2 Reviews

Green Lantern #43

As I stated in my review of GLC from last week, that series has been consisently better than the main Green Lantern title for about the past six months give or take. While normally that wouldn't be important, since we are inching closer to Blackest Night the big summer epic penned by Johns some were beginning to worry that Green Lantern's slippage was a soon of things to come. Thankfully, Green Lantern #43 has put these collective fears to rest by bringing the book back to a level of excellence which was once its norm.

They first thing that you'll notice is the art which starts strong and stays strong throughout the entirety of the issue. Art in the previous arc was not my favorite thing in the world to look at although I didn't dislike it as much as some because I felt it fit the tone of the story. Regardless, Mahnke's pencils and the crisp and clean coloring are a welcome improvement over the dark and muddy work in Agent Orange.

What is most impressive from Johns here is that he crafts a story that grabs your attention and maintains it even though most of us reading knew exactly where the story was ultimately going to end up. In this issue alone, like he did with Larfleeze in the Agent Orange arc, Johns has made William Hand a character you are going to want to see more of come Blackest Night. One concern I have is that Johns is going to be too busy with other bigger characters in the DCU that he won't have time to shine the spotlight on some of these wonderful villians he has taken the time to build up in Green Lantern.

Blackest Night #1 is finally hitting stores this Wednesday and thanks to Green Lantern #43 I am as excited as ever.

Superman: World of New Krypton # 5 of 12

For a little while I considered WoNK to be the best of the Superman line while that is no longer the case, Robinson's work on Superman has since surpassed it, the book is still very enjoyable. Although, in a way the five issues are starting to share too many similarities.

One thing this issue has that previous ones did not is room for Pete Wood's art to breath. Finally we get an issue with nice wide panels and pages that are far from cramped. Due in large part to this, Wood's work on the issue is the best it has been so far in the series.

In regards to the story, if somone had told me what the story was about I probably would have left it on the shelf. However, actually reading it was a good time because Robinson and Rucka managed to make the courtroom drama and behind the scenes chess-playing of General Zod an intriquing read which is no easy task. For those who might claim that nothing happened in this issue I say, shame on you. This issue does an excellent job of adding to the already wonderfully written relationship between Zod and Superman, reveals important information about a minor but key character, and shows once again what makes Superman different than the rest of these other 100,000 Kryptonians.

To go back to a point I made earlier about each issue having too many similarities, in this issue we get another shocking cliffhanger. Except at this point it isn't all that shocking. Of course these things are going to be part of a sequential storytelling medium, but over five issues WoNK has followed a similar track too many times already; cleaning everything up neatly like a half-hour sitcom only to slam you with a crazy cliffhanger right at the last minute. Again, this is in many ways a necessary part of the medium but to me that doesn't completely absolve the creative team here.