Wednesdaybusiness 5/29/13

I only read one DC book this week, but it was the only one anybody was talking about so whatever.

Comics!

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Captain America #7 by Rick Remender and John Romita Jr.

Cap is still stuck in Dimension Z, as he has been for years. He's making his final stand against Arnim Zola, who kidnapped his son back from Cap, who kidnapped him from Zola and raised him as his own. Zola's army of mutates now includes a legion of monstrous Cap clones. Zola's entire castle has been revealed to be an interdimensional rocket ship, and he is planning to launch it at Earth, and only Cap can stop him. Rick Remender is telling a hell of a story here, is what I'm saying. He's woven a pretty epic science fiction world in just seven issues.

I think my favorite thing to come out of this series is the character of Jet Black, Arnim Zola's morally-conflicted super-powered daughter. They basically introduced her with the line "Let this killer of helpless children feel the furious future premonition of my TACHYON FU STYLE," which - as you might be able to guess - won me over instantly. I honestly have no idea where this series is going next (a good thing), but I hope she sticks around in the Marvel Universe because she is rad as fuck.

This comic is crazy and unpredictable and feels more Flash Gordon than Captain America and I really like it a lot.

PLUDD

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Dark Avengers #190 by Jeff Parker and Neil Edwards

Sadly, this is the end of a 3-year run of consistently awesome comics. I've been a fan of the Thunderbolts in almost all of their various forms, but when Jeff Parker took over the book I had a special interest in it... because he's totes one of my faves OMG.

The transition over to the book being about a new team of Dark Avengers has been an engrossing and entertaining one, and their adventures in an AIM-created dystopian alternate reality have been fantastic.

The series ends with (most of) the team returning to Earth-616, of course. Parker has used alternate reality super-science to make some interesting changes - or maybe even fixes - to let the characters more comfortably integrate back into the Marvel Universe. Trickshot, a.k.a. Hawkguy's brother Barney, has finally found some level of genuine confidence instead of his usual bluster. US Agent got his missing arm and leg regrown and got his costume back. Most importantly, in my opinion, Ragnarok has been quite literally transformed into his own character; No longer a doofy cyborg clone of Thor, he's now a conflicted quasi-Asgardian wielding an alternate reality's Mjolnir. I hope that all these changes stick, and that these characters get used again soon.

I'm bummed to see this book go. I feel like the team could have just continued their adventures. And while he's still writing the awesome Red She-Hulk book, I hope that Jeff Parker's given some more stuff to do around the Marvel Bullpen.

Bye, guys.

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Indestructible Hulk #8 by Mark Waid and Walter Simonson

The whole "teaming up with Thor in the distant past to fight frost giants and shit" storyline is coming to a close, which is kind of a bummer because it means Walt Simonson isn't going to be on the book anymore. While his depiction of the Hulk isn't my favorite, I could watch that guy draw Thor all damned day. Putting him on these issues was a brilliant move, because quite frankly, nobody else should be allowed to draw Thor but Simonson.

Anyway, they manage to keep the frost giants from invading Earth, obviously. Thor and Hulk smash faces, Agent Coulson gets in a few quips, and it's all good fun.

I don't want to undersell this comic, because it's great, but one of the reasons the comic is great is that it's keeping things pretty simple and entertaining. There's enough drama and character development to keep it interesting, but the story doesn't let itself get bogged down by it. I appreciate that.

Fun Comic is Fun.

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Justice League of America #4 by Geoff Johns and Brett Booth

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the comic where Catwoman gets shot in the head. You've already heard about it in every form of news media because OMG THE DEATH OF A CHARACTER THIS WILL CHANGE COMICS FOREVER BLAH BLAH BLAH. Except that publishers print solicitations for future issues well in advance and Catwoman is on the cover of upcoming issues of this book, so she clearly didn't die like the end of this thing would have you believe. DC is so big on the media pandering, and it's frankly pretty annoying.

I was much more interested in the concept that Professor Ivo invented the Shaggy Man instead of Amazo in the Nü52, which is a weird and pointless mad-scientist-shuffle. I feel like a lot of these comics are trying to be different just for the sake of being different, instead of for any sort of storytelling reasons. I don't really get the point?

Not sure how she's gonna' survive this, but she obviously is.

