A Quick Look at: Green Lantern #51, Green Lantern Corps #45 & Nova #34

Thanks to the massive amount of snow we received here in upstate New York, my school was surprisingly shut down today. I wasn't planning on going even if it was open, so I'm glad that my attendance is still unblemished thanks to the snow day. As for what I did today, I shovelled a LOT of snow(20 inches worth!), watched the American hockey team destroy Finland to make it into the gold medal game at the Olympics(Sunday at 3:00 Eastern time is the rematch against Canada for the gold!)and of course read a few comics. All in all, I can't complain. I'm hoping my package of new comics comes tomorrow, but with the snow, I'm not holding my breath. Hmm, I know there was something else I wanted to add here, but I'm drawing a total blank... Oh well, it'll come back to me eventually. As with the last batch of reviews, I'm going to try to keep the wordage down... Will I succeed? I guess we'll know soon enough!

Green Lantern #51: Writer: Geoff Johns. Artist: Doug Mahnke.

We kick things off with Larfleeze and Lex Luthor fighting over the Orange Power Battery(God do I wish Lex would have killed that pest!)before we head to the main event, a Parallax-possessed Hal Jordan vs. the Black Lantern Spectre. Parallax Hal tears out one of BL Spectre's eyes and hops inside the giant, finding the black ring that was corrupting BL Spectre and destroying it, reverting BL Spectre back to the plain old Spectre. Spectre decides to attack and punish Parallax Hal since Spectre hates Parallax, so the two once again begin to fight. Realizing that this battle isn't helping in the defeat of Nekron, Ganthet and Star Sapphire Carol Ferris manage to separate Hal from Parallax, and Parallax is pulled away by an unknown entity. Spectre decides to punish the one responsible for the whole Blackest Night mess, Nekron, but the Spectre is unable to harm Nekron, since Nekron is dead and has no soul. With that, Nekron banishes Spectre and rallies his forces to attack the New Guardians.

Although I did like this issue, it suffered from Blackest Night formula syndrome... In other words, we've seen this battle play out in almost the same way in dozens of other comics already. A Black Lantern attacks our heroes(in this case, the Spectre attacks the New Guardians), the heroes are hapless at first, but eventually they figure out a way to defeat the Black Lantern. The main Blackest Night storyline wasn't furthered at all here, so in a way, this issue(although enjoyable)was a waste of time...

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Why look, it's Nekron! It seems like so long since I've last seen him actually say something...

Green Lantern Corps #45: Writer: Peter Tomasi. Pencils: Patrick Gleason.

On Mogo, the Green Lanterns and Red Lantern Guy Gardner open this issue by having a good, old fashioned stand-off. Most of the GL's want to attack Guy, but Kyle stops them since he still wants to try to reason with Guy. That strategy doesn't work out, and Guy attacks his friends and teammates. Mogo decides to intervene, and uses it's emphatic abilities to draw all of Guy's good and bad memories from his head, with the hope that the good memories would overpower the bad, which would fix Guy. This doesn't work either, so the GL's attack Guy again and Kyle ties him up. The Indigo Lantern who was assisting the GL's explains that the only way to reverse a Red Lantern transformation is to either kill the Red Lantern, or expose it to the power of a Blue Lantern. Since the GL's don't want to kill Guy, and a Blue Lantern isn't available, Mogo decides to cleanse Guy's Red Lantern blood, temporarily curing him of his affliction and turning him back into a Green Lantern. This issue concludes with the Indigo Lantern getting the summons from Indigo-1 to collect as many GL's as he can find and bring them to Earth to attack Nekron, as seen in the Atom & Hawkman comic.

I really enjoyed this comic, although I will admit to being a bit let down by Guy losing his Red Lantern abilities. With that said though, I am glad that Peter left the door slightly open in case he wanted to turn Guy back into a Red Lantern, since his cleansing was only temporary. So until Guy is cured by a Blue Lantern, the possibility of Guy reverting back into a Red Lantern still remains. Next issue should give us the huge Black Lanterns vs everybody else issue that leads into the final part of Blackest Night, so if nothing else, the next issue should have some awesome action scenes.

Score: 8 out of 10.I'm sorry, but Red Lantern Guy>Green Lantern Guy.

Nova #34: Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Mahmud Asrar.

This issue has the old Sphinx and the younger Sphinx deciding to pit their forces against one another, with the victor claiming both Sphinx's Ka stones. The old Sphinx's forces are basically composed of heroes, while the young Sphinx has selected more villainous characters. After a few one-on-one battles, the old Sphinx's side wins and Darkhawk tears the Ka stone away from the young Sphinx, robbing him of his powers. Old Sphinx then mentally takes control of Darkhawk and forces him to hand over the Ka stone, giving the older Sphinx two, which pretty much makes the older Sphinx a god.

I'm a sucker for one-on-one battles, ala the Contest of Champions mini-series, so it should go without saying that I enjoyed this comic. While the outcome of some of the battles definitely surprised/stunned me(Basilisk defeated Black Bolt? Really?!?), for the most part, the battles shook out the way I expected them to. I'm still not a real big fan of the Sphinx, but this storyline has been good enough to make me overlook my natural dislike of the Sphinx, which is definitely the sign of good writing.

Score: 8 out of 10.The Age of the Sphinx? Can we have another Age of Apocalypse instead?