Green Lanterns #53 – Dan Jurgens, Writer; Marco Santucci, Artist; Hi-Fi, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: A thrilling installment with a strong twist ending, Dan Jurgens continues to guide Green Lanterns towards the finish line with his trademark style. When we last left off, Simon Baz had seemingly gone A.W.O.L. from the Corps when his ring commanded him to ignore John Stewart’s orders in the battle against the Ravagers and head to Earth instead. The cover makes a dramatic statement about him being found “guilty” of something, but nothing like that happens – he’s on the run for most of the issue and plays only a small role. The rest of the Lanterns spend the issue battling for their lives on the ruins of Penelo, as the Ravagers (led by the mysterious cosmic villain Eon) continue to devastate the peaceful planet. While Kyle, Jon, and Jessica battle against the horde of villains, Guy winds up in a one-on-one battle with Eon and gives as good as he gets – complete with a giant Guy Gardner construct – but eventually falls as Eon seems next to unbeatable.
This arc has kept the villains’ motivation relatively vague – they were originally a b-list band of luddite villains, but they’ve escalated to mass genocide. Their destruction of Penelo extends to seeking to salt the ground and irradiate the world to leave it nothing more than a ruined husk, and the Lanterns seem to be clueless and outmatched. Ultimately, the Lanterns pick up that they’re getting joint communications from a single drone ship, and are able to knock out that ship and disrupt the fleet. That gives them the momentary break they need to turn the tide – for now. This arc is sort of chaotic, but it’s also highly exciting. The big twist comes towards the end, though, as Simon arrives on Earth to find out that Superman is apparently trapped in the Fortress of Solitude (set pre-Man of Steel) and works to free him – only to unleash Jurgens’ signature villain, the Cyborg Superman. Jurgens has some select characters he always likes to work in, and as long as he continues to be this good at writing them, no one’s going to object.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
