Green Days

 

Green Arrow and Black Canary #1

In the wake of Oliver Queen’s death, Black Canary is dealing with her grief by beating the snot out of bad guys as brutally as possible. In fact, she’s also keeping Ollie’s body preserved in a big glass tube — she’s convinced it’s not really Green Arrow. Everyone thinks she’s nuts — everyone except Batman.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s got a few problems — Black Canary is mostly an observer of other people’s detective work, and Green Arrow barely shows up at all. But the detective work is pretty good, and the big secret is fairly well done. Cliff Chiang’s artwork is just drop-dead gorgeous, too.

 

Green Lantern Corps #16

There’s a lot of stuff going on in this one. There’s the Battle of the Planets, with Mogo, the Green Lantern planet taking on Ranx, the crazy Sinestro city, Kilowog fighting Arkillo, a monstrous Sinestro Corps member, Sodam Yat, a Daxamite GL, wreaks havoc inside Ranx, and members of the Green Lantern Corps and Sinestro Corps fighting each other everywhere. Things look bad for the Lanterns until the Guardians of the Galaxy change their governing laws to allow Lanterns to kill Sinestro Corps members.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s pretty chaotic, and there are tons of characters — but I’m impressed that we still get treated to some good character moments. That’s hard to do with that much stuff going on.

 

Green Lantern #24

Meanwhile, on Earth, the Sinestro Corps War continues as the bulk of the yellow-ringed fearmeisters lower the boom on our big blue marble. They’ve got most of their heavy-hitters in the battle, including Sinestro, Superboy-Prime, the Cyborg Superman, and Parallax, still possessing Kyle Rayner’s body. Parallax actually swallows up Hal Jordan when his ring runs out of power, but the other Green Lanterns have a plan to save both Hal and Kyle.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Some of the dialogue is really, really hokey, and the plan to get rid of Parallax is a bit, um, stupid. Still, some nice ring-slinging, some decent plot-advancement. I’m looking forward to more of this — it’s the best crossover series DC has had for a long time.