Posted on

The Green Lantern #3 Review

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artist: Liam Sharp

Colorist: Steve Oliff

Letterer: Tom Ozrechowski

Variant Cover: Jae Lee and June Chung

 

When DC’s The Green Lantern series was announced, writer Grant Morrison described his pitch as a more grounded take on the character. Hal Jordan is a space cop and this 12 issue series would be treated as a police procedural, one that focused on the day to day rather than the apocalyptic storylines that the corps has been known to deal with. Naturally that means the third issue features Hal Jordan trying to arrest God.

 

No, not that God. Just an alien that happens to look like the God from the Old Testament. The Earth has been put on the black market and along with characters like Steppenwolf from the planet Apokolips, this Shephard is an interested buyer. No one is buying the Earth if Hal has anything to say about it.

 

This issue is another fantastic entry in this must-read series. Morrison continues to buck against the decompressed storytelling that has become the norm in comics. Each issue is meant to serve as a near self-contained story that adds to an overarching storyline told throughout the 12 issue series. Meaning that any reader can grab any issue off the shelf and hop in without feeling lost or feeling like they were cheated out of a full story.

 

While facing off with God may not sound like typical police procedural fare, Morrison has done a great job making the series feel like a grounded take on the character while keeping the surroundings and plot lines as strange as one would expect from a Morrison sci-fi comic. It strays far from feeling like a typical superhero comic. This is classic British science fiction comic book storytelling. Think old school 2000 AD rather than DC Comics.

 

Issue 3 is filled with high concept science-fiction goodness. It somehow manages to be politically relevant without issues feeling forced or out of place. The creatures from Dhor that play a prominent role in the issue are Randian caricatures, showing the result of an amoral society built around a rampant free market. There’s a ncie allusion to our society’s apathy towards an increasingly dismal looking future on planet Earth. And the ending and next issue might promise some comment on police brutality.

Liam Sharp is the perfect artist for this book. His work is again something out of 2000 AD mag. Every panel is so intricately detailed that one can spend chunks of time picking out new favorite details. Sharp’s work on this series has been some of the best in comics right now. You can tell he is leaving everything on the page.

 

Green Lantern #3 is a stand out issue of an excellent comic series and is a must read for any fan of the medium. Check it out and grab issues #1 and 2 to catch up on one of the most rewarding series in comics coming out right now!

 

Posted on

Doomsday Clock #1

Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Gary Frank
Colorist: Brad Anderson
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Publisher: DC Comics

It’s finally here. Ever since the mouth-dropping twist at the end of the Rebirth one-shot, DC fans
have been waiting to see how exactly Watchmen would merge with the main DC universe. The
answer will be explored throughout Doomsday Clock, which is a 12-issue series written by Geoff
Johns and drawn by Gary Frank.

The last major revelation was that Dr. Manhattan had tampered with the space-time continuum
and created the New 52 timeline. Doomsday Clock starts off in the Watchmen universe, taking
place about eight years after the events of the iconic Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons story. I’ll go
ahead and say that if you haven’t read Watchmen in a while, you may want to refresh yourself
before going into this book.

That said, this first issue offers a lot of potential for the series as a whole. Beyond being a love-
letter to the source material, it provides an interesting look at this world as it inches closer and
closer to annihilation. We see a character from the original story posing as Rorschach,
Ozymandias apparently seeking to redeem himself and Dr. Manhattan is still missing.
Meanwhile, all hell has broken loose across the globe.

The only tie to the main DC universe comes at the end of the issue, but we still have 11 more
issues to get the answers we’ve yearned for for the last year and a half. After the fairly
underwhelming crossover The Button earlier this year, this book is a worthy follow up to both
Rebirth and Watchmen. Geoff Johns returns to comics writing with a bang, and with art by the
amazing Gary Frank this is one of the biggest collector’s items of the year.