After being called in to find three pilots who have disappeared during experimental tests, Hal Jordan returns to his roots as a test pilot to save them. Spoilers for The Green Lantern: Season Two #3 follow.
Man, it’s been a while since any new comics have come out. But, as of today, new comics are slowly, but surely returning to marketplaces, both digital and physical when available. And, suffice to say, having the next issue of The Green Lantern: Season Two as one of the first releases after a month of no new comics was a great idea. Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp, even in the weaker issue of the series, have created something special with the series, and releasing the newest issue of it right now was a great choice. This is a great issue.
Like most every issue of the series so far, the true star in this issue is Liam Sharp. He handles all art duties in this issue (taking over for Steve Oliff on colors) and somehow, it looks even more gorgeous than normal. Every single panel looks painterly and basically combines Sharp’s normal style with an Alex Ross styling. This is something that could very well fall flat, but it absolutely doesn’t do that here. Every page, every panel even, is gorgeous.
This style that Sharp goes with in this issue doesn’t just look gorgeous though, it serves a story purpose. There’s a surrealness at play throughout most of the issue that Sharp’s colors truly bring to life. He somehow manages to bring emotions out of cloud-like beings in a completely believable way. Clouds. How? No idea, but Sharp is able to do it.
Speaking of those clouds though, Morrison’s script for this issue has his patented oddity that you kind of expect by now. However, Morrison absolutely does not go the way that you might be expecting with this script, which is good thing. Basically, he sets up the antagonists of the story as these Lovecraftian cloud monsters that Green Lantern needs to defeat, but there’s so much more to it than that. These aren’t Lovecraft monsters at all, but ethereal beings that have simply gotten lost. There’s a tinge of heartbreak to it, that really was not expected during the first few pages of the issue.
The way that this issue plays with expectations for both the audience and characters is extremely well done, thus managing to keep you engaged the entire time while reading it. Sure, there are moments of Morrison nonsense dialogue that is confusing, but when it happens, it doesn’t matter much, so it’s not that big of a deal.
