Jack “King” Kirby, a name synonymous with super hero comics greatest icons. Namely from the Marvelous side of things, but as many know he did create magic for DC, the most famous being the New Gods. The New Gods are a peculiar bunch, with many recognizing the figures but few understanding their actual origins. They have there share of the spotlight, namely from Grant Morrison and Jim Starlin in recent memory but this the first real use of the New Gods in the New 52. It’s the start of a long three month crossover so let’s buckle in and start the show already.

Since most fans are not exactly familiar with, the New Gods origin needed to be established. Lucky the opening salvo isn’t an info dump from the start to finish. It catches up fans quickly, and with legendary Green Lantern artist Ethan Van Sciver returning and it’s his art that will help ease fans into this. His double page spread depicting the New Gods history is nothing short of spectacular, but it’s the fold out page of the source wall and all it’s minute details that will have readers breathless.

A noticeable aspect for this issue is that Saint Walker appears to have reverted back to depressing behavior, especially since the last issue seemed to allude that Saint was starting to move past that, when in fact that this issue serves to make it worse. Plus when you factor in that Hal actually refers that it’s been a year since Relic’s attack it makes Saint Walkers progression a bit odd.

So, what about the plot right? Well at least the initial plot will began with High Father finding the rings of the emotional spectrum with the belief that he has found the Life Equation aka the key to defeating Darkseid. The corps are a mere afterthought, and the second half displays that in blunt form.

Whichever writer came up with the “surgical strike” of the New Gods against the corps came up with a brilliant idea. The action and pace kick up while also showing that they are dealing with. It’s a bit of a kick in the teeth to say the least and the following scenes almost give a hopeless situation. to the event itself. The best example being with Orion knocking out Hal with ease, combined with stealing both the last Blue Lantern ring and Mogo’s ring.

This crossover doesn’t appear to be a fair fight, one might wonder how this will be stretched out for three months.

However after High Father has his weapon built and decides to use to use it on a heavily populated planet, and of course it goes south quickly, which in turn they detonate a bomb killing them in mercy, but of course the Green Lanterns don’t know that setting the stage for even more conflict.

The only true negative aspect for this issue has to be the multiple artist, and not because any one of their sequences were terrible in fact they all were either solid to amazing. work but their styles were just different enough to force a reader to readjust. The other negative aspect being the lack of center for the Green Lanterns. They are simply here to serve as the whipping boys for the New Gods and with the New Gods getting the character moments with fantastic visuals. It’s truly a New Gods book from start to finish. A fine start to a promising event, lucky part 2 is already out.

Green Lantern/New Gods Godhead #1 earns a 4/5

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