Green Lantern Corps #5

Green Lantern Corps brutality!

First off, let me apologize to Guy Gardner for criticizing his Custer remark a few issues ago. Since the Green Lantern Corps is being attacked by a group of aliens out to get revenge because the Green Lantern Corps devastated their homeworld and destroyed their resources, the analogy is a little more fitting. The Green Lantern Corps are the bad guys!

I really like the idea that the Green Lanterns were using a resource (the wormhole) without any real interest in where it came from or how it existed or if anybody was being affected by what they were doing. It was just a mystery and they, all 7200+ of them, just shrugged their shoulders and got on with their jobs. Some Americans and other so-called 'First Worlders' might start to feel lectured by the book or possibly slightly offended. But it's such an important idea that most people don't give a shit about. Gas. Technology. Clothing. Food. In this country, we have the luxury to care about where these things come from and how they affect other people. Our consumption doesn't occur in a vacuum. And yeah, I'm also being preachy about it. But I think as individuals, we would get less screwed by corporate and political powers if we lived by our ethics instead of being driven by our desires.

I guess people have to have a code of ethics for that to work! Like the Green Lanterns code of ethics to let no evil escape their light! Even accidental evil? Committed by themselves? Hey, aren't the Guardians doing some kind of evil as well? Don't they always escape the Green Lantern's light?

I also have questions about what's going on with the Guardians across three books! They're fighting with Kyle Raynor and the other Ring Bearers (not Frodo). They're also planning on creating a new Intergalactic Police Force. And what are they doing in this comic? I think they've been sequestered away for the most part. I don't remember that part as much. I should probably start reading the stupid comic book already.

New recruits are trained on Oa by Kilowog. Or do they take turns training new recruits because one sector would have one less Green Lantern all of the time if Kilowog stayed on Oa. Or maybe Kilowog is a special Green Lantern that remains on Oa and trains. Which explains why he was in the Justice League for awhile perhaps while Oa was not being used like it does at times.

Guy asks Kilowog for a list of the toughest Green Lanterns in the corp. It turns out there is a group called "The Mean Machine" (why just rhyme with Green but leave the Green out? Oh it's so subtle!). Gardner thought they were all dead but they apparently just hang out in a hidden bar beneath Guy Gardner's bar, Warriors. Why does Gardner want a job as a little league coach when he can be a cool bartender at his own bar?

This woman brings up a lot of uncomfortable questions.

Guy is greeted at the bar by a woman made out of Green Lantern light. How does this woman remain in existence? Can Green Lantern's create objects with their own free will? I didn't think they could because of the way everyone seems to be confused how the Orange Lantern can create his own autonomous Orange Lantern Corps with his Ring of Greedy Light. But I guess they can create objects of permanence if they have sufficient willpower. Like how Sinestro has now made an actual Green Lantern ring for Hal Jordan.

So Guy looks around and finds that he indeed has people living underneath his bar.

Of course they all have names that refer to Earth's action movie stars. Except for Aloo. Except I'm probably just not getting the reference.

Guy Gardner recruits these guys by telling them that he needs a bunch of Green Lanterns that don't care if they live or die, just that the mission gets done and a lot of asses get kicked. They jump at the chance. Actually, they get up slowly from their sitting positions as their limbs pop and their metal legs catch fire. They're all old, see?

I think having the willpower not to use the ring makes you a good Ring Bearer but a bad Green Lantern.

Guy introduces the Mean Machine to the rest of the Green Lantern Corps that will be going on the mission to defeat the Keepers. It comes with the usual bucking for position and in-fighting. But Gardner keeps them all in check long enough for Martian Manhunter to give them all of the information they need. Before wiping out the memory that they got the information from him!

Martian Manhunter explains everything that I already deduced. The Guardians put the batteries on a planet. The people of the planet were barely subsisting. The Guardians built a world for them and the batteries made the world flourish, providing food and infusing the people with a willpower that could only be born of the Green Lantern's light. When the Oans suddenly returned a short time ago to remove the batteries from the world, the world began to die. And the Keepers needed to figure out a way to keep their world from dying. Also, it seems they wanted a little revenge on the Green Lantern Corps while doing so.

The Green Lantern Corps should just dump all of the Oans on the Keeper's planet and be done with the whole problem.

See! America should do this as well! If terrorists attack, just drop our leaders in the various countries our government has screwed.

Guy Gardner and his group determine that the one advantage they have over the Keepers is the Green Lantern's ability to overcome great fear. One of the Mean Machine suggests they need "a fear bomb and a lot of guns." Guy Gardner takes the fear bomb idea literally.

What are the odds the two Sinestro Corps members in the GLC prison are called Fat Man and Little Boy?!

Instead of letting the fear bomb and the Lanterns name speak for themselves, Tomasi continues to bash the hydrogen bomb metaphor over our heads with the need for a bomber ("interceptor") to drop the "special payload" of these aliens whose unique "physiology could literally wipe out an entire city". I'm not sure if the "taking them for a milkshake" line was an exact quote from World War II but it's possible!

"J'onzz who? What interrogation report? What Stormwatch? Oreos?"

Guy Gardner and his team load the Yellow Lanterns into a ship and head out to fight an entire planet of Keepers in order to save John Stewart and the rest of the universe. And after securing the first part of the plan, the Green Lanterns raid a pirate ship to get their hands on the second part of the plan.

Who knew Guy would take the plan so literally?

This issue was just setting the plan in motion to free John Stewart. And it did it well. It moved the story along without feeling rushed and it filled in as much as it needed to. The only problem was the cover shows Guy bashing in the face of a Keeper and he didn't meet one in the entire comic! Stupid lying comic book covers! Again!

Green Lantern Corps move up the rankings one rung.