Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25 Review

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps reaches a big anniversary issue with possibly one of the most important crossroad moments in the history of the franchise. Just as the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps alliance has found it’s footing it already looks like the alliance will break. On top of Romat-Ru’s death at the hands of Tomar-Tu, Soranik learned about a deeply personal secret that Kyle Rayner kept from her as she learned Darko was their son from the future. These two events will now test the strength of the alliance that has been established between the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps. Will the alliance survive these revelations? Let’s find out with Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #25.

Writer: Robert Venditti

Artist: Ethan Van Sciver

Colorist: Jason Wright

Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 8.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: Three Sinestro Corps members demand Hal Jordan hands over Tomar-Tu to them. Hal responds by punching them out Tomar-Tu’s room and into the outside.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25
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Guy Gardner and Arkillo arrive with Guy carrying Kyle Rayner and a bunch of Sinestro Corps member walking behind them. Arkillo demands to know who marked Kyle with the Sinestro Corps mark and threatened the alliance they created.

Soranik arrives and says she is the one that branded Kyle because he hid the truth about Darko being a direct descendent of Sinestro. Kyle confirms this to everyone.

Soranik apologizes to the Sinestro Corps for making the wrong choice in accepting an alliance with the Green Lantern Corps. She then claims that she will now be taking on her birthright name of “Soranik Sinestro” from this point forward.

John Stewart shows up and tells Soranik to think about her decision. John brings up how he made Tomar-Tu’s action public because he wants to make sure their alliance continue. Soranik says that there is nothing more that John or anyone can do to continue the alliance. John continues to plead with both Lantern Corps continue stand with each other.

Several Sinestro Corps members decide to continue to work with the Green Lantern Corps but the majority join Soranik, including Arkillo who swore an oath to follow Sinestro.

The Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps begin fighting throughout Mogo. Neither side is able to gain the advantage in the fight. John sees this and how Soranik has a killer intent when facing Kyle so he decides to activate a special override that turns off all of the Sinestro Corps members rings.

Soranik demands to know what John did. John reveals that when the Sinestro Corps battery was moved to Mogo he installed a safety measure in the battery that would make them ineffective against will.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25
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Soranik tells John that this isn’t the end  and leads the Sinestro Corps off Mogo even though Kyle tries to plead with her to stay.

Guy tells John and Hal that they should grab some beers. As they walk away John can’t help but reflect on how close they were to making things work.

Sometime later the Green Lantern Corps take the Sinestro Corp battery apart. The Sinestro Corps members that decided to stay are inducted into the Green Lantern Corps.

Meanwhile Tomar-Tu is arrested with John still holding him responsible for his actions as a murderer and will stand trial for killing Romat-Ru.

Hal asks John to allow Tomar-Tu’s ring to select another Xundarian to be a Green Lantern. John accepts the request and sends Tomar-Tu to select a new wearer.

The ring heads to Xundar and finds a new user who is an orphan, Somar-Le, Xundarian following Starro’s recent attack.

While Guy, Hal and Kyle reflect on what just happened John meets with Ganthet and Sayd and says he appreciates how they didn’t interfere. Happy that the Green Lantern Corps will continue to endure, John says it is time to celebrate the end of the war between Will and Fear.

In the Anti-Matter Universe where Planet Qward once stood Lyssa Drak regains consciousness and crawls to Sinestro’s burnt body. Lyssa holds Sinestro as both their Yellow Lantern rings begin to glow with power. End of issue.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25
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The Good: As much as Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #25 was the ending of the short alliance between the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps it did feel like the beginning of something bigger. As each character got a word in Robert Venditti was able to show us how every decision that was made by the core cast led to the alliance being short lived. In doing so Venditti made it harder to see who the real bad guy of this “Fractured” arc was.

Since taking over leadership of the Sinestro Corps and accepting the alliance with the Green Lantern Corps we have seen Soranik be more timid. Much of this has been because of her past as a Green Lantern and giving John Stewart overall leadership of the alliance. Venditti completely changes that with Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #25. Continuing from where she was in the last issue, we saw a Soranik filled with anger over being betrayed and conviction in that the alliance was a bad idea.

Venditti gives plenty of reasoning for Soranik to feel this way and make a choice that is in best interest of the Sinestro Corps. John’s final act as he revealed that he put a safety measure in the Yellow Lantern Battery further drove home how Soranik has no allegiance to the Green Lanterns anymore. This was a complete eye opening experience for Soranik, who has now taken on her father’s name, and sets her up to have an unpredictable arc moving forward.

