Green Lantern readers over the last 6 years are certainly no strangers to big storylines and crossovers. DC Comics launched “The New52” in September of last year and crossovers were put on hold to let these 52 titles find their own lane. Since then, we’ve seen various titles mix and match(Frankenstein & O.M.A.C., JL: Dark & I,Vampire, Teen Titans & Legion Lost) but nothing on that felt like a “true” crossover event. That is until current Batman writer Scott Snyder embarked on his “Night of the Owls” crossover that sets off on the Bat books next month. Now it seems that Green Lantern will be next on the crossover docket for DC Comics in 2012.
In February, DC attended the MegaCon convention in Florida, and one unconfirmed report said that Green Lantern: New Guardians writer Tony Bedard announced that his book and Green Lantern Corps would be crossing over around issues #12-13. There has been nothing said about those two books interacting since then, but we all know that Tony’s other title, Blue Beetle will be crossing over with New Guardians soon.
Now comes a very small hint that after Green Lantern‘s current story(“Secret of the Indigo Tribe”), we’ll get a new crossover just as big as “Night of the Owls”, which goes through 10 different comics. So its quite believable that the next crossover will go through not only New Guardians & Corps but Red Lanterns and Green Lantern as well.
That hint? Well that comes from DC’s Vice President of Marketing John Cunningham in a recent interview. In the interview Cunningham says
“When we look at the March numbers and see where we are on issue #7, after September, and the numbers continue to be as strong as they are, and in the cases of things like the “Night of the Owls” crossover, where we see sales numbers increasing right before the next Green Lantern storyline kicks off. And those numbers will go up.”
Newsarama promises an interview with GL writer Geoff Johns to be posted later, and we’ll obviously update when that is released but for now let the speculation run wild. With storylines like “Death of the Red Lantern Corps” going on in…Red Lanterns and the Blue Lantern homeworld of Odym being ravaged in New Guardians, and lanterns on trial in Green Lantern Corps, it’ll be interesting to see how Johns and the GL editorial team bring all those stories together for one streamlined crossover in such a short amount of time.
I suspect that the New52-Free Comic Book Day title may be of interest to lantern fans. Batman, The Flash, Teen Titans and even Animal Man is getting an Annual comic this year, so don’t rule that out either. I wouldn’t be surprised if Johns used it to set the stage for whatever this potential next event could be. Will this event be reminiscent of Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night or War of the Green Lanterns?