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Morbius the Living Vampire #5 by Joe Keatinge, Richard Elson, and Carlos Rodriguez

Honestly, this book has a perfect plot synopsis at the beginning of the issue, so I'ma just quote it:

After accidentally killing the gang leader of Brownsville, Noah St. Germaine, Morbius initiates a gang war. As various factions scramble to take control of the coveted territory, Morbius must find a way to clean up his mess.

Morbius' arrival in Brownsville, however, was not by accident. Little does he know that there's been a plan for him all along - one carefully designed by the criminal mastermind... The Rose!

So yeah. I'm not sure exactly which The Rose we're actually dealing with, but I guess it doesn't totally matter because I like all of them. Anyway, after Morbius vampires up and kicks the crap out of a bajillion gangsters, The Rose takes him aside and explains to him that this has all been planned, and that Morbius has been set up - for currently mysterious reasons - to be the new protector of Brownsville. Having nothing better to do, really, Morbius basically just goes with it and starts work on a secret hideout.

I've heard folks complain about this comic being short on the mad science, but I'm still enjoying it. I understand where Marvel's coming from, since vampires with low self-esteem are sort of all the rage right now, and honestly they're doing more to establish motivations and supporting cast for Morbius than anyone has since the mid-nineties.

It's not my favorite book that Marvel is putting out right now, but it's still readable and clever, has decent enough art, and could certainly be a lot worse.

AAAAAARAAAAGHHH!

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New Avengers #6 by Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting

Hickman's universe-destroying epicness is still running at a full sprint in this book. The most recent "incursion" into our universe has occurred in Latveria, and man, I wish Marvel would just give Hickman an entire series about Doctor Doom. I felt this way during his long run on Fantastic Four as well. The man writes an awesome Doom. I also love that Hickman always remembers to include Kristoff Vernard in his Doom stories, something a lot of writers forget.

Steve Epting is still knocking the artwork out of the park as well.

It's hard for me to sum up this book, because it's taking place on a hugely cosmic scale and Hickman has such a knack for cramming a ton of story into every issue. But suffice it to say that if you're not reading Jonathan Hickman's two Avengers books, you really ought to be.

You're in Doom's house now.

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Savage Wolverine #5 by Frank Cho

This is apparently a month for endings, as Frank Cho's run on this book has drawn to a close as well. I'm sad to see Wolverine's zany adventures with Mastermind Excello and Shanna the She-Devil in the Savage Land come to an end.

However, Marvel has announced that from this point, Savage Wolverine will essentially be a book where writers and artists can tell whatever crazyass non-canon Wolverine stories that they want to, and THAT is a thing that I can really get behind.

Anyway, this issue has the Hulk, giant gorillas, Cthulhu, dinosaurs, and doomsday devices. If that doesn't sell you on it, then you're no son of mine.

Frank Cho really pays a lot of attention to making Wolvey as hairy as possible.

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Uncanny X-Force #5 by Sam Humphries, Adrian Alphona, and Dexter Soy

I'm not hugely into this series, and - much like the stuff Bendis is doing - it seems to be taking place in a sort of slightly-different universe than some of the other X-Men books. I don't particularly mind that sort of thing most of the time, since focusing on Continuity over Story is typically a bad idea, but it makes reading every X-Book every month into a confusing task.

HOWEVER, this book is finally taking on the task of mending the character of Bishop, who has spent the last few years as a crazed baby-killing monster supervillain. We're finally starting to get some backstory for WHY he was that way, and Psylocke is taking action to fix it. For some reason it involves killing a giant bear inside Bishop's mind, but whatever. I'm still glad they're doing it.

This book gets the gold star this week for attempting to return one of my favorite X-Men to likability.

Hint: It was lazy writing!

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Wolverine and the X-Men #30 by Jason Aaron, Pasqual Ferry, Pepe Larraz, and Salva Espin

This is the prologue issue to THE HELLFIRE SAGA, which I think is a pretty funny idea. It's such an overwrought and melodramatic title for what essentially boils down to the villains forming their own school.

I think my only real objection to this comic is that Husk is turning kind of insane and evil, and I've always really liked Husk. But the writing is solid and Aaron's been fleshing it out for a while, so it's really more a problem I have with the character as a person than with Aaron's writing. Which, ultimately, means he's doing his job right as a writer.

Wolverine and the X-Men remains my favorite X-Title. You should be reading it.

