Green Lantern (vol.4) #54 (2010)

Green Lantern (vol.4) #54 (July, 2010)
“The New Guardians, Chapter Two”
Writer – Geoff Johns
Penciller – Doug Mahnke
Inks – Christian Alamy, Tom Nguyen, Keith Champagne & Doug Mahnke
Colors – Randy Mayor w/Gabe Eltreb
Letterer – Nick J. Napolitano
Associate Editor – Adam Schlagman
Editor – Eddie Berganza
Cover Price: $2.99


Since yesterday’s look at the Green Lantern book was mostly an advertisement for “what’s to come”, I figured we may as well check out the next issue.

This is a weird one.  You ever pick up a random issue of a comic you read a long time ago… and you remember every thing about it?  For whatever reason, this is one of those issues for me.  It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve picked it up… and I might’ve read a comic or two in the interim, but… somehow, this one stuck out to me.  Weird.


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We open in the subway in New York City where a trio of nogoodniks are holding up all of the law-abiding citizens for their loot… before hopping on a train themselves.  Suddenly the lights go out, and the car screeches to a halt.  One of the baddies looks to see what just happened… and is shocked to be greeted by, Dex-Starr the Rage Kitty?!

Well, it’s not just Dex-Starr…

We shift scenes over to Silver City, New Mexico where the White Lantern Battery has appeared.  Seems like Johns might have Silver City confused for Mayberry or something, cuz these down-home folks sher toke funny.  Anyhoo, Hal goes to attempt to lift the Lantern.

And, he can’t… but we already knew that.  This scene is pretty much the same as the one we already read in Brightest Day #1… even down to the “Sword in the Stone” comparison… and lesson.  Star Sapphire then decides to give it a try, and is also unsuccessful.  Then, the trio of Lanterns try and lift it together…

… which triggers an unexpected reaction from the Battery!  Suddenly, all of the resurrected heroes appear in the white light emission.  It looks really cool.  After they subside, the Lanterns can see the entities representing each color of the emotional spectrum appear… with the request to “find them”.

We next pop over to Daxam, where the mystery man we met yesterday is in the midst of drawing the Ion entity from Sodam Yat.  Back at the pillars, it would appear as though this mystery fella is collecting emotional entities.

Back with Hal and the Gang… the White Lantern speaks.  It tells them that Atrocitus will help, and with that… they are teleported to New York City.  They follow the horror into the subways, and find the Red Lantern… who they learn is also seeking out the Entities.  Before a fight can break out, Star Sapphire notes that she believes him to be sincere.

Well, they still fight a little bit anyway… until, the Main Man shows up?!

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A fun issue… even if we’ve already read a few pages of it in Brightest Day.

I’ll hand it to the editors… at least it matches up, right?  I normally wouldn’t put money on that.  It seems as though the more editors you list, the more mistakes show up.  So, ya know… good on ’em here.  If this were a Marvel book (with 6-7 editors listed), I’d wager that one of these scenes would have Sinestro teaching Hal about King Arthur.


I dig the idea that there’s a race to track down the Entities.  It’s sorta “easy” storytelling, but it keeps the Lantern-family occupied while Brightest Day rolls on throughout the line.  It’s smart… because without this “task”, it would be difficult to keep the spotlight off of Hal and the Gang.  This is a wise way of handling that.


I like Star Sapphire suggesting that Atrocitus might just have a little love in him.  When they first introduced the “Skittles Corps“, a lot of the new color-coded characters were pretty boilerplate… and, even maybe a bit dull.  I feel like this ambiguity adds some much-needed “flavor” to the Red Lantern.


Overall, a fun issue.  Feels like things are moving forward at a decent clip… and our Lobo cliffhanger is a pretty cool “capper”.  I mean, we’re almost certainly going to get a fight between Rage Kitty and the Main Mutt, right?  I’d recommend checking this one out.  Fun story, great art… leaves us wanting more.  Can’t ask for a whole lot more than that, right?


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