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Wednesday Comics Review: Green Lantern 62 and Amazing Spider-Man 654.1

Did you like Blackest Night? Lots of people fighting with rings against rings? Technicolour everywhere and enough lens flare to satisfy even JJ Abrams? Then you are going to love the new Green Lantern by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke.

Wednesday Comics Review: Green Lantern 62 and Amazing Spider-Man 654.1

And he's fighting Yoda. Or a bad Yoda. ""What if Yoda was a clint". And that is so what they are going for here, a billion-year old Oan whose body has shrivelled and atrophied. And exposing rifts within the Guardians, the Lanterns and even the JLA themselves who get a complete brush off here, as just not getting it. One double splash page, three full splash pages, a number of almost splash pages, this comic is about getting over scale juxtaposed with the tiny size of the opponent.

There is some clunky dialogue – does Hal need to qualify the people being cleared as "innocent" when barking an order. What about the slightly tainted people, do they deserve to get fried? And the line about being "Good Guys" is meant to be inspiringly self-aware, but comes over as trite and meaningless, even when it gets flipped later in the issue. But this comic really isn't about the small moments, the quick quips or the tiny details but about spectacle. And of that it delivers in will-formed spades.

Amazing Spider-Man delivers none of what it promises however. The Point One issues are meant to be an introduction to the series for new readers, but Amazing Spider-Man 654.1 is an introduction to the new Venom. Spider-Man, even just as Peter Parker, is hardly in it. It's solely about Flash Thompson, militarily assigned as a Venom operative carrying out his mission and trying to keep it together when the nastier sides of Venom rears its very ugly head indeed.

Wednesday Comics Review: Green Lantern 62 and Amazing Spider-Man 654.1

So once you realised you've been tricked into getting a very different comic indeed, how does it do? Well I'm always a sucker for Humberto Ramos' art, and his new, slightly sketchier approach does seem to suit the morphing Venom well. We explore some of the military uses for Venom tech and then drop Flash right in the middle of it, Bond style. And all the touches are there, the high class drinks event, the sneaking around criminal bases disguised, the tricks and traps to be both avoided and triggered, the beautiful woman, the variety of means employed to make your way out and protect your quarry – though in this case, it's a fashion that even Bond might have found hard to stomach.

But, you know, I wanted a Spider-Man comic. And I didn't get it. Boo hoo me. Mind you,  there is the glimpse of Spider-Man Future Yet To Come

Comics courtesy of Orbital Comics in London. Paul Cornell and Paul Rainey will be signing and holding a panel discussion there on Saturday…

Wednesday Comics Review: Green Lantern 62 and Amazing Spider-Man 654.1


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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