Review: Green Lantern- Rise of the Third Army

Quick Summary

Pros: The entire volume is exciting and contains several awesome battles. The book’s conclusion does a great job in tying all of the characters’ plotlines together and setting up for the next event. The artwork looks great in most places.

Cons: The heavy number of references to other comics may confuse newer readers. The focus on individual stories occasionally distracts from the main event.

Overall: This event hits a lot of the right marks but may not appeal to everyone. It has some great action, an exciting narrative, and a conclusion that builds up the next chapter in this saga. However, it does not stand well on its own and may not suit readers unfamiliar with Green Lantern-related comics. Anyone with knowledge of the Green Lantern New 52 comics should check out this event and anyone still interested in checking out this event should consider reading some of those comics first.

Story

The appeal of Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army, by Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi, Tony Bedard, and Peter Milligan, will vary based on the reader’s knowledge and interest in Green Lantern-related comics. If readers go into this volume will little knowledge or interest in what is happening with the Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, and Red Lanterns series, the entire first half of this book will be confusing and will offer little. In addition, this book’s conclusion will be disappointing, as it is essentially a set-up for the next Green Lantern event.

However, readers more familiar with these titles will likely be happy to see their stories continued in a positive way. This involves multiple plotlines coming together in an exciting way and a conclusion that builds up even more excitement for the future. In addition, some fun moments of action and excitement are sure to please all readers. Overall, this is an event for Green Lantern fans and may not be the best event to just jump right in to.

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The opening chapters of Rise of the Third Army have mixed appeal. The biggest point of contention, in these chapters, is that they focus heavily on the individual stories from each of this event’s component series. This means that readers who have not read Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, and Red Lanterns will be out of the loop for significant portions of the story. This may be significantly off-putting for a number of readers, however, it also may be a non-issue for readers who are up to date with everything going on in these comics.

Unfortunately, even fully up-to-date readers may be put off by the way the Red Lanterns issues relate back to the main event. These issues heavily focus on developing the characters and plot thread from the Red Lanterns series, rather than contributing to the event as a whole. It makes for a good Red Lanterns story but not necessarily a good event.

The universally positive feature in these opening chapters is the way in which they build tension and apprehension for the titular “Rise of the Third Army”. Watching the Third Army swarm over people like a horde of locusts makes them seem like the nearly-unstoppable foes that the dialogue makes them out to be. Plus, seeing this happen from the perspective of multiple different characters in multiple different comics adds to the entire effect.

This tension carries forward into the event’s finale, which is wonderfully dramatic. It has each of this event’s storylines converge into one fight against the Guardians of the Universe and their Third Army. The resulting battle looks great and definitely benefits from the setup in the book’s first half.

However, like the opening chapters, this conclusion may be disappointing for casual readers. The book’s climax is essentially a cliffhanger that leads directly into the next event. As someone heavily invested in this series, I was happy to see this and excited to jump into the next event. On the flip side, I would imagine a conclusion like this would be disappointing for someone exclusively interested in the titular Third Army and not really invested in the long-term success of the Green Lantern series.

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Art

Rise of the Third Army has some excellent artwork from a wide range of artists. Doug Manhke does some wonderfully detailed and creatively structured work on the Green Lantern issues. The level of detail makes the situations of this comic seem even more serious and the creativity really helps bring the Lantern constructs to life. Fernando Pasarin’s work on the Green Lantern Corps issues captures some great character moments and also highlights a few awesome battles. Aaron Kuder produces some of the best Green Lantern: New Guardians issues I’ve seen thus far, which really help bring the drama and emotions in this story to the forefront. Finally, Miguel Sepulveda makes the Red Lanterns issues look as dark and violent as one would expect them to.

Unfortunately, not everything about the visuals in Rise of the Third Army is positive. The transitions between a few of the chapters cause some weird changes in tone. This is evident in some of the New Guardians issues, which feature too many artistic transitions, and at the conclusion of the Red Lanterns issues, which take the tone from gritty and terrifying to lighthearted and almost playful. Luckily, the visual negatives are far outweighed by this volume’s visual positives.

Continuity

Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army continues the story started in the New 52 Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, and Red Lanterns series. For more information on exactly how these comics prelude this event, see our “Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army Reading Order” (Coming Soon).

The story here continues in Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern.

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• Mogo was killed back in Green Lantern Corps #60, collected in War of the Green Lanterns.
• Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend died in Green Lantern (Volume 3) #54, collected in Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner Vol. 1. 
• Many references are made to the battle against Krona and the last climatic meeting of the separate Corps. This all took place in Green Lantern: War of the Green Lanterns.
• Kyle Rayner’s origin story is mentioned a few times. This origin story was originally shown in Green Lantern Vol 3 #50. 
• Tomar-Re died in Green Lantern Vol 2 #198, collected in Green Lantern: Sector 2814 Vol. 3.