It’s an interesting climate we live in today, a world that is seemingly coming apart at the seems. military coups in other countries, terrorists gaining the upper hand in the middle east, shootings in our own backyard. There is one common trait that these horrible events share, that feeling of pure rage. Anger is perhaps our most primal emotion, something that people revert to when a wall pushes down on them and won’t let up. What exactly does this have to do with two Green Lanterns fighting against Red Lanterns? Let’s take a look inside an find out. Before you go further, there will be spoilers for the issue. You have been warned.
Continuing with the partnership of Baz and Jessica, it was refreshing to see that Simon have most of the page time and develop his character further. The huge push was Baz’s confrontation with Bleez, and before I get into the nitpicks I did enjoy seeing Baz confronted with not only the rage that hides inside him because of how he’s family has been treated. It makes Baz not look like a selfish asshole in the grander scheme of things. It’s in this instance that using Baz’s Muslim heritage carries weight to the story and it doesn’t feel shoehorned in. Even seeing how Baz handled Bleez after she was “cured” is an example of him understanding his role as a peace keeping officer. In short, Sam Humphries has made me become invested in Simon Baz as a character.
On the flip side of that, I’m not sure if Sam Humphries wants to completely rewrite the Green Lantern spectrum mythos or he’s simply ignoring what has happened before. If you’re new to Green Lanterns then none of this won’t matter, but as someone who’s read the past 8 years of the Spectrum Wars this issue made me turn counter clockwise. Seeing Baz “cure” Bleez with only his sheer willpower shouldn’t really happen, especially since only a Blue Lantern could cure a Red Lantern of the red ring. Seeing how Humphries has already given Baz a new ability never seen before, which means that Baz is being set up for something huge.
I’m not against Baz becoming a bigger deal within the Green Lantern mythos, and perhaps Humphries has a reason as to why all of a sudden a Green Lantern can cure a Red Lantern. However for now it’s just another example of a writing ignoring another continuity.
Even though I’m still not enjoying the presence of the Atrocitus there is something there that Humphries hasn’t tapped into yet. I’m sure he’s delaying the reason why the Hell Tower spawned on Earth, but I’m still shocked that he didn’t even tap the surface of why Rage is naturally consuming people. Science fiction at it’s best taps into our current society and applies it to it’s own world so we can analyze aspects of our own culture. Remember kids, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan at least) was born from science fiction.
While Jessica Cruz doesn’t have the amount of page time as the previous two issues her dynamic with Baz continues to remain highly entertaining. Seeing both of them at each others throat just felt like a natural step for a partnership like theirs to have, one built on animosity by Simon. Seeing Jessica turned into a rage monster was kinda predictable, but it puts Simon in a position to help someone he can’t stand.
Art duties for this issue were shared by Robson Rocha and Tom Derenick. For the most part both Rocha’s and Derenick’s art blended well enough that I was able to read the issue without much of a problem. After reading the issue Rocha’s art had a cleaner look to it, where as Derenick’s art look a bit unfinished and his facial expressions seemed to stiff to express any proper emotion of were exaggerated. Rocha however absolutely killed it with the storytelling during Bleez’s moment of clarity. Her pain and regret can be seen on her face, remove the captions from that scene that readers can still understand the raw emotional moment of that scene.
Green Lanterns continues to get better and better with each issue, as Humphries manages to balance dynamic action scenes with moments of actual depth. The art was a bit weaker than previous issues, but it’s nothing that should derail the books enjoyment. Hopefully down the road, the Red Lantern cure via Baz will be explained but for now I’ll give Humphries the benefit of the doubt.
Green Lanterns #3 earns a 4/5