Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #45 // Review
Robert Venditti, and legendary Green Lantern artist Ethan Van Sciver continue the Corps Member’s’ hunt for friends in low places in hopes of taking down the Darkstars once and for all. While keeping the focus on Hal, John and Guy for this issue, it allows for some great character interactions and a tighter woven narrative. As the epic finale to Venditti's Green Lantern run wages on, the Green Lantern Corps must do whatever they can in order to stop this rogue police squadron.
Each of the three main Earth Lantern members have set out on missions of their own in search of allies within past foes. John Stewart is successful in bringing General Zod into the fray, meanwhile Guy Gardner is met head on by the Darkstars while recruiting Sinestro Corps member, Arkillo. Hal Jordan enlists the aid of long time archenemy, Hector Hammond after a bout with Atomic Skull. As events begin to ratchet forward, The Corps must race to build the army necessary to aid them in this upcoming war.
Coming off as rushed pencil work yet again on the part of Ethan Van Sciver, this issue of the series is hindered by shortcuts in favor of page count. The overuse of silhouetted figures is one trick that is used on multiple occasions throughout this issue, at times completely taking away the weight of the scene. While the character designs are immaculate as ever, it is the background that suffers being completely ignored at times by EVS. The abundance of negative space in a vast number of pages along with the use of larger images to take up page space are tell tale signs of corner cutting and out right rushing the product. The lack of detail on backgrounds and the use of shadows to abscond from detail all take away from this chapter. The complete lack of detail in the backgrounds and heavy corner cutting are what truly hurt this issue in a more profound manner. Jason Wright is left to pick up the slack of Van Sciver with his masterclass color works, bringing life to the scenes EVS had given up on.
While the pencil work of EVS left much to be desired, Venditti’s character interactions and complete understanding of the Corps Members are what truly sell this series. With only a few issues left until the grand finale on this arch and run as a whole, events will come to a head as all out war will be waged.
