Green Lantern: Agent Orange (Prelude to Blackest Night)


By Geoff Johns, Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2420-2

Hal Jordan was a young test pilot in California when an alien policeman crashed on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his ring, a device which could materialise thoughts and fuelled by willpower, to seek out a replacement ring-bearer, honest and without fear. Scanning the planet it selected Jordan and brought him to the crash-site. The dying alien bequeathed his ring, the lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his profession to the astonished Earthman.

Over the years Jordan became one of the greatest members of that serried band of law-enforcers, The Green Lantern Corps, which had protected the cosmos from evil for millennia under the auspices of immortal super-beings who dubbed themselves the Guardians of the Universe. These undying patrons of Order were one of the first races in creation and currently dwell in sublime emotionless security on the world of Oa at the very centre of creation.

If all this is new to you then this book should absolutely not be your introduction to the series. Go read (at least) Green Lantern: Secret Origin and preferably all the other collections of this monumental fixture in the comicbook firmament before attempting to decipher the compulsive, compelling, pell-mell onslaught of characters and concepts scripter Geoff Johns throws at the reader as his extended epic thoroughly reshapes the DC Universe.

Following the bombastic, blockbusting Sinestro Corps War the entire cosmos was in turmoil at the revelation that Green was not the only colour and an entire emotional spectrum of puissant energies underpinned and operated upon reality. In increasingly ambitious storylines, Johns began exploring the adherents and disciples of each hue and the forces transformed by or seeking to control them…a situation which led inexorably into DC’s major crossover events Blackest Night and its sequel Brightest Day.

This volume (collecting Green Lantern #39-42 and portions of Blackest Night #0), illustrated by Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion, Eddy Barrows, Ruy José & Julio Ferreira, opens with a band of Controllers (a splinter group who split from the Guardians eons ago) encountering the possessor of the Orange light of Avarice.

The resultant slaughter precipitates another crisis when its sole user – a bestial, undying monstrosity named Larfleeze – abrogates an ancient secret treaty with the Oans and explodes out of his exile in the Vega system to take whatever takes his voracious fancy…

The very first thing he espies is Hal Jordan, currently overloaded by the exponentially increased power of a Blue Lantern ring overwhelming his own emerald weapon with the azure energy of Hope.

As revelations of the Guardians’ duplicitous past intrigues come to light, the vengeance-crazed, Green Lantern-hunting Fatality is overtaken by the Violet power of Love and becomes a Zamaron Star Sapphire (another dissident faction formed when the female Guardians also abandoned Oa) and attempts an uncomfortable rapprochement with her arch-enemy Green Lantern John Stewart…

Due to the Guardians’ ancient treaty with Larfleeze Vega had always been outside GL Corps jurisdiction and subsequently became a stellar sinkhole and safe-haven for the very worst scum of universe. With nothing left to hide anymore the remaining, still-squabbling Guardians lead a phalanx of their best peacekeepers in a punitive mission to clean out the sector of intergalactic criminals now that the Avatar of Greed has gone…

Sadly Larfleeze has left unique defences and the sortie ends badly. With the Orange Obsessive still hungry for Jordan’s Blue ring (which refuses to leave Hal’s hand and resists all efforts at removal) the Oans are forced to resort to a further deal with the devil…

Meanwhile Sinestro, controlling the Yellow light of Fear, and the diabolical Atrocitus, wielding the corrupting Red light of Rage, are jockeying into position for their own assaults on the embattled Guardians…

Jordan finally overcomes the paralysing burden of too much power and acts decisively to temporarily end the threat of Larfleeze, but not before the Guardians are betrayed from within and the Black light of Death resurrects the greatest threat to life there has ever been…

…Which will only become clear in the next volume.

Feeling uncomfortably like entering a play late and leaving before the end, the spectacle and action here will impress and bewilder in equal amounts, but at least there’s a selection of short complete vignettes included to afford the briefest modicum of narrative closure; beginning with ‘Origins and Omens’ (illustrated by Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert) which explores the history of the Star Sapphires and the salutary ‘Tales of the Orange Lanterns: Weed Killer’ with art by Rafael Albuquerque, which reveals the rise to power of the ravenous Orange subordinate Agent Glomulous…

After a gallery of variant covers and a fascinating design, commentary and sketch section from Philip Tan and Doug Mahnke, the book closes with informational pages on the eight colours of the Emotional Spectrum by Mahnke, Christian Alamy & Tom Nguyen

Combining big-picture theatrics with solid characterization, Green Lantern is an ideal contemporary superhero series, vast in scope, superb in execution and blending just the right amounts of angst, gloss and action in the storytelling mix – but a basic familiarity with DC/Green Lantern history is more necessary than advisable.

Impressive, exciting enticing and engrossing: all terms you’ll happily apply to Green Lantern: Agent Orange – but only after doing your homework and reading the other stuff first…
© 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.