“Civil Corps 1: World War”
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeremy Adams
Art: Xermanico
Colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
The seeds of war have been sown, and now a massive battle rages across the galaxy! Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner must race to unlock the mystery of the Dark Star resurrection, what it means for their beloved friend Kilowog, and just how to battle an entire planet! The red rage of Mogo rains down on our heroes as the Civil Corps heats up!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Green Lantern continues to be a favorite of mine going back decades but I haven’t read much since the Flashpoint reboot over a decade ago. I’ve enjoyed the character in a bunch of the non-continuity books over the years and have decades of prior reading of Hal and most of the gang. This series has Jeremy Adams stepping in to guide Hal to a new place in the DCU and it’s my first time reading their work, which they handle well here. Xermanico has joined the book for the moment and that means we get a pretty solid-looking work as I’ve long enjoyed their stuff and how they pull together so many varying things to make it all feel cohesive. There’s a good dynamic look to the action here, the designs are great, and with the color work from Fajardo Jr, it delivers a solid experience without overdoing the green.
With the Corps special that came out between the main issues of this series, this book has a little catching up to do from the events there and the previous installment. The main thrust is that Thanagar is in ruins after what happened with Thaaros and so few were saved and seemingly billions have died there. That has Adam Strange and a bunch of others from Rann trying to get survivors but also getting out of there because of how bad off the sector is with Mogo now a Red Lantern planet and a real threat. At the same time, we see how the Durlans are trying to stake out their plans and power with Thaaros dead and largely glad to be done with him as he’s been unstable for a bit and drew them into things they didn’t need to be, or simply earlier than they had planned. It’s not a great situation but they’re working to tamp down the bad things in order to maintain control and illusion.
What we do get to push the action side forward is that Hal and John have to work to protect that Rannian ship while Carol attempts to help repair it since it was damaged in the fight. The two work well together as always and I like that they can do it with little comments for obvious reasons. Carol’s struggling more with her place in all of this but we see how she manages to fit in quite well too, though she ends up overcharging things a bit and leading to a potential new issues. Similarly, we see John and Hal deal with Star Shroud for a bit who has now thrown his lot in fully with the Durlans. And at the same time, we see how things are going with Guy and his gang on Oa trying to rescue other Lanterns while Larfleeze does his thing but it’s just building to something more problematic going to happen there as all of these things get closer to colliding.
In Summary:
With the storyline having to deal with the Absolute Power crossover and then the piece with the separate standalone issue, it’s not been a lot of linear storytelling and that has made it a frustrating read even as we’ve had some good ideas being played with here. It’s no surprise that the book is big and galactic at this point but it has me missing some of the smaller and more earthbound elements that it started with. There are a lot of things going on here with some great artwork but I just particularly liked watching the Rannian element play out, seeing what Carol is doing to try and help, but also curious to see what the real fallout of Thanagar is as killing off a few billion people shouldn’t feel so casual here.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: October 16th, 2024
MSRP: $4.99
