Carol Ferris, master of a Star Sapphire again, arrives at Zamaron in time to lead her fellow Sapphires against Sinestro Corps members bent on freeing their fellow Corpsmen from the conversion chambers of the Zamarons, of which Sinestro himself is captive. On Ysmault, home world of The Red Lanterns, a small contingent of Green Lanterns, including Alpha Lantern Boodikka, continue their attempt to recover the body of former Lost Lantern, and later Red Lantern, Laira. Green Lantern readers know what has been happening to dead heroes and villains throughout the universe recently though. They’ve been being commanded to RISE. Meanwhile, Black Lanterns prepare to challenge Agent Orange, and Carol nearly beats Sinestro, revealing that even his “black little heart” has known love…

The threat of the Blackest Night and the RISE of the Black Lanterns continue to spread, much like they’ve been shown to in the pages of Blackest Night, Green Lantern Corps, and here in Green Lantern. All we’ve really been subject to though, in the case of the Green Lantern Family of titles, thus far has been plenty of zombie looking heroes and villains, but little plot development. While the art has been superb, and especially is in this issue of Green Lantern, Johns and company need to get moving on the plot.

We do get a pretty good side story development in this issue concerning Carol Ferris, the past, present, and undoubtedly future, greatest Star Sapphire. It appears she is able to control her ring and the effect that “The Eternal Heart that glows brightly within the Central Power Battery,” has on the free will of the other Star Sapphires. Queen Aga’po, leader of the Zamarons, remains “unconcerned” over Carol’s control of her ring and resistance to the Star Sapphire’s “guiding heart.” In fact, Carol is so adept at wielding the power of the Star Sapphire Ring that she very nearly bests Sinestro, which is no small feat.

As mentioned, the artwork being produced for this event is superb, and Mahnke’s work is no exception. Carol Ferris has never looked more beautiful, and Sinestro never more frightening. Mahnke creates some great full page spreads of  Lanterns in combat that rival the work done in The Sinestro Corps War‘s climax issues. Mahnke captures that ever elusive, but ever present, evil “look in the eye” aspect of madmen and murderers, with his up close drawings of Sinestro’s face. Mayor’s colors greatly enhance the frightening look in Sinestro’s eyes with their black and yellow tones. While nearly all Sinestro Corps members are frightening looking monsters, Sinestro is the most frightening of them all because he so closely resembles the real evil human criminals and madmen that we see mug shots of on the news everyday. As always, reflections of real evil in fiction always trump imaginary and fantastical images of evil in their terror inducing power.

Overall, Blackest Night continues to build, as we’re obviously still going through the showing off phase of the zombie-like Black Lanterns. Admittedly, great drawings of these Lanterns, which capitalize on the zombie craze that seems to be buoyantly bobbing along through the many comic book publishers from Marvel Comics, to Dynamite, to Image, and now finally to DC Comics, won’t keep Blackest Night afloat much longer. Johns and company are going to have to get down to what they do best, sooner than later. They need to tell a great story.