Soranik’s arc sets things up to make Sinestro’s own return even more interesting. With his daughter now filled with the same hatred for the Green Lantern Corps it stands to reason that father and daughter may now see eye to eye. The question will be who actually is in charge of the Sinestro Corps once Sinestro returns.

It’s clear that Soranik has evolved and taken on full leadership of the Sinestro Corps. That said, Sinestro will always be the alpha dog who sees himself in charge and will be out for even greater revenge once he fully returns. So where things go once Soranik and Sinestro reunite in future issues.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25
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On the other side of things, it was interesting to see how John changed during this alliance with the Sinestro Corps. As the alliance was established we saw John become more obsessed with control each issue. He was the glue that kept things together and he knew that. In giving John that mentality we saw how Venditti was starting to make him act more like a Guardian.

That development was fully enforced in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #25 where we saw John make a very Guardian-like decision in creating a secret safety measure in the Yellow Lantern Battery. That decision was fueled by his desire to ensure that no matter what happened in this alliance that the Green Lantern Corps would be the dominate policing force in the galaxy. It’s the exact thing we saw the Guardians do as the other Lantern Corps started to rise in power. John’s final interaction with Ganthet and Sayd drove that point home and makes you wonder if we are going to see John make more benevolent Guardian-like decisions in the future.

Through all of this we are also left to wonder how Guy, Hal and Kyle will be positioned in the Green Lantern Corps after all that went down. Kyle dynamic with the others has a lot of room to explore as his decision to not tell Soranik about their future son was a cause of the alliance breaking. This all comes at a time when Kyle still has not fully reestablished himself as a Green Lantern again since he just became got back into the flow of things just as the Sarko event happened. Now that he has been hit hard on multiple emotional levels Venditti has plenty of time to explore where he will go from here.

It’ll also be interesting to see what Venditti does with Guy’s character. Though it was clear that Guy loved the move John made to secure the Green Lantern Corps power over the Sinestro Corps he seemed conflicted by the end. Him being on hand to see the Yellow Lantern Battery melted showed that he may not be fully behind that decision. Given how we saw such a spotlight on Guy and Arkillo’s growing partnership, how Venditti treats Guy progress when the Sinestro Corps show up again provide us with an intriguing sub-plot.

The new Xundarian Green Lantern also provides for another interesting sub-plot as Venditti gives a brand new character, Somar-Le, with a clean slate. Venditti gives us enough backstory to become invested in Somar-Le’s personal arc. Given that her backstory as an orphan is based on Starro’s recent attack there is plenty of a reason for her to act more of an outsider within the Green Lantern Corps. Whether that is a good or bad thing for the Corps is left to be answered.

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25
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Though this was a dialogue heavy arc Ethan Van Sciver was able to let loose with some strong action to show off his art style. The battle between the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps was a nice tease for what is to come when Sinestro makes his full return. At the same time, Sciver continued to deliver on the emotional weight of Venditti’s dialogue with how he drew all the characters in this story’s reactions. Soranik in particular looked great as we saw her go through a wide range of emotions as she went through with the decision having the Sinestro Corps leave the alliance.

The Bad: The choice to end the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps alliance does create an opening for a lot of intriguing storylines moving forward. That said, it did feel like it ended too quickly. There were still a few more sub-plots with the brokered alliance that would have been good to see play out before it ended. That fact sort of makes you wonder if it got cut short to make way for another story. It’s not a completely bad thing as there are plenty of stories to tell from here but there is definitely an empty feeling with how much time we were given to explore this story.

Overall: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #25 delivered an emotionally impactful anniversary issue. With the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps alliance forever broken and Sinestro’s return imminent there is plenty of intriguing plotlines that Robert Venditti has set for him and his team to explore. Adding Ethan Van Sciver’s incredible artwork help fuel the impact of all the decisions made by the characters involved. That all comes together for an issue that sets up multiple intriguing plotlines for the series moving forward.

1 thought on “Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #25 Review

  1. I’ve enjoyed this alliance arc and while a split was inevitable, I wish they had carried on a bit longer. So many other stories could have been told about greens and yellows working together and John’s impurity twist might have had a bit more impact after a year or so- more of a betrayal. I’m hoping that the Sinestro corps members who switched corps will get a bit of spotlight. Interestingly, them choosing to quit the Sinestro Corps could be seen to meet the GL Corps criteria of “Overcoming Fear”.

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