Green Lantern #23.4: Sinestro
Written by Matt Kindt
Art by Dale Eaglesham
Colors by Andrew Dalhouse
Review by Mike Duke
If the couple of books I’ve read so far this week are any indication, DC saved the best for last with this latest crop for Villain’s Month. First up for me is Sinestro. This is one of two Green Lantern books I was excited for, and by far the best of those two. However, it still wasn’t what I had hoped for. Green Lantern: Sinestro ends up being more of a storybook and a history lesson than a solid tale of the purple Green Lantern.
The story takes place in the floating rubble that is the planet Korugar after the events of The Wrath of the First Lantern. Lyssa Drak, former member and historian of the Yellow Lantern Corps is looking for her leader. In the process, she is trying to remember the histories of her corps despite the absence of the Book of Paralax. As such, she begins to recall the tale of Thaal Sinestro. What follows is mostly flashback looking at how he became a Green Lantern, his friendship with Abin Sur, his marriage to Arin Sur, and his takeover of his homeworld Korugar. I didn’t mind most of this because I have only been reading Green Lantern in recent years, and while I knew the broad strokes of the character’s history, the specific information here was welcome and interesting. Thankfully, the most recent events in Lantern history were condensed into a couple of pages so I didn’t feel like we were rehashing too much that I already knew. However, my one major issue with the book is that Sinestro never actually appears in the “present.” There is absolutely no indication as to what we can expect from the character going forward, if anything. It was beyond frustrating.
That being said, however, I was very happy with the art in this issue. For a month of books with B- and C-list creators, this is one of the best looking books I read. Also, it features this really neat border around the flashback pages so that they looked like murals or stained glass panels on a temple wall. The colors and light effects are top notch also, but unfortunately they just couldn’t make up for the lack of any real direction to the book.
Verdict.
Wait and See. If you are a fan of the purple-faced tyrant, go ahead and pick it up. There has certainly been a lot worse this month. However, if you consider yourself to be a Sinestro aficionado, be warned that you probably aren’t going to find anything new to love.