Teenagers always admit to every stupid thing they do on Twitter. For real.

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X-Men #1 by Brian Wood and Olivier Coipel

X-Men #1 is sort of this week's Big Issue, having been delayed for a while and premiering the first all-woman X-Men team. And it's pretty good, though the hype is maybe a bit premature?

The art is beautiful, as I totally expected. Olivier Coipel does great work. In a book like this one especially, I really appreciate his ability to draw attractive women without them being hyper-sexualized. This is a great comic to look at, and I hope he stays on-board.

As for the plot, well... It's just getting started. Jubilee is headed to the Jean Grey school with a baby that she apparently found? And the baby is apparently the host body of Arkea, a malicious technological virus and sister of John Sublime? We have sufficient tension built up for this to be a pretty great story. It feels very Claremont-y, which is a good thing, and is very likely intentional.

The issue does fail as a #1, though. If you don't know these characters and haven't been following all the X-Men books for the past decade or so, the context and framing of this book will make no sense at all. I honestly didn't even remember who John Sublime was, and had to dig through some old trades on my bookshelf to refresh my memory after having looked him up on Wikipedia. This isn't a series where you can just watch a few episodes of the 1990s X-Men cartoon and then jump in, which is what a #1 ought to be.

As somebody who DOES follow all eight zillion X-Men books, however, I'm excited to see where this story goes. It seems very promising so far.

Also, Storm's new costume is really rad.

This.

A friend just put me onto this website: http://www.hasdcdonesomethingstupidtoday.com 

It's well worth keeping an eye on.

Wednesdaybusiness 5/22/13

I think I had all the Nü52 I could handle with that Green Lantern thing, so I'ma just stick to Marvel this week. Yup.

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A+X #8 by Gerry Duggan, Salvador Larroca, Christopher Hastings, and Reilly Brown

I'm a fan of this comic largely because it is pure FUN. It doesn't skimp on the action, but it is definitely short on melodrama, and I like that.

As usual, the comic is divided into two short stories. The first features Spider-Woman and Shadowcat fighting the Absorbing Man, and has some genuinely funny moments in it. The second stars Hawkguy Hawkeye and Deadpool fighting pirates, and likewise has a lot of laughs.

This isn't a book you go to for depth of storytelling, but if you - like me - sometimes just need to see superheroes beating up bad guys and making witty banter, this is probably a comic you should be buying.

There probably WAS a "Ninja Spider-Man" in the 1990s...

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Avengers #12 by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer, and Mike Deodato

After last issue's capering, this one's kind of gently easing us back into the main plot, wherein the omnipotent-ish Ex Nihilo has seeded the Earth with new life, with the eventual goal of turning the planet itself sentient.

It turns out some new little humanoids have been popping up in the Savage Land, and they're seemingly far beyond human. They age to adulthood in about a month, they don't need to sleep, eat, or breathe, and they're fairly strong and quick. Iron Man worries:

"At some point, someone's going to need to integrate these kids into a larger system. And when we do that? Look - scarcity, need, desire - ugly as those things can be, they're the fundamental building blocks of most any societal structure. With nothing to lose, there's no sacrifice. When you need for nothing, do you dream of anything? From struggle comes virtue. It's part of our nature. And if it's not part of theirs..."

He brings this concern up to Thor and Hyperion, because they might have a special insight into this particular set of problems. They decide that the best way is to have a bunch of Avengers travel to the Savage Land to try and teach these kids some lessons about the joy of superheroics. The lessons are separated into little vignettes to showcase the attitudes of various Avengers, and are all quite fun, and "school" ends with Captain Universe and Hyperion giving a very nice speech on how Virtue is its own reward.

The thing that really struck me about this issue is that - at this particular point in time - Hyperion is a way better Superman than Superman is.

And then the High Evolutionary turns up with an army of his weird manimals to try and kidnap the kids. The end.

Friendly Hyperion isn't quite as fun as Murderous Hyperion, but I like him anyway.

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Fantastic Four #8 by Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley

Thanks to the kids in the Future Foundation, the Thing now has one day a year where he spontaneously reverts to his human form and gets a brief vacation as a "normal" person. This year, as the FF are traveling through time and space, he decides to take his day of normalcy in the New York City of his childhood... in order to stop the Puppet Master from blinding his young stepdaughter, Alicia Masters, aka the Thing's girlfriend.

