New Guardians #10

Blue on Blue Crime.

The cover shows the Central Blue Battery crumbling just as the Central Red Battery has dissolved. The Yellow Battery is buried on Oa and the Indigo Battery Fountain is on the blink. I don't know if there is an Orange one since there is just a single Orange Lantern and his small Battery. That leaves the Green Lantern Battery and the Star Sapphire Battery. I'm guessing that the Red Lanterns are going to shit all over the Violet Central Battery, leaving just the Green Central Battery active. And then the Oans are probably going to shut that motherfucker down and debut their new army. Hopefully something will happen that will allow all of the Lanterns to do away with the need to recharge their stupid rings since they might as well be continually at full capacity until the writer needs them to run out of juice. I'd like to see DC move away from that plot contrivance and allow the Lanterns to always be powered up.

Yeah, good idea, Kyle. Tell the Lanterns that thrive on hope that their situation is nearly hopeless.

Fatality and Arkillo (dragging along The Weaponer of Qward) soon appear and they all take the fight to the planet's surface where the Blue Lanterns are hoping and praying and getting slaughtered.

The Blue Lanterns' main attack is to heal the Reach victims so that they shed the Blue Beetle Armor but no one of them can accomplish this healing while they're under attack by so many other Blue Beetles. So Saint Walker comes up with a plan! Combine their ringy-dings!

Really? All the fucking things are possible? All of them? What if I were to believe my fist was a vagina? Would that...woah. WOAH. BRB

This belief thing nearly works but I guess they just didn't believe hard enough. They entrapped many of the Beetles in the healing light, including Khaji-Kai. But one of those not trapped commanded the warships above to blast the area. This caused the Blue Lanterns link to be severed and the healing light to dissipate. But it has had one positive affect: Khaji-Kai has hope he can be free of the Reach's influence! He realized what the light was doing and now craves its help for himself and his fellow Blue Beetles.

The most feared warcry in all the universe.

Some other acceptable variants: "All will be smelled!", "All will be gel!", "All will be Taco Bell!"

As the fight rages on around him, the Weaponer of Qward takes an interest in the Blue Power Battery. Perhaps he'll be the one to free all of the Lanterns from the need of a central battery?

Once Green Lantern arrives planet-side, the Blue Lanterns' rings become charged with Willpower. I think that makes them deadly weapons or something. It unlocks Attack Beam Power and Construct Power! Now the Blue Lanterns are like Green Lanterns but without any Fear thrown in. Is that how it works? Are Green Lanterns composed of Hope and Fear? And Orange Lanterns composed of Rage and Fear? And Violet Lanterns composed of Hope and Rage? I don't think Lantern colors mix the same way colors mix on the color wheel since light is, like, different or something.

Even though the battle against the Blue Beetles turns in the Blue Lanterns' favor, the planet is already over halfway consumed by the Reach's web-spinner things. The planet is lost. But I guess Blue Lanterns can't retreat or surrender since that means they've given up hope which would mean they'd all lose their rings and die. But Kyle Raynor tricks Saint Walker into thinking of retreat differently so they don't fucking kill themselves.

Oh, okay! You've convinced me to not get myself killed!

Everyone retreats from Odym while the Blue Beetles cocoon it and destroy the Blue Central Battery. Well, it isn't destroyed yet. But those Blue Lanterns better find a nice safe planet to tuck into before the power in their rings runs out and they die floating in space. Meanwhile, Saint Walker thinks it's time to bring the fight to Larfleeze whom he blames for this entire mess. Since the Rainbow Lantern Corps is supposed to be fighting Larfleeze so that Invictus doesn't destroy an entire solar system, it's probably a good thing they're finally getting around to that. But my guess is that they'll find Larfleeze has been manipulated just as badly as everyone else. And it's about time the Guardians of Oa show their hand and release their stupid 3rd Army!

New Guardians #10 Rating: No change. I need to stop defending a rating of "No Change" by saying how good the comic is but it just wasn't special enough. What I need to do is stop giving out +1s to every comic I enjoy. I enjoyed this comic. But no change is where they should stay unless they show something extraordinary. And they should only drop a rank if they really fucking do something stupid or seriously disrespect their audience. As it stands, this is one of my favorite "comic book" comics in The New 52. It's everything I would have asked for in a comic back when I first began reading them. Adventure and action and a good plot that keeps marching on every issue. Although maybe I didn't care so much about plot when I first began reading comics!