GREEN LANTERN #47 REVIEW

[Walt Kneeland]

Review by: Walt Kneeland (walt.kneeland@gmail.com )
Quick Rating: Very Good
Story Title: To Hell and Back

Hal and Sinestro face Abin Sur and his sister while Atrocitus faces his own group of Black Lanterns, and the Black Lanterns interfere in the ongoing battle between Blue and Orange.

Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Doug Mahnke
Inks: Christian Alamy, Doug Mahnke & Tom Nguyen W/Mark Irwin
Color: Randy Mayor
Letters: Rob Leigh
Assoc. Editor: Adam Schlagman
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Cover Art: Mahnke, Alamy & Hi-Fi (variant by Ed Benes & Nei Ruffino)
Publisher: DC Comics

This issue opens with a Black vs. Red corps sequence as we see Atrocitus throw down with the Black Lanterns, with a somewhat surprising twist. Meanwhile, Indigo, Carol, Hal, and Sinestro are faced with the Black Lantern incarnations of Abin Sur and his sister, both with heavy emotiional ties to the two Corpsmen leading to a bit of an alliance while they deal with the common foe. Meanwhile, the Orange/Blue battle which has been going on since Blackest Night kicked off hits a bump in the road as Agent Orange finds himself dealing with the Black Lantern counterparts to his Orange constructs, with an interesting sort of cavalry arriving on-scene.

This was another solid issue of the series, and a good chapter in the unfolding saga of Blackest Night as a whole. We continue to see how the Black Lanterns can actually be defeated, and discover another area of weakness for them, where they are not as seemingly over-powerful as was thought. The story felt a little bit disjointed and free-floating sometimes, though. We're cutting to different events going on at once within the overall event as well as following the "core" story-strand of this issue. Johns does seem to have things well in hand, with new information being just that, and not exactly coming outta the blue. As the characters we're reading discover things, we--the readers--discover them. This isn't a case of us knowing beforehand all of the Black Lanterns' capabilities/weaknesses and waiting for some token "excuse" for a character in the story to stumble across the information/realization.

Overall, I continue to enjoy Mahnke's art on this book...it fits naturally in with the visuals I associate with other artists who've worked on this book the last few years. Though I enjoy it, there are points where it comes across as a bit inconsistent--for all the great panels with plenty of detail, there are others that leave me at a bit of a loss and wondering if it's the same visual team providing the art.

I don't recall offhand if Abin Sur's sister played any role in the Secret Origin arc from last year, but between her here and the recent interaction between Sinestro and Soranik in GL Corps, Sinestro's really getting rounded out and I enjoy the depth being given the character these recent years. Also in this vein is Abin Sur--the depth given a throw-away generic character I doubt was ever intended to have any significance beyond handing Hal a ring and dying.

This is strongly enjoyable stuff, very much keeping pace with the Blackest Night series itself.

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