However, he gets sidetracked by the Yancy Street Gang, who were apparently proper mobsters at the time instead of the loveable tomato-throwing rascals they've always been depicted at. They're shaking down local businesses, and the superhero in Ben Grimm can't abide by that. He defends a local shopkeeper and beats up a handful of mob goons, telling them that he'll take them all on. That night, when the entire gang shows up to kill him and torch the shop, he reverts to the Thing and smashes all of them, thus securing Yancy Street and transforming it into the no-nonsense neighborhood that he himself grew up in.

It's a nice bit of insight into the mind of a superhero. Ben Grimm went back in time to stop a specific incident (which probably would've warped the space/time continuum but whatever), but his natural desire to protect people and face down bullies took over almost against his will. He can't NOT be a superhero, even when he's trying to.

As more and more superhero comics dive into bleak grey areas, an issue like this is actually very reassuring, to be a little more emotionally honest than I usually am on this blog.

I love a good facepunch.

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Fearless Defenders #4(AU) by Cullen Bunn and Phil Jimenez

I believe this is the first Age of Ultron tie-in book to take place in the new Ultron-free Age of Ultron, which I've been calling the Age of Morgan le Fay.

So I guess Doctor Doom's nation of Latveria is now centered around a giant arena where hot super-powered babes fight to the death. Warrior Woman goes there, and it turns out it wasn't really Doctor Doom, but Ares hiding behind a Doombot (like, literally right behind one). They fight. Warrior Woman wins.

It... doesn't really seem to have anything to do with anything?

Jimenez draws cool-looking Doombots tho.

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Journey Into Mystery #652 by Kathryn Immonen and Valerio Schiti

Gaea is sick. Nobody in Asgard has been able to help her. Sif takes her to Jane Foster, but Earth medicine can't help her either. They go to Iron Man, who sends them off to the Avengers Deep Space Monitoring Station to use the equipment there. Suddenly, Beta Ray Bill shows up, on the run from some vague alien threat. It looks like next issue we'll get sword-fights in space.

I fucking love this comic so much.

Sif is such a badass.

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Scarlet Spider #17 by Chris Yost and Carlo Barberi

Chris Yost's Scarlet Spider was a book I hadn't really gotten around to reading. I was interested, but it was already pretty deep into the story, so it took me some time to decide to commit to catching up on it.

I'm really glad I did.

This is easily one of the best books Marvel is putting out right now. It's equal parts funny and tragic. It has a great lead in Kaine, a flawed Spider-Man clone and former assassin, who is looking for redemption. It's introduced Houston, Texas into the Marvel Universe. It has a solid and diverse supporting cast. It slides easily from the serious, like Kaine fighting terrorists, to the ridiculous, like Kaine teaming up with the Micronauts to fight Carnage. It's really, really great.

The only real problem I have with the series is the "all of the power, none of the responsibility" tagline. The entire tone of the book is based around Kaine learning responsibility, so it doesn't really fit.

Anyway, since I'm mainly urging people who haven't been following this book to start from the beginning and give it a solid chance, I don't want to spoil anything by getting too into the WHY of this issue. Let's just say that Kaine goes to the Jean Grey School to fight Wolverine and the X-Men, and gets his ass kicked by Shadowcat, and leave it there.

I feel like I haven't heard anybody talking about this comic at all, and I genuinely urge everyone to pick up all seventeen issues. It's great.

This is how Kitty takes down Absorbing Man is this month's A+X too. It's a good trick.

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Superior Spider-Man #10 by Dan Slott and Ryan Stegman

Doc Ock is fully in charge of Spider-Man's body now, and is basically trying to act like Batman, except that he's too petty and arrogant to do it successfully. That's essentially the whole premise of this issue, though I don't want to undersell it, because it's a lot of fun. He's using his new Spider-Man powers to settle old scores, savagely beat criminals, and boost his own ego. He's also developing his own supporting cast separate from Peter Parker's, which I think is a good idea.

Oh, and Green Goblin's back, it would seem.

I know a lot of people who refuse to read this comic on principle alone, and I think that's a terrible idea. Live a little, take some chances on something weird, and you might end up having a good time. Don't let nerd-rage stop you from enjoying things.

I never get sick of seeing The Owl get beaten up.

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Uncanny Avengers #8(AU) by Rick Remender, Gerry Duggan, and Adam Kubert

More Age of Ultron Morgan le Fay stuff.

