Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #49 Review

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #49 Review

Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #49 Review

The war between the Green Lantern Corps and Darkstars fully kicked off in the last issue as both groups started their big battle. So far the action has been intense as Robert Venditti starts wrapping up his final story arc on Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. Adding in Arkillo, Orion and the House of Zod to the mix has helped change things up as we get a few more wild cards in the mix. Now with the battle continuing all over Mogo there is sure to be more to this war between the Green Lantern Corps and Darkstars before it is over. Let’s see what will happen next with Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #49.

Writer: Robert Venditti

Artist: Rafa Sandoval and Sergio Davila

Inker: Jordi Tarragona

Colorist: Tomeu Morey

Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: On Mogo the Green Lantern Corps and Guardians fight off the Darkstars attacking the planet.

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Above Mogo the Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, Arkillo, Orion and Zod do there best to fight off the other Darkstars attacking them.

As this all goes on John Stewart records a message off all his plans as he must waits to fully execute his entire plan perfectly.

Inside the Darkstars base Hal Jordan tells Hector Hammond that they must destroy the device containing the Controllers as that is allowing the Darkstars to maintain perfect communication in the middle of the battle. Hammond thinks he should just destroy the device containing the Controllers. Hal says they can’t kill them. Instead he wants Hammond to use his mental powers to overwhelm the Controllers to break free from the device.

Back at the battle the Darkstars start losing their telepathic link with each other. This gives the Green Lantern Corps and their allies the advantage in all their fights. Tomar-Tu orders the Darkstars to return to their base.

After Tomar-Tu retreats the rest of the Darkstars stop moving.

At the Darkstars base Tomar-Tu confronts Hal and Hammond. Hal lets John know this and asks if the next phase of John’s plan is ready. John says that “Turkey Shoot” is ready and fires it at the Darkstars base.

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Hal starts fighting Tomar-Tu while Hammond maintains the psychic disruption of the Controllers’ device. Tomar-Tu asks Mantle to run a diagnostic when he notices his teleportation power isn’t working after being hit by Hal with a powerful strike. Mantle says that the Darkstars teleportation has been nullified. Tomar-Tu then orders the Darkstars to abort their attack.

Before the Darkstars can retreat they are surrounded by the Green Lantern Corps, Arkillo, Orion and Zod. The Darkstars try to fight back the the Green Lantern Corps and their allies are able to overcome their numbers.

Back at the Darkstars base, Hal tells Hammond to go to a safer room to keep the Controllers offline.

Hal tells Tomar-Tu that John has outsmarted him and that Tomar-Tu is already caught. Tomar-Tu takes off his helmet and tells Hal the only way he is going to be beat is if Hal kills him. Hal says that is not the Green Lantern way. Hal then says he is going to beat Tomar-Tu with justice, not murder.

Hal and Tomar-Tu then begin their fight as the Green Lantern Corps and their allies continue to fight all the other Darkstars. End of issue.

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The Good: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #49 does exactly what it needs to do to deliver a strong penultimate issue as Robert Venditti is bringing his run to a close. Everything that happens in this issue sets up a final big clash between the Green Lantern Corps and Darkstars. The personal stakes to this story added the necessary drama as the ideals of the two sides fighting clash in intense rays of lights.

Throughout Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #49 Venditti further builds on the major threat that the Darkstars poses. Venditti gets over how the combination of the Darkstars teleportation power and coordination thanks to their psychic link makes them almost impossible to beat. Even with powerful allies like Arkillo, Orion and Zod on their side it still felt that the Green Lantern Corps were fighting a losing battle if things continued the way it was going. That is a testament to how well done the build for the Darkstars has been under Venditti’s direction.

This large threat that the Darkstars posed made the fact that John Stewart had to sit back and trust everyone to perfectly execute his plan is a true leader. He had absolute trust of his soldiers and allies that he knew if he deviated because of his concern for everyone fighting would only make things worse. That added a sense of urgency for each part of John’s plan to be executed as quickly as possible. When John’s plan was fully executed by everyone it was a time to cheer and feel as though the tides had finally turned in this war between the Green Lantern Corps and Darkstars.

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What made the execution of the plan work was that there were still some uncertain elements. That most came out with how Hector Hammond almost blew everything by trying to destroy the device containing the Controllers through lethal force. Hal being able to keep Hector Hammond from doing this and going with a more subtle psychic attack showed how much development the two have gone through together. Its a trust that before this Darkstars arc started you wouldn’t expect to happen. But with the work Venditti has put into Hal and Hector Hammond’s working relationship it all came off as a natural way for them both to approach this situation.

This all worked to further fuel how Tomar-Tu won’t let anyone stand in his way to accomplish his own sense of justice through lethal means. Seeing how Tomar-Tu quickly confronted Hal and still pushed his methods of lethal force showed how much he believed in the Darkstars ideology. At the same time, we still see that Tomar-Tu does care about those around him as in a state of concern when the Darkstars teleportation power is deactivate he tells his teammates to retreat. That level of concern added to how much Tomar-Tu was fueled by anger over Hal getting in his way, making this final clash feel even more personal.

While everyone else involved didn’t get much in the way of speaking lines at this point it is not needed. At this point we just need to see them all fighting together as all the character work, including the talking, was done in issues prior to this big fight. It speaks to all the character work Venditti has done with Guy, Kyle, Orion, Arkillo and Zod that this can be the case. With one issue left in this story, there is still time to get a little more character work before it is all said and done. For now it is just refreshing to see them all being badasses during the fight with the Darkstars.

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With all that goes on in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #49 Rafa Sandoval and Sergio Davila deliver great looking artwork throughout. With this issue being heavy on the action Sandoval and Davila get plenty of chance to show of how they are able to deliver impactful artwork. Ever beam and punch thrown felt like they had a heavy impact as the Green Lantern Corps and Darkstars went back and forth in their fight. It all culminated in with the final few pages that featured several splash pages that built the hype for what will happen at the end of this story.

The Bad: Nothing.

Overall: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #49 did exactly what it needed to do build excitement for how Robert Venditti will close out his run on this series. Everything that happened between the Green Lantern Corps and Darkstars had a strong sense of urgency as both sides tried to get the upper hand in the final battle. Now that fight reaching its peak there are plenty of ways this all can end. All that potential adds to the hype around Venditti’s final issue of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps.