Green Lantern under a new direction

I read the first Green Lantern graphic novel written after Geoff Johns’s departure from the series this morning. I’m definitely late to the party, but here are a few thoughts I had on it.

Note that this contains spoilers for Green Lantern #21–26

Firstly, bear in mind that a lot of this is coming from memory . I haven’t read Green Lantern actively since Geoff Johns ended his run in 2013.

Secondly, after reading the first 7 issues he wrote, Robert Venditti is every bit qualified to lead this series moving forward (as he’s done). The atmosphere, the dialogue, the attention to detail from before is all there. And even though at the end of the last run, Johns essentially put his stamp on his story moving forward, having Sinestro from the future narrate a dialogue version the “happily ever after” that followed in the wake of his last story. That essentially makes these new stories either have to comply to fit in that space or to defy that line of narrative, forging an entirely new outcome. Which one’s going to be more interesting?

As far as forging a new chapter in the Green Lantern universe, it would be an understatement to say that Venditti has some big shoes to fill. I could spend an entire post going into detail on how far Geoff Johns went during his tenure to expand and flesh out the Green Lantern mythos, pulling in concepts and characters from all over the miscellaneous stories preceding it. But the underlying point is that in cultivating such an expansive mythos and exploring so many facets of it, he’s established a new bedrock for his predecessors.

Venditti picks the story up almost immediately where Johns left it in his finale, hitting the ground running for the next conflict the Lanterns must face: Relic. It’s opinion here, but I think the story would have benefitted greatly from a significant passage of time between storylines. A new big bad showing up right after the final confrontation with Volthoom seems a little much to this reader.

The new story beats cover a lot of ground in a little time, expanding one the mythology in some very surprising ways. The new villain, Relic, is (as the name would suggest) a very old being, who is a survivor of a dead universe. During the Forever Evil tie-in issue, Venditti goes into detail about what his life was like in the previous universe, showing us an entirely different breed of light-wielders than we’re accustomed to in the form of Lightsmiths. They take on the form of “the same, but a little different” that you often find in alternate universe characters. We don’t get a lot of exposition in regard to the universe that came before, and the villain’s fate leaves it to be determined whether or not we’ll get to learn more later.

Overall, Robert Venditti does a great job taking the established story and building onto it in a meaningful way with his first act. The opening arc wraps up very neatly, giving a short nod to where the story is going next, but if the beginning is any indicator, there are some great moments lying ahead.

• Relic’s origin story and appearance are both similar to Marvel’s Galactus, who as Galan survived the end of a previous universe only to become a force to be reckoned with in the current universe, carrying out his will with the use of large machines.