Category Green Lantern: New Guardians

Dec 20 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 15

new guardians 15 3rd

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing New Guardians 15, originally released December 19th, 2012. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage. 

Patrick: Everyone experiences loss at one point or another. And your response to that loss is usually sadness. “Sadness” isn’t part of the Green Lantern emotional spectrum — not active enough to dramatize. We’ve seen this weird little problem before (take last week’s Green Lantern Corps for example), but it always ends up feeling like the character appeals back to whatever emotion suits them. John regrets blowing up a planet, he’s going to will the thing back together; Atrocitus misses his family, he’s going to rage all over the bad guys. But as the All Color Lantern, Kyle Rayner can show what the proper response to loss is: all those awful emotions at once. Too bad there’s so much loss to be had. [Especially if you’re a Green Lantern fan, you should know: there be SPOILERS after the jump.]

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Nov 23 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 14

Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing New Guardians 14, originally released November 21st, 2012. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage. 

Shelby: Of all the emotions in the spectrum, fear is the one least like the rest. The members of all the other Corps earn their rings by feeling; Saint Walker’s unending well of hope earned him the blue ring, Carol Ferris’ persistent love of Hal earned her the violet ring, etc. Even the members of the Indigo tribe, though they originally had their rings forced upon them, have demonstrated that they are who they are because of the compassion they feel for others. The Yellow Corps, however, isn’t made up of extremely frightened people, it is made up of people who cause great fear. It’s a distinction I’ve never really pondered, because it makes sense; who would want to read a story about people who’s only power is being a scaredycat? Tony Bedard has apparently never really pondered it either; unlike every other yellow lantern I’ve ever known, the only way for Kyle to master the power of the Yellow is by being afraid.

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Oct 23 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 13

Today, Patrick and Mikyzptlk are discussing the Green Lantern: New Guardians 13, originally released October 17th, 2012. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage. Patrick: You ever stop to think about how weird the emotional spectrum is? The green power of Will is easy enough to understand, and furthermore, easy enough to understand as a tool used by a superhero. The implication is that all a Green Lantern really needs to do is try hard enough and he’ll be successful. “Will” is abstract, emotionally. But the other pillars of the emotional spectrum are more literal – you’ve got to be scary to make Yellow work for you; you’ve got to genuinely believe that everything will get better to make Blue work for you; and you’ve got to be pissed off to harness the Red. The funny thing about emotions though: you don’t just turn them on and turn them off. Kyle Rayner may have the ability to tap into all the colors of the rainbow, but at what cost?

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Sep 26 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 0

Alternating Currents: New Guardians 0, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Green Lantern: New Guardians 0, originally released September 19, 2012. Green Lantern: New Guardians 0 is part of the line-wide Zero Month.

Drew: Green Lantern subverted our expectations for zero month, delivering an origin story for a brand new Green Lantern, but one that cleverly fits within the overall narrative of the series. As DC’s Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns likely played a key role in determining if and when the event took place, so it’s understandable that he would come up with something that was largely an exception to the rule, both in terms of narrative elegance and the concept of a “before issue #1” story. What’s brilliant about Green Lantern 0 is that it really couldn’t have been any other story — Johns killed the hero in the previous issue, eliminating much narrative interest in returning to his past. Green Lantern: New Guardians 0 pulls a very similar trick, but as a team title, it doesn’t need to go through the trouble of “killing” the hero — simply dissolving the team will do just fine. Continue reading →

Aug 28 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 12

Today, Shelby and Peter are discussing New Guardians 12, originally released August 22nd, 2012.

Shelby: DC Comics has been having a lot of events lately: the entire relaunch, the Night of Owls, Rot World, and now the Third Army, as well as Zero Month. How far out are these sorts of things planned? How much time are the creative teams given to figure out how to tell the story they want to tell while working around and with DC’s event calendar? I’ve been enjoying Tony Bedard’s work on New Guardians quite a bit, but this latest issues feels a bit rushed towards the end, and I can’t help but wonder if he had to hustle to finish his story in time for the Big Events coming up in the Green Lantern universe. 

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Jul 27 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 11

Alternating Currents: New Guardians 11, Drew and PeterToday, Drew and Peter are discussing Green Lantern: New Guardians 11, originally released July 25th, 2012.

Drew: One of the things that keeps me coming back to this title is the diversity of its cast. They aren’t necessarily the most deeply drawn characters, but their personalities rub against each other in interesting ways. More importantly, those conflicts were set as the centerpiece of this title, a rarity in the largely mythology-driven Green Lantern group. After the fracturing of its core team, and a series of half-hearted crossovers, this title was in danger of losing that distinct voice, and becoming another cog in the Green Lantern machine (not that it’s a bad machine, but I think this title is strong enough to stand independently of whatever plotting is tying the rest of the GL universe together). I was heartened, then, to see the team back together in this issue, refocusing on their shared goals. Continue reading →

Jul 3 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 10


Today, Patrick and Shelby are discussing Green Lantern: New Guardians 10, originally released June 27th, 2012.

Patrick: Last stands are interesting. Planet-wide last stands are fascinating. Basically any science fiction alien-invasion story comes down to Earth’s last heroes staging a nearly-impossible attack against the alien aggressors and winning. I mean, you can’t end  your story with the world ending – that’s like the definition of a bad ending. But the Green Lantern universe is so rich with worlds that when one of them is in danger, there’s a genuine possibility that that world could end. So when the Reach set their sights on Odym, there was no guarantee of any specific outcome. Dramatically, anything is possible.  Continue reading →

May 28 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 9

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Green Lantern: New Guardians 9, originally released May 23rd, 2012.

Drew: Last month, Patrick and I expressed our apprehensions about folding this title into the greater Green Lantern mythology playing out in the other GL titles. Character dynamics and breezy fun have been the biggest strengths of this book, and the thought of getting bogged down in universe-spanning details could potentially obscure both of those. It’s a surprise, then, that writer Tony Bedard managed to turn those mythological details into telling character moments. In glimpsing how our characters interact with their own corps, we see how their world views may have shifted in the wake of their first team-up. That’s a very corny-sounding lesson, but Bedard manages not only to make those moments feel earned, but deliver them with the same kind of fun we’ve come to expect of this title. Continue reading →

Apr 30 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 8

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Green Lantern: New Guardians 8, originally released April 25th, 2012.

Patrick: After seven months of telling a fairly insulted story about a band of emotional misfits zooming across the galaxy, Green Lantern: New Guardians has to remind us that these characters don’t really work for the same team. They serve seven different masters, and most of that leadership is in various states of decay. So there are a thousand different motivating factors at play, and writer Tony Bedard handles what could be an incredibly complicated issue with aplomb.
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Apr 3 2012

Green Lantern: New Guardians 7


Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Green Lantern: New Guardians 7, originally released March 28, 2012.

Patrick: There are an awful lot of impossibly powerful creatures in the DC Universe. When you take the game out into the depths of space, that number rises exponentially. That’s when you start to encounter beings that refer to themselves as gods and angels. Thus the question is frequently posed: “How do you stop an unstoppable force?” Invariably, the answer is “together” – the combined strength of our heroes will save the day. But New Guardians 7 takes that “together” answer literally, making the group’s unity their ultimate weapon.
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