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Review: Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War

    Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps. War was a crossover miniseries event published by DC Comics in 2007 and collects Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special written by Geoff Johns with pencils by Ethan Van Sciver, Green Lantern #21-25 written by Johns with pencils by Ivan Reis, and Green Lantern Corps #14-19 written by Dave Gibbons with pencils by Patrick Gleason and other guest artists. The Sinestro Corps War is a sequel to Green Lantern: Rebirth and involves the Green Lantern Corps going to war with the Sinestro Corps who wield yellow power rings and are led by Green Lantern Hal Jordan’s former mentor turned arch nemesis Sinestro.
    In the aftermath of Green Lantern: Rebirth, the Guardians of the Universe, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, Kilowog, and other veteran Green Lanterns have rebuilt the Corps into the galaxy’s premier law enforcement agency. Meanwhile, Sinestro goes to the planet Qward where he assembles his army of ring wielders. The Sinestro Corps rely on their ability to instill fear to power their rings while the Green Lanterns rely on willpower and the ability to overcome great fear to power their rings.
    Sinestro Corps. War is very much The Empire Strikes Back of the Rebirth trilogy. The Sinestro Corps catch the Green Lanterns off guard early in the story by killing many Lanterns on their home planet of Oa. The Green Lantern Corps find themselves at a disadvantage when fighting the Sinestro Corps because their power rings forbids them from using lethal force. The story diverges after that with Earth’s Green Lanterns Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, and John Stewart attempting to save Kyle Rayner from the clutches of the Sinestro Corps while the rest of the Green Lantern Corps consisting of Kilowog, Sodam Yat, Stel, Green Man, Soranik Natu, Vath Sarn, and Isamot Kol defend Mogo. Mogo is a Green Lantern that is an actual planet and controls the flight of the Green Lantern Corps power rings so they can be distributed to new recruits. The Sinestro Corps target Mogo for destruction which would leave the Green Lantern Corps rings directionless, effectively ending the Corps ability to add new members. These two stories eventually converge once again as the war eventually comes to Earth.
    Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War is probably the densest comic book I’ve ever read in terms of the amount of content that is shoved into the pages and panels. There is so much action and storyline information being relayed to the reader that it may be a sensory overload at first. The reader needs to pay attention to every panel as there is almost always a major plot point or a hint about what lies ahead in future stories. A reader is probably going to wind up rereading this comic a couple of times in order to fully grasp what is happening. In fact, I would go as far as to say that you should find a wiki page to help explain the intricacies of this very complex story if you’re going to read The Sinestro Corps or any other future Green Lantern story arcs.
    Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War is an all-time classic story arc in not only the Green Lantern mythos but in the DC Universe as a whole. Although this is a Green Lantern story, Geoff Johns, Dave Gibbons, and Peter J. Tomasi show that The Sinestro Corps War will have ramifications for characters outside of the Green Lantern narrative, giving the story a much more epic feel. The artwork by Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, and Patrick Gleason is a combination of the great superhero action sequences mixed the stellar visuals of films like Star Wars. Their artwork is how I picture the Green Lanterns in my head. Ivan Reis and Patrick Gleason are up there with Ethan Van Sciver as the quintessential Green Lantern artists. The run that the writers and artists on the Green Lantern had in the mid to late 2000s have defined these characters forever and will take many years to equal.

          Overall Rating: *****

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