Green Lantern: Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Keith Champagne, Tom Nguyen, Mark Irwin, Tony Avina, Alex Sinclair, Sal Cipriano

Sinestro is freed, and Hal’s ring is adjusted so that it acts according to him, and not Sinestro. Indigo-1 takes the GLs to Korugar so that they can get the Book of the Black, now that they know Black Hand is resurrected as a Black Lantern. There is a lot of assuming going on here on their part, but it does actually make sense that this is what happened.

Consulting the Book shows them hints of the future, and the coming of the Third Army. The “prophecy page” shows us the following: John Stewart being zapped by the Guardians, Atrocitus leading an army of Manhunters, a ringless Guy Gardner jailed, what appears to be Rankorr (or Hal as a Red Lantern), hooded figures meeting in secret, and the new Green Lantern of Earth, Simon Baz…all while the Guardians oversee everything. As if it were their design.

Pretty interesting stuff there. I know Johns loves things like this. He’s an idea guy. He comes up with all sorts of crazy stuff, and we’re meant to only catch glimpses of it through cryptic imagery. Typically I’m okay with that, because I like the thrill of not knowing exactly what it all means.

Meanwhile, Black Lantern Black Hand compels his deceased family to rise from their graves. He even brings them a bag of Chinese food. Hilarious. Hand has some awesome dialog in this issue, especially with him conversing - alone - with his family at their dining room table. He’s ever the weirdo, and it’s actually nice to see him back. I can’t help but wonder exactly what this will bring. Like Sinestro says, the last time, Hand acted as the harbinger of Nekron…who tried to kill the entity of Life and bring the entire universe into the Black.

Mahnke’s art…well, everyone should know by now how I feel. But this issue has me divided more than usual. The “prophecy page” looks GREAT, but there are moments where the lines on people’s lips are just way too defined (maybe that’s an inker thing?), and the eyes are far too detailed for my liking. It gives everyone this strange over-make-up’d look, as if they were going on stage or something.

Green Lantern #11, the verdict: It’s great seeing Black Hand back in action, and he has some good moments in this book. His psychosis really comes through. Sinestro’s back to being a jerk, and he even does something that I thought was a little too much, even for him, concerning a portrait of him and Arin Sur. Hal remains as clueless as ever, and it goes to show you why I was never a huge Hal fan. Guy remains my favorite GL. Taking a step back and looking at everything as a whole going on in GL-world (minus New Guardians), it’s exciting to see what’s coming. Everything feels like it’s coming to a head, and I’m pretty pumped to find out how the Guardians are going to implement their Third Army, and if our heroes are going to be able to stop them, or at least survive!

(Photo Source: Green Lantern Wikia)