Long-time Green Lantern villain Sinestro gets his own series, written by Cullen Bunn (Fearless Defenders) and drawn by Dale Eaglesham. Can the series make us empathize with Thaal Sinestro without detracting too much from his villainous nature? Is it good?
Sinestro #1 (DC Comics)
Thaal Sinestro has given up his life as a member of any Corps since the destruction of his home planet. He feels his life has become meaningless without anyone to protect and now awaits death on a harsh and savage jungle planet. However, a former and quite insane bookworm member of the Sinestro Corps, Lyssa Drak, comes to him a vision. A vision he may find interesting.
If this doesn’t get more people to read, then I don’t know what will.
A decent, if kind of uneventful (things definitely happen but not much), beginning for this new series. Outside of not being sure exactly when this story takes place (before or after Forever Evil), the narrative is decent and all about setting up the new status quo for the series which appears to be Sinestro trying to rebuilding his home world with its survivors and also possibly bringing the Sinestro Corps back to its former glory. Not a bad direction to go with the title and this debut issue does end interestingly enough to make you curious about where the story will go from here (hopefully it stays out of the endless Green Lantern crossovers like Larfleeze has been able to).
Cullen Bunn’s writing is overall pretty good with no real problems, besides one that I’ll get to. The characters are good and do match up with the personalities that we’ve seen from them in previous stories before, so they feel in character (makes perfect sense to me with the writing all over Lyssa’s body). The dialogue and narration are fine, though nothing really noteworthy to speak of. The pacing, story flow, and transitions are okay as well with no awkwardness in the storytelling to be found. I like Sinestro and Lyssa’s scenes together; seeing their personalities bounce off each other is entertaining and I hope there is more of it in the series. The only problem with the story is that Sinestro wants to help rebuild the Sinestro Corps, which he refused to do early in the issue. I don’t know what prompts this change of heart and I wish there had been a little more explanation behind it.
Feel the wrath of my yellow energy saber tooth white tigers!
The artwork by Eaglesham is very good overall. His characters look good and are detailed well, along with some very nice looking designs and portrayals of the aliens. The sci-fi aspect of the story looked solid, along with the minor action and Power Ring actions. The panel layouts were fine and easy to read. The coloring by Jason Wright was especially good in parts, in particular when Sinestro and others used their rings to fight. It’s a great looking book overall.
Is It Good?
Sinestro #1 is a decent start to this new series, mostly just delving into setup. It’s not the most exciting start to a first issue, but there is plenty of potential given the glimpses of solid characterization and artwork. If you are a big fan of the character and the Green Lantern mythos but want a book that’s not mired in the Green Lantern crossovers then I strongly recommend Sinestro.
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