It’s been about 4 years now since I
last re-visited Green Lantern and realized why I had this penchance for rings
when I was a kid. Fast forward to today and after major yearly crises that has
plagued OA and the rest of the DC Universe; I am still hooked and proud to be a
Lantern at heart. Reading War of the Green Lanterns
this month as it only came out in hardcover and compiles the entire storyline
via different issues of Green Lantern and Emerald Warriors; Geoff Johns has
once again won my heart and proved why he is the man who wears the DC crown.
Touted as the big crisis following
the successful and my favorite GL crisis, Blackest Night and its 3 part sequel,
Brightest Day, one would think that there would not be another crisis than can
come close to equalling these past 2 big events. And it so happens that they
didn’t have to create another villain to spin a brand new crisis that would
incapacitate and affect our ring wielding friends because they already have one
in their midst. And this came in the form of a renegade guardian named Krona.
The hardcover 10-issue compilation collects the different runs of the storyline
as it appears in Green Lantern #63-67, Green Lantern Corps #58-60, Emerald
Warriors #8-10.
Having met Krona first in the 80’s
series, Crisis on Infinite Earths and then have him associated with past DC
events like Infinite Crisis and the 2 most recent GL crises, it was but natural
that they bring him back to finally tie up loose ends with his fellow Guardians
and to give Krona the centerstage attention that he so long desired. (I’m not
saying, deserved either)
With Krona’s entrance, it’s also the
resolution of the damage that the so called Guardians have had to answer for.
From the secrets and lies that they told in order to keep the Lanterns in the
dark of what they must not know and limit their knowledge to what they need to
know, this war was very much a war among the Guardians themselves and not just confined
to their Green “police squad”. Following the events of Green Lantern: Brightest
Day, we find our hero Hal Jordan working alongside with the other members of
the different corps, branded as such by the Guardians as enemies, in protecting
the various emotional entities from Krona’s influence.
So far Krona has succeeded in
obtaining all the emotional entities (Ion
for Green; Parallax for Yellow; Ophidian for Orange; Butcher for Red; Adara for
Blue, Proselyte for Indigo and Predator for Violet) and have “led” this temporary
truce-bound group of lanterns to the Planet Ryut; which is in Sector 666, and homeworld
of the red lantern leader, Atrocitus. This same planet where his Red Lantern,
representing the emotional spectrum of rage, was formed and tragically is also site
of the massacre of his people by the robotic Manhunters made by the Guardians
eons ago. According to the Book of Oa
that contained a history of the Lantern Corps, the Manhunters were robots
manufactured by the Guardians to ensure peace in the galaxy but a glitch in
their basic programming caused them to massacre everyone on the planet Ryut and
thus begin Atrocitus’ lifelong dream of exacting his revenge on the Guardians.
On Ryut, the multi-colored Lanterns
fell susceptible to the Book of the Black kept by Krona and protected by now
Black Keeper Lyssa Drak who once was a member of the Sinestro Corps and wielded
a yellow Ring that represented the emotional spectrum of fear. The Lanterns were
thus given a glimpse into the true secret that the Guardians have kept for so
long. The “secret” was actually the omitted and torn out passages or journal
entries from the Book of Oa and were replayed in their minds as they are
strapped to the book by Black Chains for the duration of their “virtual history
lesson”.
As the book shows, Krona was one of
the original Guardians hailing from the planet Maltus who sought out the
meaning of life; the origin of creation.
He was a brilliant scientist that
dared to question and in his result bungled his own experiment and created the
opposite of all life called The Anti Universe. For this and for recognizing the
existence and use of emotion to which the Guardians were totally against he was
sentenced to death and was in pursuit by the Manhunters. The book further
revealed, much to the horror of all that It was Krona who re-worked the
programming of the Manhunters and to randomly select a world to kill; a point
which he had hoped to bring across to the Guardians that he meant business.
That an “emotionless” police force is not without flaws and must be corrected.
Having thus learned the truth, the
Lanterns were sucked into the book, but not before Sinestro and Hal detonated
their own rings and enabled Hal to be free of the chains that bound him. Which
was well and good, had it not been for the arrival of several Green Lanterns
lead by Salaak who were commanded by the Guardians to arrest Hal and bring him
back to Oa for sanction.
Krona as this time had already
returned Parallax, the yellow entity of Fear into the central battery and have
begun manipulating the bearers of the Green Lantern ring thru Parallax and was
havin them fight against Hal, former Guardian Ganthet (but now a self inducted
Green Lantern), John Stewart, Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner.
That basically is the gist of the run
of the storyline and I’m stopping here lest I be tempted to reveal more
spoilers. Just like my favorite GL crises, The
Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night,
this compilation has all the action that any GL fan has come to love and expect
with its own share of character introspection and plot twists. Only when I
re-read this a second time did it dawn on me that Hal for all his bravado and
will is turning out to be rather Machiavellian in his ways and it is perhaps in
this that the Guardians have begun to fear him and regard him as a threat; that
he perhaps could be another Krona in the making. But in his defense, Hal is
aware of the radical steps that he has taken and in one panel, has admitted he
has bitten off more than he can chew at the height of this crisis.
Suffice to say, Johns has given us
another reason to love the Green Lantern Corps and what it stands for and in
the process have given two major lanterns a shot of soul searching and
redemption. If you like your reads action packed and unpredictable then
War of
the Green Lanterns is a must this holiday season. And although the end
certainly paves the way for the new reboot of the franchise by way of the
new-52 by DC, I can only imagine the next chapter that all our favorite Lanterns
would have to go through following this devastating blow of a war. No one said
that war will exempt the brave and the lucky ones from being a casualty. But
after this, the word “casualty” is certainly being redefined as the Corps itself is being
reshaped and put into the ringer. Power up Poohzers. Time for a new beginning!
