Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #1

Review by Paul Steven Brown

“Last Will”

Writer: Peter J. Tomasi
Art: Fernando Pasarin w/ Cam Smith
Colorist: Randy Mayor
Letterer: Steve Wands
Published by DC Comics

For the past four years, I had really enjoyed Green Lantern and its sister title Green Lantern Corps. The former was the Hal Jordan solo book while Corps focused on the wider galactic politics with a cast focusing mainly on Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner (with great support characters like Soranik Natu and Kilowog). Unfortunately, Blackest Night stretched my appreciation of the Green Lantern concept to its limit. The event was about three months too long and I began to burn out on the ringslingers.

Now a third ongoing title, Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors hit the stands just this week. Do we really need another GL book? Granted, this one is written by Peter Tomasi, who did a great job on Corps for the last couple of years, but this feels a bit too much like DC Comics milking as much out of the Lantern concept due to the success of Blackest Night. There’s also the anticipation of the Green Lantern feature film on the horizon, too, which is surely part of this push.

Guy Gardner in a rare introspective moment in Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors.

Art by Fernando Pasarin w/ Cam Smith

However, Emerald Warriors is basically "GLC: Book Two". While GLC is now written by Tony Bedard and continues to star Kyle Rayner with the addition of John Stewart, Warriors is basically the Guy Gardner solo book. Luckily, Tomasi can write a good Guy and the art by Fernado Pasarin is very solid. I miss GLC art vertern Patrick Gleason working with Tomasi, but the duo will be teaming up again in the future when they take over Batman and Robin from Grant Morrison.

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors is a good cosmic superhero comic book. If you enjoyed Tomasi’s work on GLC, then you will certainly like this book, too. The central concept appears to be Guy bringing the Oan law to the Unknown Sectors of space. Plus, there’s a subplot involving former Guardian and new Lantern, Ganthet and Red Lantern Atrocitus forming a pact with Guy. We even get to some follow up on a certain lost Latern from Daxam.

Now that's more like it. Guy Gardner brings the green arm of the law down on some interstellar perps in Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors.

Art by Fernando Pasarin w/ Cam Smith

If I hadn’t suffered from Green Lantern fatigue, I would probably be ecstatic about this third book. This does allow more room for Guy, Kyle, and finally now John to get more panel time. These three, plus Hal, have developed into very distinct personalities and each has garnered devoted fan bases. My complaints are mainly financial and I don’t have any issues of the quality of the GL:EW. The quality of Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors is high, but more green on the stands means less green in my wallet.