Green Lantern #44 Review

GREEN LANTERN #44
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy

If the prospect of heroes coming back from the dead and fighting their old allies in Blackest Night interests you, this issue is exactly what you were looking for. It's almost and entire issue of the Martian Manhunter using every power he has, even telepathically manipulating Barry Allen and Hal Jordan, to literally kick the crap out of the two afforementioned heroes.

My only real complaint for the issue is that if they they made J'onn Jonzz so awesome here. It's the first time really I've seen him used to his maximum potential and it's literally scary seeing how powerful he is. J'onn even comments on how no one ever remembers that he's as powerful as Superman. It was just amazing seeing how J'onn goes from calmly talking to Barry and Hal to mentally assaulting them, both telepathically and verbally through his sinister use of his psychological use of their past histories together, to dropping buildings on people, shapeshifting and going invisible and the list goes on and on. If I had known he would be this awesome as a villain, I would have been calling for his death long ago.

However, while the issue's action sequences are excellent, especially as rendered by Mahnke, the issue does read ridiculously fast, probably due to the extended "rebirth" of J'onn as a Black Lantern over the first several, textless pages of the issue. Also, there's actually no conclusion to this issue. The fight is going on, there's a great scene where J'onn makes Flash see Hal as himself and then it just cuts away to a brief page on John Stewert at the remains of the planet Xanshi before ending the issue, telling us to check out Blackest Night for more on the Martian Manhunter fight.

While I understand the reasoning behind moving the conclusion to the fight over there and did thoroughly enjoy the fight here, the issue just reads so fast with all the action and there's no actual conclusion or progression of any Blackest Night plot threads. The War of Light, which has been teased forever and has only been shown in a handful of panels, was completely absent here, again only being shown in a few teaser panels.

Verdict - Must Read. While it may sound like I'm complaining a great deal about the issue, I did love this issue and what was given to me. I just wanted others to know what they are getting when they read it as there is a sudden cut off to the fight and a "go read something else for the rest" feeling to the ending. To me, I'm buying everything Blackest Night related and have no problem with this, but others may feel cheated by it. To me, though, a must read issue.

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