However, the presence of Kang makes it so this alternate timeline doesn't actually get in the way of the current storyline of the book. What we get here is basically a "flashback" - if anything involving time travel can actually be called a "flashback" - to when the Apocalypse Twins were young, and Kang brought them to the Age of Morgan le Fay universe to hone their killin' skills.

They wipe out Havok, Rogue, and a couple other characters, but who cares because it's in another dimension. Wevs. They're spending way too much time establishing the history of a world that has only been around for a few issues of a crossover event, and I still just don't really care.

Words words words words...

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Uncanny X-Men #6 by Brian Michael Bendis and Frazer Irving

There are new mutants popping up all over the world, but Cyclops and his X-Men are trapped in Limbo fighting Dormammu so they can't do anything to help.

I often complain that Bendis doesn't write enough action into his books, so I'm certainly not going to complain about this issue basically being one long fight scene. But it does make it difficult to review, aside from just saying that it's pretty cool.

Still not used to Bald Magneto.

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Young Avengers #5 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

This is the final issue of a storyarc, and I love this comic so much that I actually don't want to spoil it. All I'll say is that the whole team is finally gathered together, and it's a lot of fun.

Just go pick up this comic. It's awesome.

Marvel Boy and Hawkeye Forever.

Green Lantern #20: THE EPIC FINALE!!!!1!11!!1eleventy

So yeah. Everyone's treating this comic like a HUGE deal, so I will too.

It's Geoff Johns' last issue of the Green Lantern books, I guess? And if you liked Geoff Johns' run on the Green Lantern books, you'll probably like this I guess?

Look, you guys: I kind of thought The Sinestro Corps was a cool idea, but as soon as they got into all this Care Bear Emotional Rainbow nonsense with the blood-puking and the zombie-making and the hey hey hey, I totally stopped paying attention. My Green Lantern stories exist Post-Crisis and Pre-Infinite Crisis, so these things just aren't for me. If you can't accept that right away then you'll be even angrier with me than you probably already are.

Yeah.

It says it's an "Anniversary Issue" but I'm not sure what it's an anniversary of.

The first thing you'll notice on this cover if you have the digital version is that it actually self-identifies as "Epic", which is pretty arrogant. The first thing you'll notice on the cover if you have the physical version is that the things costs $7.99 for fuck's sake seriously?! You might think your extra money is paying for something special, some behind-the-scenes insight into Johns' 9-year creative process, but instead you just get a massive wank-fest. But I'll get to that.

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Our story begins "BEYOND TOMORROW" as a young Green Lantern cadet runs up to his robed teacher/leader/elder/whatever, announcing he just got his "badge" (I thought the ring was your badge? They have badges?) and he wants to hear "The Story" now, as is apparently his right. Of course, OF COURSE, it is the story of Hal Jordan: The Greatest of the Green Lanterns.

Let me take a moment to say this: I immediately check out emotionally as soon as I see Hal Jordan referred to as The Greatest Green Lantern. I like Hal okay, but you know what? I grew up with Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner. Guy is a brilliant character: He is the perfect representation of someone for whom "Willpower" is the strongest character-trait... That is to say, he's a total douchebag. John is the moral conscience, who taught Hal not to be a racist jagweed, and is also an architect who uses his ring to build.  Kyle is an artist who uses his ring in ways never before seen, the last hope of the Green Lantern Corps, the man who in fact rebuilt the Green Lantern Corps after it was destroyed. Hal is... the guy who uses his ring to make giant fists. But he's the Green Lantern that Geoff Johns likes best, so he is The Greatest of the Green Lanterns.

There's also a bit of that Last of the Mohicans sort of white colonialism in the idea that a White American Man can join an organization made of tens of thousands of aliens and immediately become THE BEST. Wasn't Sinestro always referred to as the greatest Green Lantern? Didn't Kilowog train Hal how to do all this shit in the first place? Didn't characters like Tomar Re and Katma Tui and dozens of others nobly sacrifice their lives to protect the legacy of the Green Lantern Corps and the universe in general? I'm not going to follow this train of thought, or else my mom will tell me I overthink things, but it is right there.

Anyway, back to the story. The young Lantern and his mentor approach a hardcover book the size of a house (you'd think aliens of the future would have gone paper-free by now) and we get our title card:

Christ, we can TELL you're proud of yourselves, you don't need to tell us.

