Matt Raymond's Reviews > Green Lantern Corps, Vol. 3: Willpower

Does anyone still care about Green Lantern? No one is reading this, right? Like, I could talk about how there are a bunch of lizard people running the world & that every US President since Taft has actually been a bunch of kittens in a suit of human skin. And no one would ever know I said that. But I’ll save that for another day. This is about how much fun I got out of Green Lantern Corp. This is a tie-in with Rise of the Third Army/The End with Guy now facing the consequences of his ringlessness & John on a mission to rescue Mogo that’s meant to distract then kill him.

The Guy Gardner pity party is in full swing & I love it. He’s still a dick, but I feel bad for him. I also respect him. What is that about? We get to dig a lot deeper into his past. He’s a middle child & gets “Sure Jan’d” a lot. He is always choosing the lesser of two evils & getting all the blame. He’s a jerk because he needs to be. That sounds like a tagline for a straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal movie but it works here too. He is even immune to Volthoom’s stupid memory tricks. Not immune but more resistant than others I’ve read. I’m loving all his development, which for me has been the best part of this spin off. First we dealt with John Stewart’s inner turmoil, now we’ve switched to Guy, and it fits perfectly with the buildup to this (not very great) GL event.

Yes, the event is still not great. It’s been done before so many times that I can’t really be bothered to complain about it more. But I did like that in this series they actually explain the look of the Third Army beyond “icky blue thingys.” Guy actually brings up the fact that their brains explode, hearts are removed & their eyes and ears get removed. In short, they are unfeeling monsters incapable of reasoning and emotion. Just like the Guardians. Why did I never pick up on that?! Ever worse, why did this never come up in the main GL issues? That little bit of symbolism gave those monsters a point beyond their space horror origins.

They try some creative panels, which are hit & miss. The Third Army Hand was an interesting choice but too warped for me to initially understand. The fight scenes, as usual in this, look great & are fun. Except for the weird Mogo fake out issue that just felt like filler. But there are lots of pretty colors.

The endings, for John and Guy at least, felt right after all the self-reflection they went through. John gets to bone Fatality (yeah, it was hot) & Guy gets to kill that annoying purple alien whose backstory I’m not familiar with. But his death was so beautiful looking I just didn’t care. Then there were the ten days that Guy tried to be normal. Not just funny, but further proves my point that he’s at his core a normal guy. And probably gay. Let’s make that happen DC. I mean, he went to the movies on a date & spent more time focused on the guy playing with his tablet? GAY. It would have so much potential for his New 52 development.

This was actually a fun book. Not a feeling I’ve been getting a lot from DC lately. I didn’t even mind some of the plot holes in here caused by all the crossover fatigue. I just had fun reading it & letting my brain go to mush. I didn’t realize how much I missed that feeling until now.