BY GEOFF JOHNS AND DAVE GIBBONS, ET AL..
Fyi, The Sinestro Corps War is collected in two volumes, each reprinting issues of Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, and some event-specific one-shot. I'm not going to bother reviewing both volumes separately since I don't really know how many new things I'd have to say with a second review. Like, "this second volume is similar to the first volume except that it is, you know...later."
A couple of days ago I wrote about how a friend loaned me a stack of Green Lantern trades in order to educate me about why there are now yellow lanterns and red lanterns and purple lanterns and mauve lanterns and the rest of it. After reading Green Lantern: Rebirth, I should have read Green Lantern: Revenge of the Green Lanterns and Green Lantern: Wanted: Hal Jordan, and then finally the two volumes of Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War. But, for some damn reason, rather than taking the three seconds I would've needed to find out the correct order, I just read all the trades in the order in which they were stacked. It wasn't until I was halfway through Green Lantern: Revenge of the Green Lanterns that I realized my reading order was dumb.
I'm almost ashamed to admit I enjoyed The Sinestro Corps War. I came close to telling my aforementioned friend to not bother loaning me the trades, particularly because they all lead to the Blackest Night event, and there are very few people I know whose opinion of Blackest Night doesn't sound similar to the roar of a flushing toilet. And I also remember that it was this event in particular that lead to Alan Moore's remarks about DC scrounging through his old ideas like raccoons rooting through garbage.
But I liked it. What can I say?
Another friend of mine has said he's never liked Marvel's space mythology compared to DC's. I forget exactly what his reasons were, but reading this event made me consider a possible reason for that: because Marvel has never been as consistent with its space mythology as DC, and as a result Marvel's big space opera events don't really mean anything. The "change" they effect is arbitrary.
The Sinestro Corps War is a big, glowy space epic that apparently does change just about everything in DC's cosmos. I mean, it really is just one huge, long, battle between guys who glow green and guys who glow yellow, but, it's fun. And pretty. My single complaint is the constant abrupt slaughter of heroes that became such a trademark of DC during and after Infinite Crisis. I mean, I guess in a big cosmic space war it at least makes sense, but it's tough to not wonder - if Green Lanterns are so easy to snuff - how the hell Earth's four Green Lanterns have stayed alive for so damn long.
The fact that I liked Sinestro Corps War as much as I did makes me consider if it points to an inherent weakness in books like Sinestro and Red Lanterns. I stopped reading those books because, in part, the armies of glowy guys with the same damn look and powers just bored me. Like having a series with an army of Supermen in every issue. But the Red Lanterns and Yellow Lanterns and Avocado Lanterns and everyone in between are much more fun to watch when they're fighting each other. On their own, to hell with 'em. But once all the crayons start beating on each other, it's fun time.
Enjoyed the beginning of Sinestro Corps War when it first came out. By the end, I felt numb inside. And then there were more events after that and that numb feeling became a dull, throbbing pain. But, yes, the initial concept wasn't bad and this particular story has some nice moments scattered throughout.
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