Far Sector #12 – N.K. Jesimin, Writer; Jamal Campbell, Artist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: The curtain comes down on NK Jesimin’s original Green Lantern story—and maybe on the Young Animal line as a whole—in this final issue. We already know Jo Mullein is headed off to the main Green Lantern universe, but it’s hard to imagine she’ll ever get another story like this one. For the duration of this story, she’s been caught in one of the most complex political situations ever facing a Green Lantern—a bizarre planet composed of the survivors of three different civilizations, kept from a constant state of civil war by a drug that suppresses their emotions and keeps the world bigotry-free—at least on the surface. It turns out that even in this supposed objective utopia, there’s corruption, police brutality, and voter suppression. Most of this series has been about Jo trying to keep from being pulled into the bizarre political permutations on this world—and usually failing.
This issue opens with Jo breaking into a spaceship just as it’s about to begin orbital bombardment of the world below to stop the fast-brewing revolution—and talking it down. That’s a pretty good summary of this series. It’s all about taking on comic book tropes and subverting them. The characters in this are interesting, especially Jo, but the real strength of the series is in its fleshed-out sci-fi world rendered beautifully by Jamal Campbell. The ending hints at a new romance for Jo, and sums up the fates of the main characters pretty well, but I’m a little disappointed that we’ll likely never see most of these characters or the setting again. It’s an ambitious series, but one that mostly sticks the landing despite some pacing struggles along the way. It’s good to have another diverse Lantern added to the GLC—and, I believe, the first LGBT one—but any future writer to work with her will have a high bar to match.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