I think calling the story The End is a little odd, but that seems like what it actually intends to be. It is literally presented as the last Green Lantern story that will ever need to be told.

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We get a brief recap of Hal Jordan's origin story and major plot details of the last 20 years or so, or at least Geoff Johns' versions of them, which are different from the versions that I grew up with, which in turn are different from the versions my parents' generation grew up with. Because DC and its reboots and retcons, man.

Then we are dropped suddenly - in fact a little jarringly - into the Wrath of the First Lantern storyline, already in progress. For the record, I haven't followed any of this shit for like the last 7 years, so I'ma just do my best.

Hal and Sinestro were killed and/or banished to The Dead Zone by the Guardians, for reasons I don't quite understand. Simon Baz, the official Green Lantern of the Nü52, showed up in The Dead Zone to save Hal, but Sinestro used him to escape instead. While Sinestro chucks his green ring to grab the yellow ring that's floating in front of his face for some reason, Hal does the only reasonable thing and jumps off a cliff, killing himself.

The End? I guess?

In context, that isn't as stupid a move as it sounds, because upon his death he immediately gets a black ring and pops back to life as a Black Lantern.

We cut away to "The First Lantern", explaining his origin story to the Guardians who... didn't they create him in the first place? So he reveals to them that he was some kind of human astronaut from thousands of years ago named Volthoom, and virtually none of those things are explained. He was named Volthoom, he was an astronaut thousands of years ago, and he spoke English. Just fucking deal with it, alright? Christ.

"Volthoom" will be the hottest baby name this summer.

I still hate all the "emotional spectrum" stuff that Johns injected into this stuff, largely because things like Willpower and Death are not fucking emotions!!! Anyway, Volthoom is an idiotic name, so I'm just gonna' call him Mister Rainbow.

Apparently Mister Rainbow was first empowered when The Guardians dumped all of their feels into him, so they would have no more feels. That gave him ALL THE FEELS. But now he gives them back their feels, so they all start to feel.

Then a bunch of Green Lanterns show up and they're like "We're gonna' punch your face so hard!" And so a little bit of punchface breaks out.

The story cuts away to Black Lantern Hal in The Dead Zone, where he's chilling with the ghost of Tomar Re, and they super-casually mention that Hal actually got Black Hand's ring, which was the only thing holding him together, so no more Black Hand, I guess. Been a villain since 1964? Sorry homie, you gotta' wait until the next reboot now.

Hal uses his black ring to contact the Indigo Tribe, who are all standing around in a cave? I honestly don't know what their deal is. I know that indigo is supposed to be "compassion" which is different than violet which represents "love" but that doesn't entirely make sense to me so whatever. The important thing is, Hal gets some other Lantern-types to help pull him out of The Dead Zone.

I have no fucking clue what The Dead Zone is, by the way, which is why I keep capitalizing it.

We get back to the fight to see that like half the Green Lanterns are already dead. Then the Red Lanterns show up with their dumbass cartoon cat.

And the fakey MODOK-looking guy whose name I can't remember.

Look, y'all, I just don't like the Red Lanterns. They puke out their blood to replace it with rage? WTF is that? And the one time I tried to read their comic, it started with one of the main characters committing date-rape. And it may seem hypocritical of me to hate on the Red Lantern cat when two of my favorite Green Lanterns are a dog and a squirrel, but... This cat, it's almost never treated as comic relief. As with everything else DC has done in the last several years, this blue cartoon cat is treated with a grave seriousness.

Anyway, they show up, and their leader Atrocitus wants to kill Mister Rainbow by himself. He fails, kind of miserably, when Mister Rainbow LITERALLY PUKES RAINBOWS AT HIM.

"Well, my head obviously already has SOME holes in it..."

Just as the Green and Red Lanterns decide to "put [their] proverbial eggs in the SAME basket," Kyle Rayner - who I guess is a White Lantern now, maybe even the only White Lantern but I'm not sure - shows up with like a bajillion more Green Lanterns, Blue Lanterns, and Violet Lanterns.

All the Lanterns gather up on Mogo (who, for those not in the know, is a Green Lantern that is also a planet, and was created for a single short story by Alan Moore, who hates all this stuff probably even more than me) and shoot one big beam of... ring... stuff... at Mister Rainbow. Mister Rainbow's all like "Ow" and then Sinestro shows up and starts punching him in the face.

