Review: Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1- Fearsome
Quick Summary
Pros: The main storyline is exciting and has amazing moments that make it feel even more exciting. The main storyline’s epilogue is incredibly emotional and gives meaning to the entire volume. The entire collection builds a lot of potential for the series. The artwork looks nice.
Cons: There are a few moments where the story’s timing feels off.
Overall: This is a promising start to a comic that is already a ton of fun. The comic takes all the fun and excitement one would expect from a space odyssey and mixes it with all of the drama and emotion one would expect from real warfare. All of this is then further enhanced by solid artwork and the feeling that this is only the start to a series of great adventures. Anyone who likes the Green Lantern Corps or who enjoys books with a warlike vibe to them should consider checking out the first volume in this series.
Story
Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1: Fearsome, by Peter J. Tomasi, is a great start to a new version of this series. It gets going strong by firmly establishing itself as a book about an army at war. This creates a narrative with high-stakes action, emotional moments, and surprising twists. It also helps the book feel different from other mainstream comics out there. The quality of the storytelling and the way exposition is handled have the added benefit of providing the foundations for following volumes to build upon even further. There are a few places where the narrative stumbles but these points are rare. Overall, this is an excellent way to kick off a new comic.
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As a whole, Fearsome feels like war book. It stars a few key soldiers in an army, details their fight against a powerful enemy, and forces them to use clever tactics and superior power to overcome this enemy. This makes for an exciting and engaging read, where an immediate threat is always facing the heroes. It also feels unique for mainstream comic books, as most mainstream comics either star a single hero or a small team, rather than an entire army.
The main narrative in Fearsome also benefits from a few killer moments that amp up the excitement for the rest of the book. Isamot’s valiant sacrifice, the Keeper’s public execution of a Lantern, the GLC’s decision to raid a pirate ship, and John Stewart’s decision to kill his fellow Lantern are all moments that really stood out to me. They inject more drama into an already dramatic read.
The only noticeable problem in Fearsome‘s main narrative is that the timing feels off. The amount of time the Green Lantern’s spend preparing to storm the Keepers’ homeworld is the centerpiece of this book and takes a lot more focus than the amount of time the Keepers spend torturing their prisoners. This makes it seem like they were not being tortured to the extent they probably were, which lessens the impact when one of the prisoners finally breaks.
Fearsome then concludes with a stunning final chapter. After an entire volume of intense action, rallying cries, and war, the final chapter of this book hits readers with the sum total of the emotions from these events. The funeral and John’s visit with a fallen Green Lantern’s family makes the pain of this volume tangible. It also serves as a perfect balance to the violence from the rest of the book, reminding readers about the loss felt over the course of these flashy and exciting chapters.
Besides telling a great story, Fearsome also does a great job in building up this series as a whole. It introduces or reintroduces readers to a number of characters, displays the type of conflicts the Green Lantern Corps can get involved with, and starts explaining concepts that may play a larger part in this series as it develops. Once all of this is further established, future volumes will have the potential to inspire even more drama and emotions than what were contained here.
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Art
The artwork in Fearsome looks nice and helps make this a better volume. The visuals, mostly from Fernando Pasarin, look crisp and are laid out well throughout the volume. Characters typically look good and the cosmic environments typically display a solid level of creativity. However, the artwork’s biggest contribution to the success of this book is the way it perfectly captures a few moments from the narrative. The conclusion of the first chapter shows the artist’s ability to shift the tone from fun action to something far more serious. Then, later on, several full-page spreads help bring chaotic and large-scale battles to life, which plays a big part in bringing out the “war” elements of this narrative. In the end, this comic looks good and has visuals that make its story better.
Continuity
Green Lantern Vol. 1: Fearsome is the first volume in a new continuity. However, the Green Lantern Corps series is almost entirely unaffected by this continuity shift. Instead, Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1: Fearsome directly follows the events from Green Lantern: War of the Green Lanterns.
The story here continues in Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2: Alpha War.
This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:
- The change in Hal Jordan’s status as a Green Lantern is mentioned. This change occurred at the conclusion of Green Lantern: War of the Green Lanterns.