Tag Archives: Green Lantern

Apr 22 2013

Green Lantern: New Guardians 19

new guardians 19 wrath

Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing New Guardians 19, originally released April 17th, 2013. This issue is part of the Wrath of the First Lantern crossover event. Click here for our First Lantern coverage.

Spencer: Tragedy and loss are inevitable parts of life. We can’t escape it, but we can deal with it, and how we do so tends to reveal our true priorities and who we really are deep inside. Continuing Green Lantern: New Guardian’s habit of turning crossover issues into journeys through its characters’ psyches, writer Tony Bedard uses not one, but two tragedies—the destruction of the planet Korugar and the “death” of Hal Jordan—to shine a light deep inside Sinestro, Carol Ferris, and Kyle Rayner.

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Apr 9 2013

Green Lantern 19

green lantern 19 wrath

Today, Mikyzptlk and Drew are discussing Green Lantern 19, originally released April 3rd, 2013. This issue is part of the Wrath of the First Lantern crossover event. Click here for our First Lantern coverage. 

Mikyzptlk: Last year, Geoff Johns gave us The Villain’s Journey in Justice League 9, 10, 11 and 12. While that story was mostly bemoaned here on Retcon Punch, Johns has been delivering a much, much better version of “the villain’s journey” since his Green Lantern run first began nearly a decade ago. Almost as much as Green Lantern has been the story of Hal Jordan, it has been the story of Sinestro. Just as we’ve seen Hal’s resurrection and journey of becoming the “greatest” Green Lantern, we’ve seen Sinestro’s resurrection and journey of becoming the greatest Green Lantern antagonist. However, Johns has also shown us that Sinestro, while a fantastic villain, is much more complex than just that. To Sinestro, his aptly sinister actions were always intended for the greater good of the universe, and while those actions were twisted, he eventually found himself wearing a green ring once more. Even with that ring, we’ve still gotten a mixed-bag from Sinestro. Issue 19 of Green Lantern dives deeper into Sinestro’s motivations, and attempts to explain why he’s capable of being the title’s greatest antagonist and ally all at the same time. Continue reading →

Mar 27 2013

Green Lantern: New Guardians 18

new guardians 18 wrath

Today, Shelby and guest Pivitor are discussing New Guardians 18, originally released March 20th, 2013. This issue is part of the Wrath of the First Lantern crossover event. Click here for our First Lantern coverage.

Shelby: Be true to yourself. It’s the sort of lesson a pre-teen protagonist would learn at the end of an after school special about peer pressure or cliques or something like that. Disney Channel-sentimentality aside, the idea of recognizing who you are at your core is an important one to me. It took me about 28 years, but I think I’m finally figuring myself out, finally learning what really motivates me to be the person I am. Is this core me something that I’ve always had inside me, or has the life I’ve lived shaped it? If my life had taken a number of very different turns, would I be a completely different person, or would this core me be the same?  Continue reading →

Mar 22 2013

Justice League of America 2

JLA 2

Today, Mikyzptlk and Michael are discussing Justice League of America 2, originally released March 20th, 2013.

Mikyzptlk: Motivations, we’ve all got them. It’s what drives us to do whatever it is that we do. Geoff Johns is intent on letting us in on what drives his characters in his latest series. Not only that, but it seems that he’s using these motivations to drive the story forward. That leaves us with yet another issue that is mostly a bunch of characters yammering on. Fortunately, what they are yammering on about is fairly interesting, and the story that’s unfolding is getting more intriguing by the page.

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Mar 7 2013

Green Lantern 18

green lantern 18 wrath

Today, Mikyzptlk and Patrick are discussing Green Lantern 18, originally released March 6th, 2013. This issue is part of the Wrath of the First Lantern crossover event. Click here for our First Lantern coverage. 

Mikyzptlk: One of my favorite movies of all time is The Shawshank Redeption where Andy Dufresne is convicted of murders he did not commit. He spends twenty years in prison suffering one horrible thing after another until he decides he’s had enough. He no longer wants to suffer but knows that the only way to escape said suffering is to endure even more of it. He ends up crawling through the sewage pipe to escape, but on the other side finds freedom and a new life. I couldn’t help but think about Andy while reading the conclusion to Green Lantern 18 as Hal finds himself in similar situation. While Hal may not have to crawl through a river of shit to escape, his path to freedom may be even worse.

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Feb 20 2013

Chat Cave: Geoff Johns (et al.) leave Green Lantern

Last week, Geoff Johns announced that issue 20 of Green Lantern will be his last. Johns has been writing Green Lantern since the Rebirth mini-series that restored Hal Jordan as the main Green Lantern. Over the course of a decade, Johns has expanded the Green Lantern mythology to enormous sizes. The reach of the Green Lantern Universe has been considerable, eventually coming to occupy four titles in The New 52 library. With Johns’ departure, Peter Tomasi (Green Lantern Corps), Tony Bedard (Green Lantern: New Guardians) and Peter Milligan (Red Lanterns) will also be stepping down. What’s next for the Green Lanterns? Welcome to the Chat Cave.
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Feb 18 2013

Cram Session: The Rise of the Third Army

It can be hard to keep up with all the comics you love. But it’s damn near impossible to keep up with all the comics you’re interested in.

Retcon Punch got you covered.

You’re planning to read the Wrath of the First Lantern, right? It’s Geoff Johns and company’s last hurrah with those characters, so you BEST to pick it up. But if you want to understand every second of that even — and we know you do — you’ve got to get a grip on what came before. If you missed any part of the Rise of the Third Army (and we pay attention to our analytics – none of you are reading Red Lanterns), we’ve got like 20 issues worth of dense GL plotting to catch you up on.  

Jan 28 2013

Green Lantern: New Guardians 16

new guardians 16-3rd

Today, Shelby and Patrick are discussing New Guardians 16, originally released January 23rd, 2013. This issue is part of the Rise of the Third Army crossover event. Click here for complete Third Army coverage. 

Shelby: It’s finally time for Kyle Rainer to learn to master the power of love. He’s saved it for last because it is the most difficult, but why is that? Surely rage or greed or even fear would be much harder to command and control. While the more negative end of the emotional spectrum is difficult to control, it is easy to feel. I know I feel ready to puke red-hot plasma just about every morning on the commuter train to work. The difficulty of love lies in the challenge of letting yourself experience love. It’s an emotion that be very painful to the person feeling it; sometimes it’s just easier to block it out entirely. Kyle learns the hard way: you can’t master an emotion you are afraid to let yourself feel.

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Jan 17 2013

Threshold 1

threshold 1

Today, Mikyzptlk and Patrick are discussing Threshold 1, originally released January 16th, 2013.

Mikyzptlk: When I first learned I’d be writing about Threshold, I was intrigued because I’m always excited to try out new comics. Unfortunately, Green Lantern: New Guardians Annual 1 happened and I suddenly began dreading this write-up. The GL:NG Annual was essentially the prologue of the main feature in Threshold, and even though I kept an open mind when reading it, I couldn’t help but remember the disappointment and frustration I felt just a short week ago. Those things are easy to remember as this series continues to have the same problem that the Annual had in that it’s WAY too wordy. Worst of all, the issue begins by committing the cardinal story telling sin of telling instead of showing.

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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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