Green Lantern Corps #40 Review

Writer: Van Jensen / Art: Bernard Chang / DC Comics

Jensen has Lantern Stewart facing off against his greatest failure once again. There is a bomb on Zarox (similar to Xanshi’s) fueled by negative emotions and it’s up to Stewart’s crew to see to it that his first mistake all those years ago doesn’t play out the same way. Jensen does a flash back to when John was on Xanshi before dealing with the yellow bomb but it is vastly different this time around. I am guessing this is supposed to be a retcon of the Cosmic Odyssey Book Two: Disaster story line where John Stewart’s over confidence (it’s been remarked he was written out of character) had him leave the Martian Manhunter behind to cure Xanshi only to discover the bomb on the planet was yellow. Where as Lantern’s were powerless against the color back then. He failed and barely survived.

In this retelling John is with Katma-tui instead and they discover this bomb together. It is Steawrt’s lack of patience and showing of force whereby he attacks the strange device which actually triggers it to detonate.

mistake

Jensen takes an approach that makes a bit more sense as this tragedy taking place with Katma-Tui instead of Martian Manhunter rooting it purely in Green Lantern lore, although it was still a surprise to see this retcon to a major event of Stewart’s life. In present day we see Stewart takes action to try and clear the bomb himself but it being fueled by negative emotions is the antithesis to his willpower thereby making moving it with his power ring an option he can’t take. Freska’s son however, is the key as his hope is what makes the bomb weaker since countering it’s feeding upon negative emotion. They are soon able to get all the citizens of Zarox on their side and even their fellow lantern Maro who was taken in by the darkness was able to shake it off and re-join his crew.

all on frontline

We see Stewart resort to a different tactic in order to try and surmount the odds in the end which is fitting. John Stewart assigns some lanterns to stay in this sector before he takes back off into the skies. This is a fine ending for this series as we will see John return in Green Lantern: The Lost Army #1 in June. It’s bee a bit of a hit or miss for many issues of this series. Again this ending is fitting but it will be interesting to see the direction that John Stewart is going to be taking after this installment.

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  • Omar Holmon is a content editor that is here to make .gifs, obscure references, and find the correlation between everything Black and Nerdy.

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  • Shaka Jamal (@FaceOfYo)

    I haven’t read this yet, but one thing, it is only fitting that they change the Xanshi situation for John Stewart. I always felt that the story was done poorly and w/o and real though to the characterization of John Stewart. I’ll be picking this issue up shortly. 🙂

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