It basically seems like Sinestro is winning the fight? But then Hal Jordan THE GREATEST GREEN LANTERN shows up with an army of zombies who also engage in some punch-face with Mister Rainbow.

Mister Rainbow gets his second wind and seems to kick everybody's ass off-panel (well to be fair there is one small panel at the bottom of a page that has a "krakaboom" in it) and suddenly it's just him and Hal. He needs to weaken Hal, and fast, because nobody wants to face THE GREATEST GREEN LANTERN, so he goes after the one weakness shared by every human the world over: Daddy Issues.

Everyone else apparently is just hanging back and watching this shit go down.

Mister Rainbow literally rips out Hal's inner child, so he can exploit his vulnerability to access the Central Power Battery of Oa. Because, as he explains at greeeaaaaaaaaat length, Hal is THE GREATEST GREEN LANTERN, and is therefor a better conduit to the lantern-power than the actual fucking giant lantern.

So he shoves his hand into Hal's chest and says something so completely baffling that I'm just going to quote it directly:

"Your WISH... That SPARK inside of you... It's an echo... And echo of the VERY FIRST SPARK of EXISTENCE. THE LIGHT OF CREATION! THE UNIVERSE IS MINE TO REMAKE."

So that happens. And Mister Rainbow has a little spiral galaxy in his hand now, because he doesn't know the difference between a galaxy and a universe, but I guess things are still pretty dire.

Suddenly we cut to Sinestro, who has flown off to where-ever-the-hell the big yellow lantern that they keep the giant Parallax-bug trapped in is, and releases the giant Parallax-bug. Except it's a dragon now? It's okay, dragons are cooler than bugs.

Oooooh.

He then lets Parallax possess him, because he can keep control over Parallax, something that THE GREATEST GREEN LANTERN wasn't able to do. So Sinestro shows back up to the fight all juiced up, and punches Mister Rainbow a few more times, but Mister Rainbow doesn't seem to give a damn.

Hal re-kills himself to get back to The Dead Zone. He sees his dad there but it's only for like a panel and he basically says "Yo dad I don't have time for you get out of my way," and then he summons Nekron with his black ring. After we are shown this, John Stewart helpfully says "Hal summoned Nekron with the black ring," because Geoff Johns realized that none of the thousands of other characters were getting any dialogue.

Now there are two space-gods fighting a third space-god and it's still kind of boring me?

Sure, why not.

Sinestro wants to kill Mister Rainbow, but Hal says that'll destroy the entire universe unless they expel the "emotional spectrum" from his body first. So I guess they just... do? The entire sequence of events is in the above four panels, you guys. That's it. Then Nekron cuts Mister Rainbow in half with a giant scythe, and the fight's over.

Hal gets his green ring back, and then everyone stands around talking about how awesome he is. But then after three pages of that (three pages of it!), THE YELLOW LANTERNS ARIVE! AND THEY ATTACK EVERYBODY!

For one panel. And then Hal is like "This is just a distraction!" and flies off to Sinestro, who is standing around crying after killing all the Guardians of Oa. Whoops.

Crying's not a good look for a supervillain.

Then we get one more panel of the fighting, so Geoff Johns can get in his mandatory arm-ripping-off scene. If you haven't been following the last decade of DC Comics: Geoff Johns is completely and utterly fascinated with arms getting ripped off, and it happens in almost every comic he writes. I've never been able to tell if it's meant to be an artistic calling-card or if he's just an idiot.

Geoff Johns: Arm-Hater

Sinestro goes on this huge monolog about how he HAD to kill all the Guardians of Oa because they were stupid jerkfaces, and how Hal has to be in charge now because he is THE GREATEST GREEN LANTERN. This takes up like four pages. Then he informs everybody that he's gonna' use his Parallax powers to peace out of the universe forever.

But before he goes, Hal was gonna' ask him a question before in The Dead Zone and he was still curious what that question was going to be:

And I'll confess, I really like that bit. It's a fantastic piece of character-development in a giant pile of face-punching arm-ripping-off idiocy. It's why I think Geoff Johns can make awesome comics as long as he has a co-writer. Johns needs someone to keep his violent nerdiness in check, and then he can actually make great comics... instead of terrible comics with an occasional great moment in them.

