Green Lantern #13

The Rise of the Borg Lanterns

I just typed that caption and I keep rereading it as The Rise of the Bong Lanterns. I've got a feeling that comic would be a pretty big hit with a very specific demographic. Hell, they probably already read this comic simply because it has "green" in the title. I bet at least 25 thousand bongs in America are named "Green Lantern."

Previously in Green Lantern and other comic books featuring Green Lantern, Hal Jordan quit the Justice League, Guy Gardner's ditched Justice League International, John Stewart was on the run, and Kyle Raynor was hanging out with Carol Ferris looking for Hal Jordan who, along with quitting the Justice League, disappeared into a black void with Sinestro. Amanda Waller and Barack Obama are having a meeting to discuss what they're going to do about the new Green Lantern, Simon Baz. He's suspected of terrorist acts and Obama wants Waller to notify the Justice League. But why the fuck tell Amanda Waller to notify the Justice League? Get on the fucking phone with Steve Trevor. Why the hell is Amanda Waller even speaking with the president? Is she the head of the Department of Defense? I thought she just ran her little secret group down in Belle Reve. Is she just trying to get permission to whack this new Green Lantern? Because that's really all her team does.

Simon Baz wakes up on a beach in Miami after having been busted out by the Green Lantern ring. The ring tries to give him the message from its last bearer but since the ring is essentially two rings merged into one, it can only give the two messages in a mixed up mangled form while continuing to say, "ERROR. ERROR." The gist of the message is to not trust the Guardians. Finally! A Green Lantern that gets the most important message of all right from the start!

Hey! Guess which comic book I'm not a big fan of? I've gone over multiple reasons why I don't like this not really Rebooted version of Green Lantern. At times, Geoff Johns can write some really funny or emotional moments. But he also has a way of letting six or seven pages in a row just kind of drift by without anything really happening. A comic book isn't like a television series or a movie where you can let certain scenes really develop slowly. A comic book has a mere twenty pages each month. If it takes Aquaman eight pages to swim around as the credits are slowly given or Green Lantern four pages to realize he's in Miami and then get to Dearborn, then that's a huge chunk of the comic book wasted for the reader. And if Johns is writing for the trade paperback, then fuck him. I'm not reading the fucking trade paperback. I'm reading the monthly and giving you the numbers to continue telling your Goddamned monthly story. Now give me a good chunk of fucking story already! I'm not eleven pages into the comic and I've had two pages of Waller and the president recap shit, two pages of Simon Baz remembering he's now Green Lantern, four pages of Green Lantern flying from Miami to Dearborn (one page with military guys discussing that he's been spotted), and three pages of Simon's sister having a tough time at work. If her treatment at work wasn't so unbelievable (granted, I have no experience living in a racist, backwards community), the scenes at her job would be the best part of the comic so far.

Man. I hate when I start reviewing this bullshit instead of dropping stupid comments on the action as I read.

"We're going to put you on unpaid leave because your brother was suspected of terrorism and we're just a bunch of scared, racist assholes. You understand, right?"

Sira goes outside to cry in an alley where she encounters her brother who is now all Green Lanterned out.

By the way, I seem to have gotten some facts wrong. Sira's husband Nazir isn't actually dead.

To be fair, they were saying things like "wasn't so lucky" and "now that he's gone" and shit indicating he was dead. I have a feeling he was going to be dead but then Johns thought up some grand plan for him and chose to make him brain dead.

Simon asks Sira for her help in figuring out who put the bomb on the van. She agrees to meet him later in one of their secret childhood hangouts. But after he leaves, she pulls out her cell phone, so she might be setting him up. For his own good, of course!

Meanwhile, the Borg Lanterns are creating more of their Third Army.

Finally a page that isn't just two people speaking with at other!

Page 1-2: Amanda Waller and Barack Obama.
Page 3-5: Simon Baz and the Green Lantern Ring.
Page 6: Two Miami Police Officers.
Page 7: Two Federal Agents.
Page 8-9: Sira and her father.
Page 10: Sira receiving dirty looks from everyone.
Page 11: Sira and her manager.
Page 12-14: Sira and Simon.
Page 15: Truck driver and hitchhiker.
Page 16: The panel I just scanned where the Hitchhiker and the Truck Driver are assimilated.

That might look like a lot of story must have been developing with all of those conversations going on, but I assure you there wasn't much plot movement. It might as well have been Aquaman fighting a shark for six pages.

Oh shit. The last word that the Third Army guys are speaking that begins the page after the above page I scanned? "Assimilate." Johns must have figured everyone would be calling these idiots the Borg Lanterns anyway.

The last few pages deal with Simon masking himself to become the figure on the cover of the book. And then going to meet his sister at their secret spot. Except she doesn't appear. Instead, he gets sucker punched in the face. If there were any reason for it at all, I'd guess that Supergirl had met him on the roof. But, of course, it's not her.

Oh, it's these assholes. Way to greet a brother, jerks.

Green Lantern #13 Rating: -1 Ranking. It feels like Geoff Johns wanted to Reboot Green Lantern and now his is how he's doing it. But he felt he needed more of a story to bridge the Preboot Green Lantern and the Reboot Green Lantern before he jumped into this story line. Nice that he had that option, right? As opposed to everyone else that just had to start over. But now I feel like this comic needs to get moving because it's twelve issues behind all of the rest!

And how about that Rise of the Third Army plot so far, hunh? Really making you feel like getting the next chapter of the story, right?!