Comic: "Sinestro Corps War"
Published by: DC Comics
Written by: Geoff Johns, Dave Gibbons, others
Artist: Ethan van Sciver, Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason

Reviewer: Protoclown
Posted: 1/23/2008

Plot: A bunch of spandex-wearing guys with green decoder rings from cereal boxes fight a bunch of spandex-wearing guys with yellow decoder rings from cereal boxes in the cold reaches of space, the epic tale of which keeps thousands of comic geeks from getting laid. (Running through Green Lantern vol. 4 #21-25 and Green Lantern Corps vol. 2 #14-19).

Review: I'm by no means a dyed-in-the-wool Green Lantern fan, but I've been known to dabble here and there if a story catches my eye. I'd seen so many people online raving about this "Sinestro Corps War" story that I decided to check it out for myself, and I'm glad I did, because it was one of the better comic "events" I've read in some time. Perhaps that's because it wasn't hyped up to a ridiculous degree like most major comic events these days, which of course, almost inevitably leads to disappointment. And perhaps because of that lack of buildup, editorial didn't get their hands involved too deeply, allowing Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons more control over where to take the story.

The basic premise of the story goes like this: Sinestro stops being totally gay for a moment and stumbles upon the rather obvious idea of putting together an evil army, a "Green Lantern Corps" of his own, if you will. Only they're a Yellow Lantern Corps because yellow is his color, and they're called the "Sinestro Corps" because he's an egomaniacal bitch. With a legion of troops at his disposal, Sinestro decides to give the Green Lanterns "what for" and send them crying home to mama by killing them all and destroying the Corps.

If that sounds like a rather simple premise, well, it is. But that doesn't mean it can't be entertaining. Somehow I found myself interested in following the adventures of no-name alien Green Lanterns I'd never even heard of, not so much because the characters were particularly compelling, but more because watching their participation in the massive battle scenes was fun, and seeing some major villains from past "Crises" show up made the event feel truly epic in scope. Wisely, the writing team behind this crossover kept the main focus of events, the "spine" of the story involving the most popular characters like Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner, focused in the more widely read Green Lantern title, while relegating unnecessary but still useful supplemental material to the Green Lantern Corps book. This way you could follow the story and still understand what was going on without spending a fortune picking up every single tie-in book.

There were some things that were rather stupid, however, like how at the end two of the Guardians of the Galaxy (that's little blue midgets to you) warn of a horrible prophecy that will come to pass involving other "Color Ring" Corps and then go off and decide "Hey, let's start our own Color Ring Corps!", apparently forgetting the prophecy foretold mere pages earlier. The resolution of the battle seems a bit rushed after so much buildup, the viral attack on Guy Gardner is an irrelevant waste of time, and the epilogue teaser for the next chapter in big Green Lantern events hints that DC is about to delve into "zombie" territory that Marvel (not to mention a slew of indie publishers) has already milked dry in the past couple years, so I don't know why DC feels compelled to give us more of the same when many of us are already sick of it.

Still though, despite its flaws, I'll take a surprisingly well managed "sleeper hit" crossover like this than a bloated overhyped bore like "World War Hulk" any day.

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)