Hey all!  GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS: TANKIES #1 $3.50 (Garth Ennis / Carlos Ezquerra)Garth Ennis telling a tale of British soldiers in their tanks, far behind enemy lines as they evade the seasoned German veterans gunning for them? Actually, that sounds pretty cool. I'll bite!  GREEN LANTERN #40 $2.99 (Geoff Johns / Phillip Tan)Wha, Michael is raving about a Green Lantern book again? Oh, how surprising is that? OK, it's not very surprising, nor has it been for the last couple of years, and really, it won't be surprising over the next several months as the "Blackest Night" arc starts to ramp up. Sure, there's a part of me that says "Michael, you're always going on about the Green Lantern books, maybe you should back off a bit" and I think that yeah, maybe I should. Then Geoff Johns goes ahead and does like pulls some evil menace out of seemingly nowhere and changes everything we know about the GLC and the Guardians. I already know about sector 666 and the Red Lanterns. I get that already, but who is this Agent Orange dude? What happened between him and the Guardians that the Guardians promised that he could have his own sector of space and that they would leave him alone for all eternity? And really, whatever DID happen happened a REALLY long time ago? How long? Well, the Guardians of the Universe used to be kind of pink like some humans are, and in fact, kind of looked like us, but they were called the Maltusians. At some point the race split into two factions, the blue Oans (aka The Guardians) that we already know and love, and they're jealous, obsessed brothers, the Controllers, who take pink skin to another level and are hairless (whereas the Guardians usually have tufts of old man hair in some variety). I won't go on about the differences between the two other than to simplify it like this: the blue Oans want to guard the universe to protect it from evil where as the Controllers want to, well, control the universe completely in an attempt to protect it from evil. I note that they're jealous because really, the Oans have some clout and have the entire Green Lantern Corps to back them up, whereas the Controllers have nothing. Sure, they had the Darkstars for a while, but that didn't last all that long and now they're all gone too. But I digress. This schism in the bloodlines of the Maltusians happened billions and billions of years ago, and really, that's kind of the point, because then is whatever happened that happened (what we don't know yet) that caused the promise that Agent Orange and his sector of space would be left alone. So this predates the Oans/Guardians and even the Controllers. Obviously some of the Controllers forgot all about this because when they went searching for a power battery all of their own to harness they detected the orange power battery and tried to take it for themselves; this is apparently what set off Agent Orange and now he's whupping tail and taking names. But what happened all those billions of years ago? I have no idea, but I am eager to find out, and that, my friends is why I am absolutely loving anything to do with the Green Lanterns and the Corps right now. Because even though Johns is writing quite a story, what's most interesting to me is that he is building a deep and detailed mythology behing the Green Lantern Corps. Yes, there's been one for some point, but what Johns is doing is adding an entire new dimension to things. Instead of just slapping a new coat of paint on the house that was built by the creators before him he's basically added on another wing and a swimming pool. And yes, I am LOVING every single minute of it. So, I am sorry if you're sick of me going gaga over Green Lantern, but I don't see it ending anytime soon, especially if Johns and company insist on added so many interesting things to this mythology. AWESOME. What comics did you get geeked out about this week? Just stop by the WLG message boards (see link below) and share! See you next week! Peace! -Diaz |
