Posted in: Comics, DC Comics, Review | Tagged: dc comics, green lantern, Green Lanterns, hi fi, jessica cruz, justice league, Ronan Cliquet, sci-fi, simon baz, singularity jain, superheroes, tim seeley

Green Lanterns #44 Advance Review: An Interesting if Slightly Troubled Dive into Jessica Cruz

We open on Jessica Cruz in a therapy session that focuses upon the murder of her friends on that fated hunting trip years ago. It ends poorly and with Jessica in a rage. She meets up with Simon Baz, who informs her that Singularity Jain has been located on a world of liberated machines. However, this villain is known to be a master manipulator, and this will certainly be no simple arrest.

Green Lanterns #44 gives me some mixed feelings. I can certainly say that it is ultimately a good comic and even better than some of the most recent issues in the series, but it does have its flaws.

It succeeds strongly in diving back into the characters of our titular Green Lanterns, focusing on their baggage and weak points. The main thrust handles Jessica's anxiety, PTSD, and trauma, and even a foe on the liberated robot planet has a tragic situation not to dissimilar from Simon's past. You do have to swallow that this one robot guy just so happens to have the same baggage as Simon, but that's not too big a pill.

The problems mostly stem from Jessica's plot. For example, the opening in the therapy session oddly goes from zero to 60 when Jesse flips out on her therapist. She interprets a statement to mean something it clearly didn't. If it was trying to convey how fragile Jessica is on this subject still, it didn't do a good job of it.

Also, there's a twist at the very end that is very hard to swallow, and it relies on being able to believe that Jessica Cruz is both selfish and gullible in a way that we've never seen. Again, I get that the book wants to highlight her baggage, but it just doesn't quite click.

That said, the plot does work more than it doesn't. These two points do distract, but not so much that you can't enjoy the rest of the comic. Singularity Jain is an interesting villain. The scenes on the robot world mostly work very well.

Ronan Cliquet's artwork is great. As is often the case, he does justice to our beloved Green Lanterns, giving them a lot of expression and awesome-looking costumes. The world is highly detailed and has a lot of depth. The aforementioned robot character has a great design. Hi-Fi's color art is as strong as ever.

Green Lanterns #44 has its flaws, but it does deliver an interesting and personal tale for Jess and Simon. It's also significantly better than most of 'Superhuman Trafficking', so my fears that this book might be on a downwards spiral are put to rest. Plus, Cliquet and Hi-Fi put in some great work on the art section. This one gets a recommendation. Check it out.

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