First, let me get out in front of this one. I did not enjoy this story, whatsoever. The only saving grace was Jerry Ordway’s
inks over Jamal Igle’s pencils.
Beautiful. Other than that, this
was a bad comic. In my opinion.
The caveats:
- This story is seven
years old (in comic book terms that can be a lifetime), and I was already aware
of many of the revelations in this narrative.
- There’s a good chance
this may have read better in monthly installments. There’s a magic that can occur with comic
narratives, those done well, when the readers has weeks to stew and ponder over
what they just read. Similar, in a way,
to serialized television – the format can dictate creative choices that will
enhance the experience for the audience.
Given these above points, it is possible that the
proclamations of this storyline’s greatness were not overstated, at the
time. [though, I’m more inclined to
believe it was more hyperbole than genuinely good storytelling] Geoff Johns & co. were certainly shaking
up the status quo without treading on the history of the Green Lanterns, and
they even managed to weave many facets of that history, and DC history in
general, into this new age for the corps.
I remember how crazy the response to the Anti-Monitor’s
return seemed to be on the internet and within the comic-reading community, but
within the context of this narrative – standing alone as it does now in
collected form – that felt so lackluster.
Yes, it’s the Anti-Monitor, the big bad we remember from the Crisis –
THE CRISIS, not the echoes that followed years later – but he feels so
insignificant in the way he’s utilized within this story. He just stands around, for the most part,
looking tall. It never felt, to me, like
he was spurring this great cosmic war with the Guardians and their corps.
But, again, this could be the result of my being spoiled on
his return. Which isn’t an absolution of
the creators and the story. Now this may be unfair, but let’s look
at a different example of a comic story that drastically changed the status quo
for the main characters – Swamp Thing #21, by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette,
& John Totleben. This is where Moore
made his stamp on the character, “revealing” that the Swamp Thing wasn’t Alec
Holland transformed into a muck monster, but actually the consciousness of
Holland that had animated the muck to form a body with which he could
relate. The impetus for the character to
this point had been his desire to find a way to change back to a human. That was thrown out with this second issue of
Moore’s run, and the character would never be the same.
Now, in both of these stories, the status quo is shaken up
(the introduction of a second lantern corps, the rewriting of GL law to allow
deadly force, the reintroduction of the Anti-Monitor vs. a wholly new take on a
character and its motivation), and I have read each of these stories after a
point where I knew of the “big change(s)” within the mythos. With Sinestro Corps War, though there are
specific plot points toward which Johns, et al. are moving, it mainly feels
like they’re just spinning their wheels for the most part, as little really
occurs other than a lot of fighting between Green and Yellow Lanterns, over the
course of ten-plus chapters. And even
those main plot points feel diminished somehow.
(it could be the fact that, due to the frantic nature of
many “mainstream/action” comics today, the characters are never afforded a
chance to stop or slow down. And without
those quiet moments of reflection, there is no ebb and flow to the action or the
narrative throughline, losing the core of what can make for a good story)
It’s one long fight scene, basically, through multiple
issues of this story, and any character moments or nuance gets lost in the
clutter.
Then there’s Swamp Thing #21. Moore imbues his story with heart. It’s a story of horrible sadness – the realization
that the thing you wanted so much to return to is now beyond your grasp and
was, in fact, never possible. We have
all experienced the desire to get back what we once had, whether an old
girlfriend or boyfriend, our childhood innocence, something material or
spiritual; it’s something to which we can relate, quite easily. It is this core that makes this tale so
affecting and so effective. Despite this
character being covered in weeds and tubers and muck and moss, readers
understand him, feel empathy for him, and are moved by this story, told in a
single comic. No small feat, that.
It seems like, as is often the case, the lessons gleaned
from previous works held up as exemplary are the wrong ones. It feels, in Sinestro Corps War, like the
main point of the story was to move toward these big “reveals.” Anti-Monitor.
Sinestro Corps. Green Lanterns
being allowed to use deadly force. These
facets seem to be the driving force behind the narrative, and one could argue
that the big “reveal” that the Swamp Thing is not Alec Holland but a husk of
plant material pretending to be Holland was the main impetus of issue #21 of
Swamp Thing. And though that might be
what many people remember, that is not what has made that issue, and that run
by Moore and his artistic collaborators, the high water mark to which people
return for multiple readings. Moore did
not rely on the twist ending to hold that story together. He filled it with emotion and humanity and
terror – so ably abetted by Bissette and Totleben, without whom I don’t think
this story could have worked as well – and hinged his story onto some very true
feelings that resonate with readers.
Swamp Thing #21 has a cool twist at the end, but it stands
up as a well-told story because the twist wasn’t the prime motivator for the
authors. Sinestro Corps War has multiple
cool twists, one could argue, but once you wash those away, you’re left with a
lifeless husk of a narrative, similar to what was left of the Anti-Monitor the
last time anyone had seen him prior to this storyline.
-chris
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