Green Lanterns #38 – Tim Seeley, Writer; German Peralta, Artist; Ulises Arreola, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 8/10
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
Ray: As the storyline on Ungara reaches a brutal peak in Green Lanterns, Simon and Jessica find themselves torn between two sides and betrayal lurks around the corner. While the issue is strong as always, there are some motivation issues that haunt one of the characters. The issue opens in the aftermath of last issue, where Simon found out from Liseth about the true murderer – and her involvement with the cult behind it and their leader, Kesh Cur. Now, Jessica is teaming up with Regent Vok against the Red Tide, while Simon interrogates Podfather Vob in prison. Vok, who before seemed like a fairly reasonable leader, here turns out to be a rather brutal warrior who is unafraid to torture or kill her enemies. Simon, meanwhile, shows some welcome compassion to the leader of the Molites. The nuanced nature of this story, with its shades of immigration conflicts, has been one of the most welcome parts of this storyline.
Unfortunately, it seems like nuance goes out of the window a little bit when dealing with the Red Tide. Liseth is welcomed back into the fold of the heroes despite her past ties to the Red Tide, although her mother seems relatively suspicious. Kesh Cur, unfortunately, is probably the weakest part of this storyline. Part xenophobic villain, part stock space villain, his master plan involves a machine built around torture and racist experimentation, but there’s a bit too much of an infodump when he unveils it in the last part of the issue. Jessica is strong as always, and I liked that we saw a little more development for Simon as well – Jessica finally calls him out on the odd way he’s been acting since the start of this creative run – but the betrayal that ends the issue feels like a false note, and one twist too many for the character involved.
Corrina: I enjoyed the start of this run, with Simon and Jess solving a problem in space that, happily, included the help of friendly aliens to save what appeared to be a doomed people. The idea to explore how the rescued people are dealing with being refugees and how the people that helped them are dealing with this new group on their planet was also an excellent concept, and obviously relevant to the world today.
But the execution hasn’t been quite there for me with the last two issues. First, there is Simon’s involvement with a possible terrorist that has been tied more to his now being kinda a horn-dog than his origin of being unlawfully accused of the same. There’s also an odd emotional disconnect in how he deals with a confessed killer, too.
Even the action sequences and the reveals didn’t work for me. I had the same problems Ray did and the final betrayal left me with a “huh?” Hopefully, next issue will be more on track.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received a copy of this comic for review purposes.
