Green Lantern Annual #2
Written by Robert Venditti
Pencils by Sean Chen
Inks by Jon Sibal with Walden Wong
Colors by Andrew Dalhouse with Wil Quintana
Review by Mike Duke
Is there anything worse than being disappointed? After four mediocre issues of the Lights Out event in the Green Lantern family of comics, I was afraid that the end would fall flat, but that doesn’t keep me from being disappointed when it happens. Green Lantern Annual #2 marks the end of Lights Out and the beginning of the new status quo in the GL line of books, and in case you haven’t noticed it yet, I was disappointed in the issue.
We rejoin Hal Jordan on the planet of the Red Lanterns as he enlists them to help in the fight against Relic. They consent, and the gang heads off to find the villain for the final confrontation. Meanwhile, Kyle Rayner and the new Guardians are actually trying to help Relic achieve his goal. This being the last issue of the arc, I did finally get some of the explanations that I was looking for in the course of the story, but all-in-all the book was a bit confusing and overly convoluted. It’s not really clear what exactly happened in the end, and it’s even less clear what the point was. At the end of the issue, every one goes back to their corners and life goes on. Some things have changed, but none of the changes are significant or universe-shattering.
Unfortunately, the art in this issue isn’t really up to snuff either. Series artist Billy Tan is missing here, and the book suffers for it. Not to say that Sean Chen’s art is not good–it is–but it’s missing that “lived in” familiarity that Tan brings to the series. Faces aren’t as expressive as they could be and some of the panels look a little ridiculous as the Lanterns try to fight the massive Relic.
Verdict
Skip it. Now that I’ve read the whole crossover I can say with some confidence that it really wasn’t worth it. What few changes that actually took place could have been handled in the individual Lantern titles just fine without all of this hype and circumstance. I can only hope that these creative teams have gotten this out of their systems and can move on to tell some decent stories.
In one little side note, however, this book reinforced for me that what the Lantern universe needs is an Indigo Tribe title. That is all.
