Review: Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 3- Love and Death

Quick Summary

Pros: The book has an exciting narrative with key moments that make everything even more exciting. The emotions are well-written and work toward the development of this book’s characters. The conclusion is satisfying and the epilogue excellent. The artwork is mostly positive and assists the read.

Cons: The opening story arc is paced a bit too fast.

Overall: This volume takes the New Guardians series to new heights. The entire volume centers around a couple of seriously interesting concepts, all of which lead to some great storytelling. It then uses these concepts to bring out action and emotion at awesome levels. The entire journey feels worthwhile from start to finish and is successful in building even more excitement for this series as a whole.

Story

Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 3: Love and Death, by Tony Bedard, improves upon this series to deliver its best collection yet. The first half of the volume puts Kyle Rayner on an exciting new path filled with a mix of exciting and emotional battles. Then, the second half of the volume introduces a new villain who is specifically designed to bring out intense emotions in the heroes. This allows for a great examination into Carol Farris, Saint Walker, Larfleeze, and, especially, Kyle. The book’s conclusion also works as an exciting end to an era and its epilogue works as a well-deserved moment of decompression. Overall, the quality of this volume is high, enough to easily make this the most worthwhile collection in this series thus far.

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The first half of Love and Death starts things out strong with a wonderful core concept. Kyle Rayner discovers that the influence of multiple Lantern Rings had an impact on his Ring’s abilities, allowing him to channel different colors in the Emotional Spectrum. He realizes that this gives him the perfect weapon to begin waging a war on the Guardians, putting a stop to their evil plan and freeing Ganthet along the way.

The resulting adventure is fun and emotional. Watching Kyle wield a wide range of powers and use them to do things normal Green Lanterns could not do is a satisfying twist on the traditional formula. Meanwhile, the intense emotions he feels along the way make the entire adventure feel meaningful. This culminates in his final battle against Ganthet, who is essentially Kyle’s surrogate father figure. Their battle is great and Kyle’s character development in this battle, centered around his newfound powers, makes it even better.

The only downside to this portion of the book is that it flies by a bit too quickly. Discovering the entirety of the Emotional Spectrum seems like a monumental task that will take a while to do. However, Kyle accomplishes it over the course of a few quick chapters. This feels like a story arc that would have worked better as the centerpiece of an entire volume, which would have made his promotion to a White Lantern even more meaningful.

The second half of Love and Death has Kyle and a few members of the New Guardians go up against a powerful new enemy, the First Lantern. Their first encounter with him sees him use their past against them. He twists their emotions by presenting them with alternate realities that have been specifically designed to make them feel a certain way. Though witnessing each character react to this in their own way is interesting, Kyle’s situation is the most compelling. It has him admit that he would significantly damage the stability of the universe in order to save his old girlfriend, who’s death he feels responsible for. Watching him make this deal and watching this deal ripped away from him is an intense emotional trip that essentially works as the emotional highpoint for the volume.

From here, the conclusion to the Wrath of the First Lantern event plays out. It is a dramatic conclusion that has a number of characters flexing their abilities. Though it narratively works better with issues of the Green Lantern series, it is still enjoyable to see within this volume.

Finally, Love and Death closes with an epilogue for Kyle’s recent adventures. The turmoil he has just been put through makes him realize some things and pushes him to reconnect with his father. This final chapter is a great moment of relaxation and decompression after a hectic run of events.

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Art

The artwork in Love and Death is very different from the artwork in its predecessors. While previous volumes were more bold and dramatic, almost entirely focusing on action, this one is softer and more refined, reflecting a change in focus to emotions and personal development. Aaron Kuder’s work handles this change in tone well and is a great representation of what is happening in this comic. Kuder’s work also just looks nice in general and specifically does well in depicting the comic’s main characters. This change suits the series well and left me excited to see how the visuals develop as it moves into its next era.

Continuity

Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 3: Love and Death continues the story from Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 2: Beyond Hope (Review). This volume also contains issues that form parts of the Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army and Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern crossover events and, thus, references the events of the issues it crosses over with. Our upcoming reading orders for these events will explain exactly how they cross over.

The story here continues in Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 4: Gods and Monsters.

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• Hal “flew off with Sinestro” back in Green Lantern Vol. 5 #7, collected in Green Lantern Vol. 2: Revenge of the Black Hand (Review).
• Ganthet’s emotional change was made in Green Lantern Vol. 5 #1, collected in Green Lantern Vol. 1: Sinestro (Review).
• Green Lantern: New Guardians #0 shows the aftermath of Hal and Sinestro’s battle with Black Hand. This battle occurred across Green Lantern Vol. 5 #11-12 and Annual #1, collected in Green Lantern Vol. 2: Revenge of the Black Hand (Review).
• The war against Black Hand, Nekron, and the dead took place during the Blackest Night event.
• Kyle Rayner references the death of his girlfriend from Green Lantern (Volume 3) #54, collected in Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner Vol. 1. 
• Sinestro wielded a White Lantern Ring back in the Blackest Night event.
• Many pieces of Hal Jordan’s life are shown. These include:
  • His separation from Paralax in Green Lantern: Rebirth, part of Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Book One.
  • His battle against the Manhunters in Green Lantern Vol. 4 #12-13, collected in Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Book Two.
  • His fight against Sinesto and the Yellow Lanterns in Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War.
  • His encounter with the Red Lanterns in Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns.
  • His encounter with Larfleeze in Green Lantern: Agent Orange.
  • The war against the dead in Blackest Night.