We’ve all had our share of traumatic experiences. Moments that shape our lives and mold us into who we ultimately become in our adult lives, and add along any other cliche one could come up with. Which brings me to Corps trainer John Stewart, who if you remember way back in August was a dealt an awful hand. Which due to gimmicks and the current crossover his torment has been pushed to the back burner. So now that Hal is offing doing something he shouldn’t be doing, then perhaps John’s story will once again take center stage.

Due to John having a personal problem with how the Star Sapphires “recruit” the opening scene works in two ways. It brings the Zamarons directly into Godhead, but given John’s connect to them this scene screams that Zamarons will be the main focus for this issue. This scene does continue the theme of domination by the New Gods, but it’s a brief scene so it doesn’t linger. There is a cutaway to the three corps emerging from the vortex and Chang’s art in this one panel just seems off.

Some facial features on prominent characters seem more exaggerated, and with others they appear unfinished. The rest of the issue still has the same polish that is normal from Chang, just an odd visual piece.

The dialog exchange between Sinestro, The New Guardians, and Kilowog comes off as the typical power struggle scene that feels a tad bit arbitrated. It’s exposition in it’s purest form, it’s not dry by any means as it’s engaging but when you’ve seen this scene once, you’ve pretty much seen them all. It’s difficult to make scenes like not feel uninteresting, but Jensen does a good job of keeping the reader invested.

Before getting to the crucial moment of the issue, Van Jensen does reintroduce the Weaponer of Qward. Jensen keeps the dialog moving so new readers aren’t bogged down by his back story with Sinestro. Plus it’s with this scene that could possibly be the turning point in this war between corps and New Gods. Chang’s fantastic pose of John Stewart holding his new sword. Although the dialog in this instance felt just a bit too campy with the “strong enough to fell a God” line.

Despite his recent equipment upgrade the true heart and what makes this issue so great is this scene between John and Soranik. It’s only a page but giving how John began to unleash what he’s been holding in for some time. It was a fantastic character moment for John as he takes just a small step into coping with his “break up with Fatality” A great step in the right direction for John as a character.

The finale of this issue centers around a New God attack on Zamaron with John and others arriving just at the nick of time, in typical fashion but it does lead to a fun action sequence by Bernard Chang, Plus its here where the cycle is broken (only just a bit though) where the Lanterns actually made a dent against their foes.

While insignificant in the bigger picture, in this exact moment it’s a victory for readers who have gotten worn down by seeing their heroes being thrown in the mud. With that being said, that is not true climax but rather the introduction of something that some Lanterns fans have been asking for sometime. Normally I would spoil but in this instance I wont. Yes once a reader puts all the clues together it’s a bit predictable but given how it was done the predictability is null in void. This issue of Green Lantern Corps felt more like previous issues had prior to Godhead.

Green Lantern Corps #36 earns a 4/5

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