Green Lantern Corps has always been the secondary title for the Green Lantern series and Peter Tomasi has written a bulk of it. GLC mainly focuses upon the other Earth lanterns and side stories of the corps. Its current focus is on John Stewart and Guy Gardner and Tomasi is a choice candidate for a reboot of Guy’s origin. It tells two main stories, his relationship with his father and family intertwined with his first true lantern mission. As a background it is worth noting that Guy is a douchebag. He has always been loud, obnoxious, cocky, and reckless but most importantly his short fuse and predilection to violence makes him angry and unpredictable. He is generally disliked by all but this book shows why he may just be the truest and most interesting lantern.
Tomasi writes an interesting tale, balancing two corresponding stories well. Guy is a disgrace to his father because he was kicked out of the Baltimore police for the loss of innocent lives. Guy maintains his innocence but I genuinely believe it probably was his fault. Guy’s shame and anger is reflected through his fight with his father and is written with passion. Tomasi writes the dialogue sequences well, adding humour to the first meeting between Guy and Hal, and then lets the artist do their job for the action. I am not familiar with Fernando Pasarin’s work, but his work on this book is good in two important ways. Guy is an emotional character and his facial expressions always need to be vivid. This is portrayed excellently especially with his smugness, cheekiness, shame and singularly for Guy’s most essential feature, anger. Guy’s rescue sequence is brilliantly portrayed with convincing action as the sound effects and bullet-firing art is very dynamic. Guy’s capability and determination really shines though in this book.
This book successfully delivers Guy’s character to the reader. He is always trying to prove himself whether it was when he was the star college football player, a Baltimore cop living up to his father’s legacy or the support Green Lantern to Hal Jordan. He was never as good as he thought he was and injury and recklessness cost him his sporting career and his job. He continues with a macho bravado and cockiness but this is clearly a charade as he buries his emotions deeply. This is very apparent over the last couple of years in the Green Lantern arcs with his friendships with Kyle and John and his love of Ice. He has mass quantities of loyalty, dedication and love to give. This book covers all of these character traits, especially his passion for his family, shame of his past and his determination to be a hero. Overcoming adversity and previous transgressions gives meaning to Guy’s will, which is why he was chosen as a Green Lantern and why he is my favourite lantern.
Guy is my GL 9/10
House Of Flying Scalpels 