Tales of the Green Lantern Corps: Guy Gardner #1 – Gerry Duggan, Writer; Matteo Lolli, Laura Braga, Vasco Georgiev, Artists; John Kalisz, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: I don’t know if this is the start of a new series of anthology one-shots for the Corps, but if it is it’s a highly promising start focusing on the most rough-and-tumble Lantern – Guy Gardner. This is a guy who will go out of his way to free a population of refugees from slavery – after interrogating the trafficker with extreme prejudice – only to then demand gambling debts from one of the escapees. He’s rude, crude, and paranoid, and in this story taking place before he was promoted to Space Pope, he’s obsessed with the idea that the old Manhunter relics are spying on the Lanterns. That gains him the attention of a new character, Zardum, who serves as the Internal Affairs of the Corps. An elderly veteran Lantern with a prosthetic construct leg, he at first comes off as a priggish by-the-book figure who Guy has little patience for him, but his narration indicates there’s some nuance to the old man.
Zardum sends John Stewart to pursue Guy and get some answers from him, and that leads to John spying on Guy’s apartment and discovering it’s a ramshackle mess filled with rotting food and Manhunter relics. When John tracks down Guy, it soon turns into a bare-knuckle brawl between the two old friends that delves not just into Guy’s issues stemming from childhood, but John’s own issues relating to his recent cloning and the death of his clone. There’s a lot of lore here, but the character work behind it is excellent and this is a great side story that takes place right before the characters head off to their new adventures. Guy’s characterization here definitely leans more into the roguish version defined by the iconic JLI run, which may seem like a step back for some, but it worked for me. And I’ve got to say, Zardum is one of the most promising new Lantern characters in a while.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