"And with that, Sinestro vanished." The ROY Lanterns all peace out to Parts Unknown, while the G. BIV Lanterns all stick around to help rebuild Oa. There's no mention at all of where Nekron went, even though I would think it would be a pretty big deal to have the Malevolent Lord of the Undead roaming the universe again, but I guess Geoff Johns didn't want to waste any space that could be used to instead talk about how awesome Hal Jordan is.

Anyway, then we go back to "Beyond Tomorrow" and the newbie Green Lantern and his mentor are staring down a giant THE END.

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The youngster asks for an epilogue, and the oldster obliges him with the cliched American Graffiti ending. Sadly, nobody was sent off to be killed in Vietnam.

Guy Gardner apparently drinks the rest of his life away in space-bars, but he does so in a TOTALLY NOBLE WAY apparently.

Don't make references to good comics in your crappy one.

John Stewart becomes an insurance agent in Modesto, California a Senator for the great State of Illinois. I don't know why he didn't go back to being an architect.

Kyle Rayner becomes Space Jesus and spends the rest of his life healing the sick. They call him "The Torchbearer" of the Lanterns for some reason. He always used to be referred to as "The Artist", but - given how many times he's been killed off and brought back over the last ten years - I'm guessing Geoff Johns just doesn't like how his character used to be and has opted to change him into a completely different person.

Seriously. Space Jesus.

Simon Baz is Latino, so he returns to the ghetto. To paraphrase Marc Maron: I'm not being racist, it's in the comic... which is racist.

We get a brief recap of how all the other Lanterns did hunky-dory too, even Sinestro, who is quite obviously the hooded Green Lantern telling the story.

Then we get something that made me laugh really, really hard:

BAHAHAHAHA

I mean, the idea of Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris settling down and getting married is fine. It's weird to me personally, because I think in pre-retcon terms where Star Sapphire is one of Green Lantern's fiercest villains instead of somebody who just happens to have a different color ring, but whatever.

But I can't stop laughing about Batman gushing over how a baby is SO ADORABLE OMG SQUEE! I want to write an entire comic about Batman throwing Carol a baby-shower.

Anyway, we get one last shot of two wrinkly hands intertwined, one with a green ring and one with a violet ring. Then we get several huge spreads of Hal Jordan in awesome poses.

THE END.

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But wait... The comic isn't over yet. Now we have to get to the CONGRATULATIONS PAGES!

As Frank Zappa would say: "Spoo!"

There are literally ten pages of this. TEN PAGES. It's just various industry people writing little glowing blurbs about how awesome Geoff Johns is.

"Spoo!"

It goes on for ten pages! TEN FUCKING PAGES!

And then there's an eleventh page where Geoff Johns writes a big sappy goodbye to the Green Lantern universe. And then there are four more pages listing every single Green Lantern graphic novel you'd have to buy to get caught up with this, the comic you just finished reading. And then it's over.

It is genuinely the wankiest thing I have ever seen in a comic book. And before you DC heads try to say that Geoff Johns achieved some sort of grandmaster status for writing Green Lantern for nine years, I'd like to point out that Ed Brubaker wrote Captain America for just as long and didn't jerk off all over our faces when he left that book. This absolutely feels like a comicbook cumshot. I really couldn't believe it, and am still struggling to digest how much it genuinely annoys me. DC and Geoff Johns just couldn't possibly be prouder that they managed to put out a sort-of-long comic run that people actually liked, even though the Green Lantern movie tanked and a lot of people gave up on DC because of the reboot and whatever during all that time. They are SO pleased with themselves. It's disgusting. Yes, fuckers, you did your jobs and made a comic series that was popular. Congrats, idiots.

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The thing I find oddest about all this is not the wankiness, though: It's the fact that this is basically the last green Lantern story ever, or at least that's how it's treated. After reading this comic, there is no way for anybody to ever write a comic about these characters again, unless they do another universe-wide reboot. So... no more Green Lantern, I guess? These comics already sort of took place between the pre-Flashpoint era and the Nü52, so maybe this is just finally closing up shop on the pre-Flashpoint universe? I mean, there are still Green Lanterns in the various Justice League books, but this comic had the entire rest of their lives unfold with a Happily Ever After.

It's just weird.

If you're one of those tl;dr trolls, that's my Opinion here.

It's just weird.