Green Lantern Corps #42

Writer: Peter Tomasi. Pencils: Patrick Gleason.

What Happened: We open this issue up with the Indigo Lantern known as Munk assisting Green Lanterns Vath and Isamot on Oa against an army of Black Lantern children. While Munk helps to even the odds a little, the three Lanterns are still egregiously outnumbered. During the pitched battle, the Black Lanterns suddenly stop when their rings inform them that they had exceeded their 100% power-level. Over on another part of Oa, Kilowog is about to be killed by his former drill instructor, when the drill instructor receives word that 100% power-levels had been exceeded. The drill instructor, as well as several other Black Lanterns in the area, begin to fly away, while their rings continuously repeat the words "Devour will". Kyle and Soranik, who were battling Black Lantern Jade witness the same thing when BL Jade suddenly ignores the two Lanterns and sets off to "devour will". So what does "devour will" mean? Thousands of Black Lanterns begin to mass at the Central Power Battery on Oa and proceed to stage a massive assault on it. Every Green Lantern on Oa, as well as Munk, respond at the Battery while the Black Lanterns attempt to weaken the Battery itself. During the battle, the Black Lanterns pool their powers and construct an enormous angel of death, which begins to literally tear the Central Power Battery out of the ground(!!!)! While the Green Lanterns try to stop the huge death construct, Guy and Kyle head to the sciencells and grab the captured Red Lantern Vice. Guy and Kyle throw the sciencell into the black construct and Vice begins to tear into every Black Lantern in sight. The attack from Vice takes the Black Lanterns by surprise and begins to weaken the black construct to the point where it begins to loosen its grip on the Central Power Battery. Unfortunately, Alpha Lantern Chaselon responds to the sciencell breach and kills(!)Vice, which allows the Black Lanterns to continue their assault on the Central Power Battery. The Black Lanterns also realize that Chaselon, being an Alpha Lantern, actually has a mini power battery inside of him, so they all gang up and attack him, ultimately tearing the power battery out of Chaselon, which kills him. Green Lantern Salaak alerts Kyle that the Black Lanterns had killed Chaselon, and that they had inadvertently created a small fissure on Chaselon's mini power battery. If left unchecked, the crack in the mini power battery would grow until it exploded so destructively that it would probably destroy much of Oa and possibly the Central Power Battery itself. Kyle rushes to the mini power battery and snatches it out of the hands of the Black Lanterns, which causes hundreds of them to give chase. With the mini power battery rapidly approaching meltdown, Kyle throws an energy dome up around himself and hundreds of Black Lanterns and says his good-byes to Soranik and Guy via his ring. This issue ends with Kyle holding tightly to the mini power battery as it violently explodes, vaporizing the Black Lanterns surrounding him, destroying the black construct that was attacking the Central Power Battery and most importantly, killing Kyle...

What I Thought: Wow... That comic was simply amazing. I'm going to start off by giving MAJOR props to Patrick Gleason and the entire art team, because this was one of the best art jobs I can recall seeing in a comic book in quite some time. The pencils, the inkwork and the colors were completely flawless. What a fantastic job. Now that I'm done gushing about the artwork, it's time to delve into the story. The story was pretty much as good as the artwork! There's really nothing in this comic book I can find fault with... OK, almost nothing. There is the ending of course. This issue ends with Kyle Rayner laying dead amongst hundreds of scattered black rings, with his own green ring vacating his dead body and leaving him to head to another space sector. As a fan of Kyle and a collector of both this series, Green Lantern and dozens of GL books from the 90's(which starred Kyle), it should go without saying that I have alot to say about Kyle's death, so bear with me here. First off are my initial thoughts on Kyle's death. I liked it. It was well done, and Kyle died in the most heroic fashion possible, saving his fellow Lanterns and possibly even Oa itself. What better way to go then that is there? Do I like the fact that Kyle is dead? Hell no! Of course not, but if he had to go, I can't think of a better way for a Green Lantern to die. The only thing that bothered me about Kyle's death was WHERE it happened. In my honest opinion, Kyle's dramatic moment should have come in the main Blackest Night title, not here. The death of Kyle Rayner, while certainly not on par with Batman's "death" in Final Crisis or Barry Allen's death during the original Crisis, should have happened in the flagship book of this mini-series, not a random issue of GLC. The fact that Kyle DIDN'T die in the main Blackest Night book leads me to believe that he isn't actually dead. OK, I'll grant that it looks like Kyle did indeed bite the bullet here, and his ring sure seemed to think he was dead, but to all that I simply say one word, "Ion". Sodam Yat, the last Green Lantern to contain the Ion power is dead, which means the Ion power is without a host. Kyle used to be the host of the Ion power. Put one plus one together and what do you have? Kyle being resurrected by the Ion force, that's what! I have absolutely NO doubt whatsoever that Kyle will be alive and well in very short order. I think the events before Kyle's eventual return should be very interesting, especially Guy Gardner's reaction to it. Next issue should be an absolute blast to read, I can't wait for it to come out!

Score: 10 out of 10.I could have chosen several differnt pictures from this comic to post, but this one might just be my favorite.