Review: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 5: Twilight of the Guardians trade paperback (DC Comics)

I have often been positive about Robert Venditti's Green Lantern, but Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 5: Twilight of the Guardians is a misstep. Leading in to two big storylines that will culminate with the end of the series and Venditti's run, Twilight marks time, with a couple stories that, while consequential, seem more padded than they need. The lack of this book's regular art team reinforces this placeholder sense.

[Review contains spoilers]

The arc of Geoff Johns' and Robert Venditti's "Green Lantern" runs swung from Hal Jordan as a disgraced Lantern and the Lantern Guardians slowly growing corrupt, to Hal as head among a Lantern-lead organization. But part and parcel of the Green Lantern mythos is the mysterious, erratic leadership of the Guardians, and the upshot of Twilight is to swing things back toward the middle -- to unite the "original" and Templar Guardians of recent runs and to install them again at the head of the Lanterns. This is quite fine, a good development by Venditti, and the classic Guardian tunics are a nice touch.

The main "Twilight" story also teams the Corps' "big four" human Lanterns (the "Four Corpsmen," as Guy Gardner refers to them), and that's something we haven't seen overtly in a year or so, so that's also pleasant. It's nice to spotlight these characters, but going to some of Twilight's difficulties, Venditti does nothing particularly new or different with this teaming, teasing out no great insights nor distinctive character moments. I don't mind this title taking a smaller focus, but material with the former Sinestro Corpsmen-turned-Lanterns might have been more interesting than a run-of-the-mill Earth Lantern adventure.

Indeed, "Twilight"'s main story is very paint-by-the-numbers. In the first issue, the heroes discover the problem; in the second, they find out where to go; in the third, they fight henchmen; in the fourth, they fight the main villains, the Controllers. Far more gripping are the scenes of Guardian Ganthet being tortured by the Controllers, with the distinct possibility that one of the favored Guardian characters might die; on the Lantern front, there's no nuance or complication to the story, nor any real concern built that the Lanterns might be in danger. All of this is ultimately prelude to what's really interesting, the Controllers' resurrection of the Darkstars; in large part Venditti could have just skipped to that without this "Controller origin" story, and that lack of real necessity is palpable.

The Twilight book's extraneousness is underscored by the fact that the first two issues branch off a story from Superman Vol. 5: Hopes and Fears that was equally written by a guest team while Superman got out of the way of Action Comics: The Oz Effect. The bulk of each issue is a dream sequence, suggesting how these two issues might also have been shortened, and it's a minor annoyance that among the first thing Venditti has to do here is contradict the events that just took place in Superman. Be that as it may, it's fun to see Superman and Hal Jordan just chatting one on one (the last time being something like Adventures of Superman #473) and to see how they discuss Jon, for instance, so casually in the post-Superman Reborn era. Fantastically, as well, Venditti picks up a dropped storyline from early in Geoff Johns' Green Lantern run, bringing back the alien Krolotean masters of Hector Hammond.

Art in the "Mind Games" story is by Patrick Zircher, offering nice continuity with the Super-titles, and his detailed, mature style is among the best in the book. "Twilight of the Guardians" apparently has pencils by Jack Herbert over breakdowns by Tom Derenick, but Derenick is still very apparent, especially in the very wide-mouth faces of the characters in dramatic sequences. Overall, "Twilight" looks to me a little too dark, too plain, and too distorted to attract a casual non-comics reader, as opposed to series regular Rafa Sandoval.

Support Collected Editions -- Purchase Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 5: Twilight of the Guardians

The Green Lanterns now have a child among their members, something I don't think I totally understood at the end of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 4: Fracture, and it's a charming sequence toward the beginning of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 5: Twilight of the Guardians as the Guardians and John Stewart consider what the implications of this might be. This is another auspicious, unique development that this book doesn't follow up with, and I hope the next volume is truer to form -- more suspense, more consequences, and with more of the regular creative team back on board.

[Includes original covers by Francis Manapul and variant covers by Barry Kitson]

Summary

Reviewer

Collected Editions

Review Date

2018-06-17

Reviewed Item

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 5: Twilight of the Guardians

Author Rating

3 (scale of 1 to 5)