Review: Green Lanterns Vol. 2- The Phantom Lantern

Quick Summary

Pros: The main narrative is entertaining, is structured in a way that makes it even more exciting, and adds to the DC Universe. The comic’s villain is well-written. The personal stories surrounding the main characters are entertaining on their own and add to the reading experience. The artwork looks good.

Cons: Nothing significant. 

Overall: This volume takes the quality of this series and dials it up to 11. The collection contains an exciting main storyline that handles tension and suspense well, while also building plotlines up for the future. It also contains a variety of well-written characters, who’s personal stories are amazing all on their own. Anyone interested in Simon Baz, Jessica Cruz, the lore surrounding the history of the Green Lanterns, or who just wants to read a good comic from this era should check this volume out.

Story

After an alright opening volume, the Green Lanterns series needed a successful second volume to reassure fans that this is a comic worth reading. Green Lanterns Vol. 2: The Phantom Lantern, by Sam Humphries, is beyond successful. The entire volume tells a wonderfully intense story about the rise of a powerful villain and a heroic attempt to stop him, while constantly building up more tension in the background for the future. This narrative involves excellently written characters, both heroes and villains, who’s personal struggles and developments are just as captivating as their fight. Plus, the volume expands on the lore of the Green Lantern Rings in a way that is very interesting. Honestly, if the quality of future volumes is anything like this, Green Lanterns may be a contender as one of the best comics in this era of DC history.

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One of the most immediate positives in The Phantom Lantern comes from the quality of its overarching narrative. The story here centers around a Lantern Ring with incredible power and a powerful villain using this Ring to achieve his own ends. This narrative is built up in the background for the first few chapters, allowing for a more direct focus on character development, but takes center stage as the comic progresses, allowing for an awesome showdown to take place later on. While this story is already highly entertaining, the structure of it makes it even more so.

It also helps that this narrative is complemented by two awesome villains. The first is a regular human desperate for a Green Lantern Ring. His benevolent goals but tragic misunderstandings make him a sympathetic character, one who you don’t want to win but can’t help feeling sorry for. The second is Volthoom, a tremendously powerful force of evil who nearly conquered all of reality once before. His actions in this story give additional weight to this comic’s main crisis and also help set up anticipation for the next volume, as this one concludes with an awesome twist that reveals Volthoom is now masquerading as a Guardian of the Universe. 

The other big positive in The Phantom Lantern comes from the character-driven drama surrounding Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz. These two Lanterns are still rookies to the Corps and, on top of that, are dealing with plenty of personal problems as well. Watching all of this unfold is tremendously satisfying. I was happy to see Simon reach some understanding with his family, to see Jessica achieve further success with her Ring, and to see both of them just getting along with the people around them. In addition, the Phantom Ring keeping Jessica as a Green Lantern was easily my favorite moment of the collection and a perfect way to punctuate the inner confidence she has, even if she doesn’t believe she has it.

The Phantom Lantern also does some interesting ways of expanding DC’s Green Lantern lore. This volume gives the reader a chance to learn more about Volthoom and the Guardians of the Universe. If this continues, Green Lanterns might become the series to watch when it comes to the larger Green Lantern lore.

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Art

The artwork in The Phantom Lantern is mostly positive and complements the reading experience. Simon and Jessica stand out on nearly every page and their use of their Green Lantern Rings looks creative. This creativity also extends to a few more otherworldly characters from the story, all of whom are presented in a way that looks nice.

The visuals in this volume are also notable for featuring a different artist in nearly every chapter. While this does slightly break the uniformity of the collection, the majority of the chapters manage to maintain a similar style. In addition, some great work from Ed Benes and Robson Rocha provide some visual highpoints for the volume.

Continuity

Green Lanterns Vol. 2: The Phantom Lantern continues the story from Green Lanterns Vol. 1: Rage Planet (Review).

The story here continues in Green Lanterns Vol. 3: Polarity (Review).

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• Jessica participated in a fight against Darkseid back during the Darkseid War (Review) (Reading Order) event.
• Jessica and Simon were shown to have an association with the Justice League (Reading Order) in Justice League: Rebirth #1, collected in Justice League Vol. 1: The Extinction Machines (Review).
• Simon received his Green Lantern Ring at Guantanamo Bay in Green Lantern Vol. 5 #0, collected in Green Lantern Vol. 3: The End (Review).
• The history of the First Lantern is told across the Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern (Review) (Reading Order) event.