Green Lantern: New Guardians, Red Hood and the Outlaws, and Green Lantern #16

[zapbiffpow]

Another New Guardian dies, Arsenal makes a prediction, and a face from the past (the dead past) greets Sinestro! Make your bets before clicking on the cut in this week's round-up:



Green Lantern: New Guardians #16:

Recap: Kyle's on his last ring lesson, Violet/Love, as the Star Sapphires probe him for those times when love shined most throughout his life. I loved this memory, from better days at Oa:



"What is cake? Lantern Rayner, teach me of cake." Also, Arisia and G'nort still appear to be canon.

The Story: On the doorstep to unleashing Kyle Rayner's untapped emotional power, another of the New Guardians dies. Which also happens to be Kyle Rayner.





And at long last, all colors of Kyle's spectrum bow in unison to the superiority of White Lantern Kyle's chromium bulge.



This feels like an energy-saving, streamlined version of the one from two issues in.

The story's great, and the light show from Kyle's rings are easily the best moments of the art, but the face (especially the smiling ones) get real creepy at times.

Still, I'm real glad to see our guy Kyle graduate from Intermediate (or is it Advanced? I'm not sure if he's the GL with the most diverse resume; I think it's Guy) Ring-Slinging.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #16:

Recap: With both their team leaders gone, the Teen Titans and the Outlaws struggle to cure a mob of Jokerized tenement occupants. Arsenal sends out the Titans to find the cure while he and Bunker hold the villains off.



Whoa, trucker hat diss out of nowhere!





I'd rather see him in an improved Justice League International, not the New 52 one. Or at the least the Generation Lost JLI.

Still, it's a nice vote of confidence on Arsenal's part, and I love that he even thought of such a thing.

This issue's all about Roy, and it's all how much he's moved on from his past as a junkie, and it works, at least in showing that part.

Oh, this issue's got cameos from: Killer Croc (they're really building him up as more than a mindless thug); Hugo Strange in a book signing (still rocking those sideburns), and a more recognizable Deathstroke, who's seen gleefully making plans to target the Outlaws.

Green Lantern #16:

Recap: Simon Baz proves his innocence to the Feds, and after escaping the JL and taking down a platoon of the Third Army, is summoned by Green Lantern Bd'g (the squirrel guy) to help gather the four 2814 Lanterns.

After mistakenly understanding that the ring can do anything, Baz makes a stop at his best friend's hospital bed to try and snap him out of the coma. Despite B'dg warning him that rings don't work that way, he succeeds:







The identity of the cloaked dead guy inside Black Hand's ring is revealed:

Comments

[skemono]

"I was the first Green Lantern you ever met."
"What about Abin Sur?"
"What about shut up."

[zapbiffpow]

Oh snap, Johns totally forgot that.

[crinos]

I was going to bring up Sinestro too, but it turns out he debuted one issue after Tomar Re, so they got me on that.

[avantre]

Insert retcon story here on how Hal met him in an adventure before becoming a green lantern but then got mindwiped to hide his newfound knowledge of aliens.

That or because Abin had the ring pick Hal as his replacement before he physically met him, Abin wasn't technically a lantern anymore (his successor was) when Hal first saw him.

Or whatever other equally contrived explanation the writer comes up with.

[glprime]

Continuity burn!

[thatnickguy]

Kyle's got a new costume?

Must be Wednesday.

[akodo_rokku]

Same statement, but replace "got a new costume" with "attains godlike power". Seriously this is like, the third or fourth time.

[auggie18]

Damn, Kyle's packing.

[shadowpsykie]

wow the first thing i thought was "IN HIS PANTS!!!!!"

[lieut_kettch]

This is how my eyes scanned that page:

Rage. Avarice. Fear. Will. Hope. Compassion. Love. SHINY GLOWY PACKAGE.

Two thoughts

[bewareofgeek]

1) Volthoom? As in "Earth-3 Power Ring?"
2) "By your power (rings) combined, I am CAPTAIN LANTERN!"

Re: Two thoughts

[skjam]

Clearly, on Earth-3, Volthoom won. Presuming Earth-3 still exists.

Re: Two thoughts

[akodo_rokku]

Yeah, Volthoom is now 'the first lantern'. It appears he was an Guardians experiment before they even built the Manhunters. And they used him as a power source for the Third Army which has been telegraphed as going horribly wrong from the SECOND they did it.

[shadowpsykie]

.... is it just me or are there A LOT of Bunker Butt shots? not that i am complaining :D
'
i might need a new Icon....

[lieut_kettch]

Oh, Bunker, I will miss you -- a fun, well-adjusted, gay person of color. It's like having a "KICK ME" sign taped to your back for DC editorial. He'll be dead, insane or a villain within five years.

[shadowpsykie]

don;t think so. you have any idea the outcry there will be?

plus have you seen his ASS? it rivals Nightwing's

[kd_the_movie]

so did they retcon Kyle as a member of the OG Green Lantern corps? or is that an artist error? Because he only wore the standard Corp Costume for 1 issue....

I like the art on New Guardians. Looks like a mix between JRjr and Kevin Maguire.

[zapbiffpow]

Most likely an artist error.

I agree with the art being neat, although Kyle here seems to suffer from some early male pattern baldness.

[icon_uk]

Those are indeed some seriously creepy mouths in the first scans.

[cainofdreaming]

A White Power Ring still seems wrong to me, somehow.

[skemono]

No kidding.

[kingofmadcows]

The whole emotional spectrum thing seems so arbitrary. Why did they even choose those emotions? What about sadness, ecstasy, ambition, etc. And they're only using two of the six basic emotion psychologists have classified, anger and fear, the other four are surprise, joy, disgust, and sadness. Not to mention the fact that will isn't even an emotion.

[biod]

It's been explained that "The Emotional Spectrum" is a bit of a misnomer; it's really the seven drives that lead a person to do what they do. All together the drives form life (White) and their absence is death (Black).

[drmcninja]

Kyle's face. It's just... I don't know. It seems off, let alone looking nothing like Kyle himself anyway.

[lieut_kettch]

Does Kyle's face remind you of someone, perhaps?

[nezchan]

Why on earth would Roy think joining the Justice League (New 52 version) would be a promotion?

[starpiper]

Oh god, Kyle's smiles on that first page...that will haunt my nightmares. O_o

NGL, I sort of thought his speech to Ganthet (who is...still brainwashed, yes?) about love was sweet.

Also sweet was Simon saving his friend. I haven't been reading Green Lantern lately, but his guy seem pretty cool in just these few pages. So, of course, I found myself chanting "please don't kill him DC, please don't kill him DC" under my breath.

Rounding out the trifecta of 'awwww' was the Bunker and Arsenal bonding (though, seriously Roy, get a haircut, man).

[chrisdv]

In Brightest Day
In Blackest Night
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power
IN MY PANTS.

--Kyle Rayner's Green Lantern oath.

[skemono]

I'd go with "inside my tights" rather than "in my pants" to keep the rhyme scheme.

Kyle

[thepinkperil]

Is the whole Sins of the Sapphires arc still in continuity? Miri and bringing Kyle back from the dead using part of his girlfriend's heart thing? Miri was my favorite Sapphire.

Re: Kyle

[chrisdv]

Dunno, but Blackest Night's still canon.

I just took it as Kyle gaining the power of the Sapphire meaning he was resurrected via becoming the White Lantern.