Review: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2- Bottled Light

Quick Summary

Pros: The main narrative is interesting and exciting. The writing is clever. By the end of the comic, the new status quo feels like a worthwhile progression for the series and its characters. The artwork looks good and is an asset to the storytelling.

Cons: The final chapter feels a bit redundant.

Overall: This volume continues much of the success that this series established at the start. It has tense scenes of action, compelling characters, and great artwork to back it up. It also moves the series forward in a way that feels natural and builds more interest for the future. Though it isn’t as explosively as its predecessor, it is still highly worthwhile. Anyone interested in Green Lantern during this era or who enjoyed the previous volume should read this one.

Story

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2: Bottled Light, by Robert Venditti, is a solid continuation to the Rebirth Green Lantern adventures. This volume advances the progression of the series to place the Green Lantern Corps and its major characters into a new status quo. It accomplishes this through a tense and interesting battle, where characters get a chance to show off some clever problem-solving abilities. The entire volume isn’t as explosive as its predecessor but is still very enjoyable and does some great things for the series.

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The main narrative in Bottled Light is enjoyable right from the start. Having the Green and Yellow Corps teaming up creates a tense and interesting situation. Then, having both Corps captured by Brainiac/Larfleeze and having Hal Jordan teetering on the bring of death makes things even more tense and even more interesting. As a whole, these adventures might not be as ridiculously exciting as the previous volume but they are still easily as exciting as most other comics out there.

What I liked about this main narrative was its clever approach to problem-solving. Instead of the Lanterns fighting their way out of Brainiac’s bottle, they trick Larfleeze into letting them out. Then, they use his fear over his lost collection to power the Yellow Lanterns’ Rings, giving them an edge in the resulting battle. In a similar way, the Guardians are only able to bring back Hal through the use of Kyle’s White Lantern Ring, an object directly tied to life itself. This helps make the story a bit more rewarding, especially since it often offers the reader a chance to guess what new tactic will be employed next.

The main narrative also works in helping to transition the Green Lantern Corps and the universe surrounding them to a new and interesting status quo. The volume brings Hal back to life, brings older Guardians back into the fold, starts to include Kyle in Green Lantern activities again, and forms a tenuous partnership between the Green and Yellow Lantern Corps. All of these separate facets are interesting and left me excited to see how they all evolve as this volume makes way for the next one.

My only real complaint with Bottled Light is that the final chapter is a bit lackluster. I really enjoyed seeing a possible future, where the message of the Green Lantern Corps is still burning bright. However, about half the chapter simply felt like a recap of the volume as a whole. It simply feels like something better could have been done with this extra issue.

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Art

The artwork in Bottled Light, like the story, is a solid continuation of the great qualities established in the previous volume. Artists like Ethan Van Sciver, Rafa Sandoval, and Ed Benes all put in good-looking work that complements the storytelling. Their work is well-structured, detailed, and maintains a level of visual consistency that prevents the visuals from looking jarringly different from chapter to chapter, despite the larger number of artists working on the collection. Plus, I specifically enjoyed Ethan Van Sciver’s chapters, which are all packed with a ton of detail to help make actions from non-main characters stand out, giving more diversity to the action scenes. Overall, this artwork in this volume looks nice and is another positive for this collection.

Continuity

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2: Bottled Light continues the story from Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1: Sinestro’s Law (Review).

The story here continues in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 3: Quest for Hope (Review).

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• Katma Tui was originally killed in Action Comics #601.
• All of the old Guardians of the Universe, except Ganthet and Sayd, were killed in Green Lantern Vol. 5 #20, collected in Green Lantern Vol. 3: The End (Review).
• Hal Jordan had a run-in with Lobo (Reading Order) back in Lobo #13, collected in Sinestro Vol. 4: The Fall of Sinestro (Review).