REVIEW: Green Lantern #63

I don’t normally read DC’s Green Lantern title, but I should. Throughout Blackest Night and Brightest Day, it consistently seems like Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern series has been where the stories I’m most interested in are unfolding. Couple that with the fact that this book is ultimately the source for those event titles and there’s no reason not to pick it up.

Issue #63 is billed as a prologue to the War of the Green Lanterns crossover that begins tomorrow in Green Lantern #64 and continues into Green Lantern Corps #58 which should be sitting right next to it on the new release shelf. The real upside to this story is that it’s a true crossover rather than a miniseries with a host of spinoffs.

The story of the prologue begins one billion years ago (which initially struck me as silly) and details the rift between Krona and the Guardians of the Universe over the nature of emotions and life. Krona initially comes off as a sympathetic character and without knowing all the details of his and the Guardians’ past it’s hard to tell if either side was right or wrong. Their actions all of those years ago are having a direct impact in the present as Hal Jordan and his coalition of light have been trying to stop Krona from capturing the entities associated with their respective parts of the emotional/color spectrum. As this is going down, Jordan’s mental state seems to be deteriorating and he’s having hallucinations about the Justice League and his Green Ring.

The book really does a great job of setting up the story to come in War of the Green Lanterns and serves as a nice primer to Krona and his history. Much like the Black Hand’s story in Green Lantern #43 that set up Blackest Night, this issue gets you right on board with who the antagonist is and where things are headed. Although there are still mysteries to be addressed in the issues to come, the most prominent being the Book of the Black.

The art team of Ed Benes, Adrian Syaf, Rob Hunter, Vicente Cifuentes, Randy Mayor and Steve Wands have put together a superb looking book and I can only hope the artists on Green Lantern Corps and Emerald Warriors will be bringing something as pleasing to the eye. This looks like it’s going to be exactly what I’ve been looking for from this part of the DC Universe for a while now.

The issue did leave me with two questions: Why is Krona so much taller than the other Guardians and why wasn’t I reading this book instead of Brightest Day?

Follow all of our War of the Green Lanterns posts:
Green Lantern #63 (War of the Green Lanterns Part One)