REBELS #23

Review: We begin things here John Stewart and the two rookie Green Lanterns from the last few issues heading to Rann to meet with LEGION leader, Vril Dox. Dox has been bad mouthing the Green Lantern Corps, and has been gaining support for his LEGION peace-keeping forces, while the people of the Vega System have been unreceptive to having Green Lanterns patrolling their spaceways. After the obligatory photo op, Stewart and Dox head inside to have their meeting under the watchful eye of Adam Strange. The meeting produces nothing, as Dox refuses to change his tune, stating that the GL's bring nothing but trouble to the systems they “protect”, while Stewart threatens Dox telling him that if he kept standing in the way of the GLC, he'd find himself sitting in a jail cell on Oa. While bickering, they get word that a terrorist group was planning on destroying the main sun in the Vega System, which Dox insinuates that he knew about. Stewart sends the rookie Lanterns to deal with it, while Dox needles him, telling him that when the rookies fail, LEGION would swoop in and take care of the threat. After some thought, the rookies actually DO manage to halt the terrorist's weapon and save the sun, just as Stewart knew they could. Upon leaving the terrorist ship, the rookies are met by Kyle Rayner, Soranik Natu and Ganthet, who upgrades the rookies to full-fledged Lanterns. With the Green Lanterns saving the galaxy, Dox loses much of his leverage, and along with Stewart and Strange, he heads outside to put an end to his feud with the GLC. Later on, Dox meets up with his son, Lyrl, and complains about the fact that the Lanterns were able to halt the weapon that Lyrl had created(!). Lyrl explains that if he had made the weapon any more complex, Dox's LEGION forces wouldn't have been able to stop it, so although a bit disappointed, Dox knows that he'll have many more opportunities to discredit the GLC. Also during this issue, Starro the Conquerer and his two lieutenants head to the planet Psion, and force one of the scientists there to help Starro regain his former power so that he could take revenge against Dox.

Thoughts: As always, this was one of the highlights of my month. This was a very good comic, although Dox's plans not coming to fruition kept this a very good read, as opposed to a great read. I would have preferred it if Dox could have discredited the GLC some more, but I guess that wasn't a realistic wish. I loved the reveal that Dox had put his son up to creating the weapon, because that just hammers home the point that Dox doesn't play by the rules, and that he was willing to endanger an entire star system to see that the Lanterns get humbled. The ending, with the reemergence of Starro was great, and leaves me salivating for the next issue. By this point, I would EASILY call this the best title coming out of DC today.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Vril + Lyrl = The Best Comic Coming Out Of DC Today!