GREEN LANTERN CORPS: SINS OF THE STAR SAPPHIRE (DC)
Written by Peter J. Tomasi, drawn by Patrick Gleason & Luke Ross
Collects Green Lantern Corps #27-32
So after the Sinestro Corps War and Ring Quest, the Green Lantern Corps finds themselves at odds with even more Sinestro Corps members like Quintet and Kryb, but also on a mission to discover even more about the Star Sapphires who we hadn’t really seen much of since Green Lantern: Wanted. We start off by seeing the new Warrior’s bar and grill on Oa and also meet Green Lantern Saarek who can talk to the dead. Good thing he popped up because some ugly looking Sinestro Corps member has been killing the family members of GL rookies and sent their eyes to Oa. While that killer, actually a set of five brothers and sisters going by the Quintet, is being hunted down, Ice, Guy’s ex who is now back from the dead, hitched a ride to Oa and Scar asks Saarek to search for the Anti-Monitor’s corpse. She also asked Ash to do this over in the “Alpha Lanterns” story, though he’s not mentioned at all in this book. I believe they later show up working on it together.

Anyway, the rest of this trade deals with Mongul on his way to Daxam while inadvertently creating a new Red Lantern, Ice telling guy she wants some time on earth to rediscover herself, a group of GLs including Kyle and Saranik hunting down the baby stealing Sinestro Corps member Kryb and Yat, Arisia and Guy accompanying a few of the Guardians–including Scar–on a trip to Zamaron where the Zamarons basically tell the Guardians that they’re not going to back down in their attempt to bring and foster love in the universe. The third new law of the Book of Oa also goes out saying that love between GLs is forbidden, which, again, is strange timing because it turns out that, according to that newly minted Star Sapphire’s gem, that Kyle and Soranik are bound to fall in love.

The Kryb stuff is super creepy (hence the horror tag) and done very well, but I’ve noticed the biggest difference now that Tomasi is on the book instead of Dave Gibbons. Overall, I like Gibbons as a writer on this book better than Tomasi, though I do enjoy Tomasi’s run. The difference is that Gibbons was telling stories with lots and lots of different characters with elements that were leading towards bigger stories, but Tomasi’s stories all seem like they’re just servicing the greater story instead of being important on their own. It’s less NYPD Blue and more…I don’t know, CSI in that it focuses less on multiple stories and instead just one. I still dig the stories, but there’s a definitely difference.

A few things I found interesting while reading through this book before moving on. First off, I think the Kyle/Soranik relationship feels really shoehorned. When I was reading these books in single issues, I bought it a lot more because I figured I missed a few hints at it during SCW, but having just read that book, it seems pretty out-of-nowhere. The other thing that caught my attention is how different lanterns fill their rings the first time. We know that Yellow ones get put in a fear lodge and have to relive their own personal fears to fill the ring, but in this book we find that the Purple light actually takes the place of an emptiness in the bearer’s heart (I wonder if a man can be a Star Sapphire). Finally, it seems like GLs are super easy to kill lately, right? One of them gets smashed in Kryb’s back spine things. That seems a bit easy to me. I don’t remember them saying anywhere that the various lights have different effects on each other (aside from Blue and Green, but we’ll get to that in the next installment).