Review: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #5

DC Comics
Review: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #5
By Philip Schweier
September 29, 2016 - 09:48

DC Comics
Writer(s): Robert Venditti
Penciller(s): Ethan Van Sciver
Inker(s): Ethan Van Sciver
Colourist(s): Jason Wright
Letterer(s): Dave Sharpe
Cover Artist(s): Ethan Van Sciver and Jason Wright; variant cover by Kevin Nowlan

Last issue, Sinestro’s daughter, Soranik, rescued Hal Jordan from her father’s clutches. Why? For her own amusement? As a power play to usurp her father’s position? Or is she hoping to ally herself with her father’s greatest enemy? Matters become only slightly clearer as a refreshed and rejuvenated Hal Jordan prepares one final assault on War World, the seat of the Sinestro Corps.

Meanwhile, John Stewart and the rest of the Green Lantern Corps are determined to rescue Guy Gardner from the Yellow Lanterns – if there’s anything left to rescue. Under the tender mercies of the Sinestro's Church o' Fear, Guy may not be long for this world.

This issue heads toward a showdown (next issue, we’re guessing), as Sinestro, Hal Jordan, and the Green Lantern Corps speed on a collision course. Un,like some other comic books I could name, this series has steadily moved forward, each issue bringing new revelations, new mysteries, and adding building blocks of narrative.

The art is everything you would expect from Van Sciver, though that two-page spread of four near-identical panels? Well, that’s just cheating. But with several pages of one and two panels featuring various groups of Green Lanterns, we’ll let it slide.

Perhaps the true star is colorist Jason Wright. I could be wrong, but separating Van Sciver’s black and white ink drawings into a multiple layers of colored constructs is what seems to make the artwork actually work. To a novice like me, the task could be a nightmare, but Wright makes it look easy.