Written By: Tony Bedard
Penciled By: Tyler Kirkman
Inked By: Batt
Colors By: Nei Ruffino
Letters By: Dave Sharpe
Cover By: Kirkman, Batt & Rod Reis
Time To Retell The Story…
SO with the announcement of DC wiping the slate clean, and forgetting about all of the crisis’ in DC’s history, it makes the current situation of the Green Lantern mythos even more confusing than already. Is Blackest night considered a crisis, and if so, was it wiped out with Identity, Infinite, and Final? Regardless, Tony Bedard is taking up the challenge of writing one of the most ungratifying first issues in the DC reboot.
Basically, Kyle Rayner’s origin story is being retold, resembling snippets of the Emerald Twilight saga back from 1994. The issue starts off with Oa in shambles, Green Lanterns sprawled out everywhere, and the Guardians dog piled on top of each other. Ganthet recovers, however, and goes on a search for a new Green Lantern. Kyle Rayner, still the artist and still in his own world, is found and given the green ring. However, off in different parts of the universe, one Lantern from each corps is decommissioned, and their rings fly off and find Kyle as well, dubbing him the most worthy. With single members of each corps determined to retrieve the rings of their deceased comrades, Kyle is in for a bit of a tussle.
The recent Green Lantern film gives us Hal Jordan’s origin story as well as introducing many of the popular characters we’ve come to love for years. New readers will come into this first issue certain in their knowledge of the film’s story, but uncertain of who Kyle Rayner is, as well as the multiple Corps’. The New Guardians #1’s purpose is to help reestablish everything Geoff Johns did prior to the reboot for the sake of the new readers. Which means only one thing for us “older” readers…relearning everything. This issue is undoubtedly NOT meant for us geezers. So in part, it’s hard for someone like me, an older reader, to get super excited about a title showing me things I already know.
It was interesting to see Tony Bedard and Tyler Kirkman basically start the New Guardians #1 at the alley way he was in back in 1994’s Emerald Twilight saga. This issue gave me a huge feeling of nostalgia as I remembered him receiving that ring in an alley outside of a club. Things definitely turned out differently in New Guardians, but it was nice to see that Bedard went back to the roots of Kyle’s origin…in that back alley.
Oh, and in case you were all wondering how I got the name Heretical Jargon as the title of my blog, (formerly known as the Heretic’s Blog) just go back to Green Lantern #50 (published 1994) and look closely as to where it all started…
Just look at the door way to the left, and you'll see the beginnings of my blog title. From Green Lantern #50, 1994. Click to enlarge.
For me, this was fun read, but after I finished I simply shrugged my shoulders, as if to say…”eh.” The Green Lantern mythos is certainly taking a risk at being the only section of the section of the DC universe that really hasn’t changed. (Well, I guess Batman should be included too) But even more importantly, if DC is trying to lure in new readers, but not changing anything with the Green Lantern mythos, some retelling of certain things is necessary in order to help things make sense.
Of course, as time goes on, this title will become more and more neutral as some very interesting questions have been left unanswered. For new readers, their questions will be based around the “newness” of everything that they’re seeing with every page turn. But for us older readers, It’ll be interesting to see how different this first arc of the series is in comparison to 1994’s Emerald Twilight. How much involvement will Hal Jordan have in this mysterious first paged opener of post destruction and debris of Oa? Who attacked Oa? And why is Rayner so attractive to all these flying rings? I’ll be tapping my foot anxiously for the end of the retelling mythos story and the beginning of the “NEW” stuff.
So, there’s nothing really wrong with this issue, it’s just not modeled for me. The end of a world kind of story which turns into Kyle’s Green Lantern birth has already been told, so let’s get through all that stuff and get to the juicy NEW stuff. But for the sake of the newer readers, I’ll force my way through it and hope for the best!
8 out of 10 stars
