Review: Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 6- Storming the Gates

Quick Summary

Pros: The exploration into Kyle’s reaction to his powers is interesting. The conclusion thematically suits the progression of this series.

Cons: The Green Lantern/New Gods crossover issues are lackluster and are collected poorly. The conclusion to the series feels somewhat rushed. The book’s romance gets even weirder and less appealing than before.

Overall: This is a volume that ends up just being alright all around. It has a few high moments here and there, particularly when it comes to examining the book’s main character. However, problems with the way it is collected, the book’s central romance, and the conclusion make it hard to fully enjoy. This book might appeal to readers simply looking for a conclusion to the Green Lantern: New Guardians narrative but isn’t necessarily for readers just looking for good, cosmic stories. 

Story

The last volume in the Green Lantern: New Guardians fails to break free from the mediocrity of the last few volumes. Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 6: Storming the Gates, by Justin Jordan, starts out with lackluster issues from a crossover event. The problems already present in these issues get worse as the collection presents them in a way that prevents them from making sense on their own. Once the crossover is over, things start to look up as the collection starts a promising plotline that deals with some interesting topics, only to damage its own appeal with a rushed conclusion. Plus, through all of these chapters, the already strange romance between Kyle and Carol gets even weirder and less appealing. This volume has a few bright spots but not nearly enough to make up for all of its dull ones.

(spoilers start here)

Storming the Gates starts with the Green Lantern: New Guardians chapters from the Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead (Review) crossover event. These chapters continue to explore Kyle’s struggle with the absolute power of the White Lantern Ring, an exploration that gets even better as the volume progresses. However, outside of this, the rest of these chapters are pretty lackluster. They mostly have characters preparing for more significant actions that take place in other chapters from this crossover.

Further weighing down this crossover is the way it is presented. Green Lantern Vol. 6: The Life Equation (Review) presents the Green Lantern issues from this crossover with pages of text that explain what happened in the non-Green Lantern crossover issues. Storming the Gates offers no explanation and does not even contain the event’s conclusion. I imagine many newer readers will be completely confused as to what is happening here or why a major cliffhanger goes completely unresolved.

With the crossover complete, Storming the Gates brings back Oblivion, a villain representing the subconscious fears Kyle carries with him as a nearly all-powerful being. This sets the final conflict of the series as one with Kyle and his allies facing off against the summation of Kyle’s failings. Thematically it works well with Kyle’s character progression, especially in that it shows him making progress with some of his personal issues. Oblivion’s defeat also works out well in concluding Kyle’s time with near omnipotence and introducing more plot points that could be explored at some point in the future.

The only real problem with this arc is that the conclusion feels a little rushed. The creation of a White Lantern Corps, which would seemingly be the most powerful Corps in existence, and the defeat of a major villain happen over the course of a few pages.

The other major problem across Storming the Gates is the volume’s central romance. Kyle and Carol’s romance has been an odd presence since it first arrived in this series and in this volume it gets even more odd. The volume starts by having the two alternate between expressing their love for one another and verging on breaking up over the fact that Kyle accidentally changed Carol into his ex-girlfriend for a second. Then, it seems like they do break up, as Carol admits that she thinks she might only like Kyle because she needs someone to love in order to stay a Star Sapphire. Then, they’re suddenly lovey-dovey again as the volume moves into the conclusion to this series. It is a tumultuous trip that seems to exacerbate the already existing problems with this relationship.

(spoilers end here)

Art

In most places, the visuals in Storming the Gates are positive and make for a smooth reading experience. Diogenes Neves is a great fit for this series. Neves’ work is bold and well-defined, allowing the characters and their emotions to take center stage. This is particularly true in the case of Kyle and the New Gods, who all look great throughout most of this read. Plus, when detailing new worlds, the visuals do a solid job in making them feel creative and interesting.

However, not everything about the artwork is positive. There are places where guest artists step in and the quality of the visuals drop for a bit. There are also places where the coloring makes characters look way too shiny, which looks downright strange in a few places. These random negatives prevent the volume’s visuals from standing out and cause the visuals to just end up looking alright, rather than great.

Continuity

Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 6: Storming the Gates continues the story from Green Lantern: New Guardians Vol. 5: Godkillers (Review).

Issues from this volume also form part of the Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead (Review) event, explained in our “Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead Reading Order“.

The Green Lantern: New Guardians series ends with this volume. However, Kyle Rayner’s adventures continue in The Omega Men: The End is Here.

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• The Green Lantern: Lights Out (Reading Order) event is mentioned a number of times throughout this volume. This event depicted Relic’s mission, the Source Wall breach, Saint Walker’s loss of hope, Mogo taking over as the new Oa, and the “death” of Kyle Rayner.
• Earth’s victory over Darkseid’s invasion is mentioned. This is a reference to the events of Justice League: Origin (Review) (From the Comics).
• Kyle Rayner’s old girlfriend died in Green Lantern Vol. 3 #54, collected in Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner Vol. 1.