Green Lantern: Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Mark Irwin, Tom Nguyen, Keith Champagne, Marc Deering, Alex Sinclair, Tony Avina, Steve Wands, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert, Rod Reis

What an interesting way to get the story moving. We’ve, apparently dropped Sinestro and Hal altogether, and are now following Simon Baz, the new Green Lantern of Earth. That’s kind of a bummer, especially since Johns hinted at Sinestro and Hal together in some kind of other dimension or something in the Free Comic Book Day issue. They can’t be DEAD, which Kyle Rayner hinted at after Sinestro detonated his yellow battery while fighting Black Hand, so where the hell are they?

Well that’s gonna have to be left to guesswork at this point, because screw the characters we’ve been following for a year! And longer! They’re not that important, anyway. What really matters is this brand new direction we’re taking the series and these new characters you don’t care about at all.

Well, that seems a little harsh of me…but it just makes the title feel unfocused. How can we abandon Sinestro and Hal like that? Without any word of what happened to them? Surely they’ll turn up, eventually. In the meantime, Amanda Waller briefs the President on the status of Earth’s GLs. She reports on the escape of suspected terrorist, Simon Baz, via a GL ring. We find Baz in the Keys, suggesting he was being held at Guantanamo.

When he wakes up, he finds the mixed message that both Sinestro and Hal left in the ring for him. It’s interesting, how this ended up working out, as both of them were fighting over who the ring should choose at the end, there. Baz then flies home to Michigan. We meet up with Agent Fed, from the Zero Issue, who’s alerted to Simon’s activity. He doesn’t want to go after him, though…it sounds like he’d rather retire.

Simon’s sister, Sira, faces discrimination at work and is basically told not to come back…at least for a long time. This is, of course, thanks to the world thinking her brother is a terrorist. The two meet up and talk about the past, and how Simon’s never there for the family, and constantly hurting them with his actions and all. Yeah, he’s a stand-up guy.

Meanwhile, those white things in the Guardians’ new Third Army are still out there, assimilating people into the will-less creatures. They sense the new Green Lantern and begin the hunt. While Baz waits for his sister at a secret place, he receives other visitors…the kind that are likely to whoop his terrorist butt if he doesn’t convince them he’s a good guy. But…is he a good guy?

I do feel like saying how I didn’t mind Mahnke’s art style in this issue…but I think I was distracted a bit by the great color work we see in it. For example, the first splash panel we see of Simon in his mask is gorgeous. The way the energy seems to ripple and buzz on his costume is really amazing. My favorite color is green, and seeing the green against the black here just sets my mind on fire. I love the way his costume looks, and I’m a fan of this page.

The ending of the issue does have me excited to see what’s coming next. Which is fortunate, because, other than that, I can’t say I’m overly excited about this Third Army nonsense. I can’t tell if I care or not yet. Basically it boils down to me wanting to see more of Sinestro and Hal together, to watch their relationship develop, and instead I’m getting this new guy. What happens when Hal comes back? Is Earth going to have FIVE Green Lanterns? That seems a bit much.

Green Lantern #13, the verdict: I’m happy that this issue felt better than some of the others in the series, and it’s good to see that the series is riding a “high” right now. While I can’t decide if I like the fact that there’s a new GL or that there’s a new storyline and all, I can recognize that it was a well-done issue. Writing’s solid, but it’s dangerously close to preachy when it comes to Sira and Baz’s family being treated like they are because of the suspected terrorism. I don’t need this book to preach to me because I’m not a racist a-hole.

(Photo Source: Inside Pulse)