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Green Lantern #48 Review

Comic Books

Green Lantern #48 Review

Being a policeman of an entire sector of space can mean you aren’t fighting crime on Earth all the time even though it’s in Green Lantern’s sector 2814. Of course if comic books have any say about it Earth is usually the center of attention for bad guys, but DC’s new story arc for our green hero pits him against a very homegrown enemy. Last month ended with a bang as a bomb went off and Green Lantern was there to save some lives, but who did it and why weren’t explored. This issue delves into that which could lead to an interesting development—is it good?

Green Lantern #48 (DC Comics)

Green Lantern #48 Review

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The last issue ended with Parallax blowing away a few yellow lanterns and looming over an unsuspecting Green Lantern. While that story element is briefly touched upon in this issue it continues to be a slowly building story as Green Lantern takes on terrorists who follow a bad guy named Sonar.

Why does this book matter?

Hal Jordan’s relationship to his brother was developed last month along with his wife and kids in a genuine way. When the bomb went off and Hal’s family was in jeopardy it was emotionally charged due to the well written relationships. The fallout takes place in this issue and you see how things played out as this issue opens with Hal in the hospital hoping to hear if his brother is okay.

Fine, you have my attention. What’s good about it?

The strongest story element in this issue is a quiet scene between Hal and an old woman whose husband had a heart attack during the attack. Hal is scared and upset and so is she, but her resolve gives Hal the courage to do something about his sorrow. Robert Venditti uses this to springboard Hal into Gotham where he meets the new Batman and generally wants answers yesterday. His hot headed nature shines through and makes his actions plausible.

Once again Venditti teases Parallax and his inspection of this dimension’s Lanterns. It looms over the story and makes you greatly anticipate this story coming to a head. In a way it makes this Sonar story feel almost pointless since it’s just a random terrorist group doing bad things while an entity of evil is on its way to Earth.

green-lantern-48-old-lady
Nice lady.

That said I like the angle of Sonar and how he works. The idea of a bomb is introduced that is kind of sick and twisted as it only goes off with adequate sound levels powering it up. It ensures it will only go off when a lot of folks are around. That’s messed up and gives this villain a rather blind evil tact that suits the terrorist world we live in.

The art by Martin Coccolo looks nice and reminds me of Joe Maduera. It’s certainly not boring and it hammers home the opening scene with the old woman. Billy Tan draws the Parallax scenes as he did in the last issue and his hyper detailed style gives these scenes an event level feel.

It can’t be perfect can it?

While it’s nice to see Green Lantern meeting the new Batman and learning kinda sorta what is going on, this entire scene felt forced. It’s there to serve the plot and didn’t seem natural. Batman comes in tough, acting as though he won’t help and then just does because reasons.

When we meet a group of the terrorists working for Sonar this scene too feels undeveloped. The bad guys are certainly serious based on their actions, but there’s nothing learned from this scene. It’s sort of just there to show a clichéd terrorist group training to give us an idea that they exist. The lack of meeting Sonar doesn’t help and when Green Lantern gets emotional at the end it doesn’t feel earned. We don’t know the state of his brother and his hopelessness comes off as weakness rather than something we should relate to.

green-lantern-48-building
I know that’s Wayne tower but it looks more like Wonder Woman tower. Amirite?

Is It Good?

This is an average issue at best, as the emotional resonance is lost in every scene Green Lantern meets new characters.

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