Writers: Geoff Johns, Dave Gibbons, Peter TomasiArtists: Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, et al.
I've been so negative lately. I'd rather be positive. Fortunately, with Sinestro Corps War, I can positively gush.
It feels BIG in all the right ways. The beginning on earth with the Justice League offers a sweet first hint of broader DCU relevance. Then the story blasts off to the stars for some awesomely cosmic space-operatics. As it forks through Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, it nicely coheres as a larger story on parallel tracks. When it returns to earth, all that outer-space craziness follows it home, our planet's Multiversal significance comes to the fore, and all our superheroes join the battle. Just as important, it's not big in the wrong ways. It manages satisfying complexity with clean, tight, straightforward economy. Most notably, it does all this without a zillion half-assed tie-ins.
The Sinestro Corps is an interesting, varied cast of villains, from Sinestro himself, to their Guardian the Anti-Monitor (wow, what a freaky motherfucker!), to Parallax, to Arkillo the anti-Kilowog, to femme fatale librarian (man, there can just never be enough of those) Lyssa Drak, to the sentient city Ranx, to both Cyborg Superman and Superboy Prime, to fairy-tale hag Kryb. They lend themselves to different kinds of conflict, sometimes because of their powers, sometimes because of another distinction in their design or concept, and sometimes because of their private motivations. The war they wage is multifaceted, and its pattern/pacing gives the story an engaging texture.
As for the whole Green Lantern Corps, its workings and mythology, there's a lot that could be off-puttingly confusing, preposterous, or just plain goofy, but that is dramatized here in ways that make it comprehensible, fun, and even downright awesome. My favorite example is Ion. Ion benefits from being the Green Lantern counterpart to the Sinestro Corps villain Parallax. Parallax is so crucial to Green Lantern history and indeed its present state that a great deal of information about it comes across very naturally in context. I didn't feel much special effort was being made to bring me up to speed as a new reader, but enough blanks were being filled in anyway that I could follow along. By the time Sinestro pulled a giant green-glowing fish out of Kyle Rayner's chest, it actually almost made a kind of sense. Let's put it this way--I could roll with it. And having swallowed that, why not the Anti-Monitor trying to dissect Ion in some gargantuan laboratory?
Or a disempowered Boodika riding Ion to safety through a chaotic fight after a harrowing rescue?
Or the Guardians of the Universe showing up with Ion over the skies of New York at a crucial moment, to stick him in someone else's chest?
I find these images tremendously appealing, and emblematic of an important part of this event's whole appeal. This is, simply, imagery you won't see anywhere else, and it isn't just weird for weirdness' sake, but arises and makes sense in both the narrative and visual contexts of this story. It's beautiful and dynamic, and the sheer wonder of these visions fairly radiates off the page.One of my favorite plot beats serves as another example of how the creative team gives visceral punch to somewhat insider/specialized knowledge of the Green Lanterns through good storytelling:
"LETHAL FORCE HAS BEEN ENABLED." This sequence of panels does a fantastic job of conveying this instant, vast change to a whole Corps spread all across the cosmos, but the emotional ground has been laid from very early on. Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis sell the fuck out of it with a Guardians speech leading in with their reasons before announcing their decision, juxtaposed against a whole montage of the Sinestro Corps preparing for their ultimate offensive. I came to this story with no particular knowledge of, let alone investment in, the "no lethal force" aspect of the Lanterns, and yet this development felt exhilaratingly seismic to me.
Sprinkled throughout are little character moments that lend the event enough of a pulse to keep it feeling warm and human. I really like the way Kyle Rayner interacts with the painting as a tangible connection to his recently deceased mother.
Silly as the Guardians may look, that just sort of makes it all the sweeter when two of them fall secretly in love, get exiled because of it, and use their new freedom to embrace each other openly in hope.
Then, Green Man's friendship with Stel and both of their affection for the living planet Mogo struck me as quite touching. It's a little embarrassing to feel inspired by the schmaltzy Coast City scene, but yeah, I felt that, too.
Let's face it, though, the main draw for a superhero event like this is the action, and Sinestro Corps War delivers exactly that, spectacularly, in spades. The Battle of Mogo/Battle of Ranx is awesomely epic in scale, involving a living planet, a nearly planet-sized flying city, and two vast legions armed with power rings. For all that, Kilowog's slugfest with Arkillo, along with Arisia's attempts to keep tabs on Sodam Yat, drive the massive action home on a more relatable, personal level.
Superboy Prime's fight is a study in brutality, first when he thrashes just about everyone, but especially when his beatdown of Sodam Yat turns decisively and sickeningly one-sided.Even the Guardians get their hands dirty. And they suffer for it, too. One of them gets burned into Scar by the Anti-Monitor, and another flat-out sacrifices his life to stop Prime. Suffice it to say, their physical intervention is an unexpected development that dramatically underscores the gravity and stakes of the conflict.
The big payoff, though, is when Sinestro takes on both Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner in a straight-up fistfight after all their power rings are drained down to zero. It might sound strange for such a huge, dazzling event to come down to ordinary knuckles slamming into ordinary faces, but it feels earned, because the same things inside them that gave them control over their rings are essentially what keep their fists flying--raw will, and the need to impose order through fear.Bottom line: Sinestro Corps War is the real deal, start to finish--a great superhero story told with great superhero art. It makes me wonder what Blackest Night might have been as a leaner, meaner Green Lantern/Corps event rather than a fattened line-wide cash cow milked for all it's worth with all those tie-ins. I guess we'll never know. My one complaint with SCW is the current two-volume trade format, which doesn't even include the Tales of the Sinestro Corps one-shots that really added quite a bit to the main story. A single softcover volume that collected the whole thing would of course be ideal, and then I'd have no complaints whatsoever. Except that Blackest Night's not this amazing.
