“Civil Corps 3: Valley of Dying Stars”
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeremy Adams
Art: Xermanico
Colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
Thaaros has arrived on Oa, hell-bent on destroying everything in his wake, with only Hal Jordan and the other Lanterns to stop him. Meanwhile, Kyle uncovers the secret of the Source Lantern as Varron moves to gain its power for his own. The Green Lantern universe moves toward a new status quo as our heroes contend with the nefarious forces gathered against them!
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 this installment of the series, where the second part of the Civil Corps story happened elsewhere, we get the conclusion and the push to a new place for the Corps. Which is fine but what we essentially get here is a big third-act issue with action upon action and some decent character moments. That mostly comes for Carol as she deals with what has long been inside the star sapphire as it confronts her in space, pleading to be let in with its aggressive tone, in order to survive. But Carol has grown past that and what it brings and has the strength to resist it, which is welcome. Similarly, we see some decent character moments from Kyle as he’s feeling more like himself and wanting to get things done, which is working to protect the larger spectrum from danger and fighting back hard. He takes some hard hits along the way as well, but it’s good to see him back in place and trying to figure it out. I’ve liked Kyle since he was first introduced but his place in the mythos has always felt just a bit off.
The bulk of it is all about the fight against Thaaros and what’s ostensibly his ally as he draws more and more power from the source lantern. It’s an interesting idea at large with what they’re doing, and the idea that Lanterns could draw from different emotional parts at will is certainly interesting to reshape things for some time before it snaps back into place with a more rigid plan. But so much of this issue is the back-and-forth fight that’s enjoyable enough as Xermanico delivers some gorgeous two-panel spreads where the flow of the story is great and there are so many strong sequences with the action and intensity. It is mostly focused through Hal, but we get some good moments with Sinestro stepping up or seeing Kilowogg being brought back to normal by Jess as she finds a way to reach him while being crushed by him. Thaaros’ fall is pretty much expected, and not exactly complete here, so you can see how this is just punting down the road but it wraps up the core of the storyline.
In Summary:
There’s a lot going on here and it gives us a new status quo going forward that can be interesting, but it’s a third-act piece and is mostly action. It has some great moments and the narration pieces from Hal work well, but it’s the small moments that stand out. Jess saving Kilowog, Kyle making his big move, and Carol dealing with her threat. The double-page spreads are great visually and carry the story forward but it’s all so big in scale that it’s lost on the personal side. This isn’t too much of a surprise as Thaaros never hit well as a character early on and his transition to full-on god-reaching villain didn’t get the time it needed in order to really connect well. It’s not bad by any means but it needed more time to hit more of the character material so that it resonated better. I’m curious as to what’s next, still.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: December 11th, 2024
MSRP: $4.99
