geoff Johns began preluding the 'Blackest Night' event with story arcs that laid down the foundation for a climactic and epic War of Light. The story's complexity steadily increases as Johns builds on the concepts and premise of the comic, and the art is always top notch.
The notion behind the War of light, with its rainbow assortment of Lantern Corps, each powered by the emotional spectrum, chanting oaths and shining their rings across the galaxy, is admittedly a pretty silly one at its core. It takes a talented writer of Geoff Johns' caliber to transcend the series beyond the superhero genre and transform it into the compelling character-driven space opera, that it is.
Warning.. Amazon's description for 'Agent Orange' is very inaccurate. Daxam, Sodam Yat, Akrillo and Mongul do not appear in this book.
There are currently a lot of moving parts to 'Green Lantern', and 'Agent Orange' is no exception. There's as much character-development as there is for the plot. I don't like to give away spoilers, so here's a vague summary of what to expect:
Fatality is back, and ready for love. Hal is still struggling with his new ring, and the subtly pietistic themes behind Ganthet's and Sayd's Blue Lanterns are elaborated on. The Avarice Corps is introduced, when Larfleeze, 'Agent Orange' breaks his silence after a millennia of pining away in the Vega system; he proves to be truly dastardly but a joy to read. The story ends with a whopper of a twist, that exposes a great deal of the Green Lantern Guardians' deception and facism.
Guest artist, Philip Tan superbly illustrates this story arc. The panels are stark and muddy, but fluid and detailed. His creature designs for the Orange Lanterns are fantastic and authentically alien; however, his characters at times can be a tad bulky and malformed. Tan's style is best suited to the realm of horror, and this arc has plenty of horror on tap. The coloring is a bit inconsistent throughout, but it's nothing that takes away from the overall quality. Ivan Reis is the preferred artist for 'Green Lantern'; however, I enjoyed the fresh take on the series.
'Agent Orange' layers the 'Green Lantern' title with more interpersonal drama, plot twists and foreshadowing of things to come. The highlight of course is the introduction to the Avarice corps, which is a corps entirely unlike the rest, involving rather unique and entertaining dynamics. Larfleeze is one of DC's most intriguing and bizarre personalities, and the powerful Light of Avarice he wields not only effectively compliments his character, it presents a possibly unbeatable challenge to the Green Lanterns. Geoff Johns balances the grimness prevalent in this arc with well-placed humor, and with the help of magnificently raw and eerily gorgeous artwork, he takes our favorite green protagonist into dangerous and unknown territory.
Highly Recommend.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Suberb art and great storytelling, but..., January 23, 2010
This review is from: Green Lantern: Agent Orange (Hardcover)
Yes Green Lantern is one the best books right now, and the quality of this book is great (the art by Tan and the story by Johns are really top-nocht) BUT I can't shake the feeling that I have been cheated by DC. The cause of this is that the whole book it's supposed to be 128 pages, but actually it's merely 96, all the other pages are concept art etc. Don't get me wrong I really liked it but it should be .... bigger
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