Who'd Like A Cocktail? #131

Oooh, she's feisty!

It's Sunday so let's have a look at what I read this week:

• GREEN ARROW #12 - Finally! Green Arrow gets out of that damned forest! I enjoyed Brightest Day but the Green Arrow tie-ins have just been plodding and now that it's over Ollie finally gets to realise that the forest in Star City had nothing to do with him and he needs to get his butt out of there and back into the city itself. With any luck this'll give us the resolution of the story that started this title - the mysterious Isabel Rochev. Hopefully his realisation of what a complete arse he's been will also lead him to start mending fences with his friends and maybe start talking with Black Canary again. Ollie being the stubborn fool he is, though, I wouldn't bank on it happening too soon.
• GREEN LANTERN #66 - Mogo keeps sending out poisoned rings, recruiting warriors for Krona's mind-controlled army while Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner struggle against the possess Guardians in order to get Parallax out of the Central Battery. Meanwhile Sinestro almost breaks free of the Book of the Black and gets a hint that Indigo-1 isn't all she seems. Sadly, nothing pans out and Jordan and Gardner are captured with Krona at last revealing what he wants from them: as emotional beings they are to become Guardians and rule alongside Krona, replacing the current Guardians who, quite rightly, Krona says have stopped feeling anything. This story romps along with barely a moment's pause before heading into the next part and is a good read... despite the clumsy "ancient evolving bandages"!
• GREEN LANTERN CORPS #60 - John Stewart and Kyle Rayner head to Mogo to try and get him to stop releasing new rings, working their way down to his core. Despite their best efforts, they realise that Mogo is still corrupted by the essence of the Black Lanterns he absorbed during Blackest Night, giving Stewart only one option: to channel the Black Lanterns' power and use it to kill Mogo. It was still a shame to see him go (despite Bleeding Cool having revealed the ending in a dreadful example of disregard for their readers earlier in the week - I may have to stop reading my news feeds on a Wednesday and Thursday) as Mogo's been a big part of the Corps for the last few years. Will he come back? I sort of doubt it, to be honest.
• GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD WARRIORS #10 - And we pick up seemlessly with Jordan and Gardner still as Krona's prisoners when the remains of Mogo begin falling to Oa's surface, along with the still mind-controlled Green Lantern Corps. The four Earth Lanterns team up with Ganthet and use the combined power of all the rings to try and release Parallax from the Battery but it takes Gardner - using the Red Ring and the Star Sapphire Ring - to finish the job, cracking open the Battery and getting the pesky yellow parasite out of it. With Jordan and the others finally able to switch back to their green rings and the Corps released from his control, Krona and the possessed Guardians face off against them, all of which leads into next month's conclusion. I think my only gripe with this story has been the difficulty the Lanterns had getting Parallax out of the Central Power Battery - just how many times did Jordan fly straight into it in the past?
• JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #51 - *sigh* Alan Scott's still in that ridiculous green and white costume... Despite that, I'm warming to this version of the Society; Blue Devil's a welcome addition to the team as they fight to bring Lightning back from the dead while the Flash, after delivering an inspiring (if a little cliched) speach to his fellow politicians, ends up being shown a big door under the city with a distinctly Kirby-esque design to the front of it. I'm still not a fan of what's happened to Green Lantern but now that the Society seem settled in Monument Point, they seem to be working better.
• KIRBY: GENESIS #0 - And talking of Kirby, I picked up this primer issue for the new series by Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross and Jack Herbert which reuses concepts and characters from Jack Kirby. And it's good! Just a few pages giving us a glimpse of some characters we'll be meeting later in the series and while the art isn't slavishly aping Kirby's style, there's enough in there - like Captain Victory's pose - to leave you in no doubt as to where these things came from. I'm looking forward to more!

And what made me smile:

I've no doubt that Flash actually is concerned about civil liberties but this panel still made me laugh.