Tony Black reviews Green Lanterns: Rebirth #1…
Creative powerhouse Geoff Johns puts the ring on again as he, co-writer Sam Humphries and artist Ethan Van Sciver debut a new era of emerald greatness! Rookie Green Lanterns Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz tackle the universe’s toughest beat: Earth.
SEE ALSO: Check out a preview of Green Lanterns: Rebirth #1
As you may have seen in my Superman and Flash reviews, I am a newbie to comic books, if not specifically comic-book characters. So these reviews are going to be from the perspective of someone not massively well versed in the lore of DC and therefore may provide something of a fresh outlook on the DC Rebirth universe as the new comics have introduced. If you want to see more of my comic-book musings, please feel free to check out my new blog on the subject.
To my surprise I found myself enjoying this Rebirth issue of Green Lanterns more than any of the other Rebirth issues to date.
Perhaps the reason is simply because it feels much more like a beginning, a way in, than the other Rebirth issues have so far. Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz I’m sure have appeared in previous comics and runs, establishing both of their roles as incumbent Lanterns protecting Earth, but writers Geoff Johns & Sam Humphries really manage to quickly summarise the past incarnations of Lanterns while establishing both of these main characters and various points about who they are. Simon has been fighting Lantern problems far away from Earth & is involved with the Bureau (I’m presuming FBI but it could be another organisation) following an explosion that people believe he was culpable for. Comments suggest he became a Lantern while in Guantanamo, so there’s obviously a modern terrorism angle in play there. This issue made a lot of points about fear and scaremongering being crucial to this comic’s overarching themes, and how a Lantern is supposed to overcome that.
For Jessica it appears to be a different kind of fear, conquering her agoraphobia. She mentions how she aided the Justice League, specifically the Flash, recently – is this the same battle Superman was killed in? That seems to be how she became a Lantern but she’s very much just discovering what her power can do, so having that newcomer viewpoint certainly will aid a newbie like me in discovering this world! She and Simon are forced together by, I believe, Hal the original Lantern on Earth who forces them to work together to stop what he believes is an impending crisis on Earth, as he flies off to battle Sinestro “at the end of the universe”, so this issue is a neat way of establishing a new Lantern Corps status quo to fight a new menace.
Or are they a new menace? At the beginning we see lore of a Lantern-like Guardian wielding extreme power in a ring, escaping sinister looking aliens called the Dominators, and heading for Earth where a bad guy called Atrocitus, father of the Red Lanterns are planning to bring on ‘The Red Dawn’. Are these new characters? Or returning villains of old? Either way they seem very grande and are hatching a plan.
Overall, they set up what could be the Rebirth run I’m most interested in so far. So how exactly did they make that Green Lantern film so bad again?
Tony Black is a freelance film/TV writer & podcaster & would love you to follow him on Twitter.
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published June 13, 2016. Updated November 10, 2019.
