At the end of ‘Green Lantern’ #2, Guy Gardner, Jon Stewart, and a small group of Lanterns were under attack from the mystery group that had been slaughtering Lanterns around the universe. Somehow, this group (which the cover calls the “Ring Slayers”) had developed a method of being nearly immune to the green power of the Lantern’s rings. Outgunned, outmanned, and quickly losing ground, the Lanterns send out a call for backup… but will it make it in time?

This issue is almost 100% action. It’s a standoff issue, pure and simple. The Lanterns are trapped in a seemly inescapable situation with Ring Slayers on every side and any hope of assistance is still hours away. If you’ve wanted to see what this new crew of Lanterns can do in the heat of battle, this issue delivers in spades! Nearly every panel is blasting, punching, and, in at least one case, a tail whipping. As the standoff battle winds down near the end of the issue, the paradigm shifts and next issue will switch things up from a standoff to a rescue mission.

This issue doesn’t advance the mystery of this first story much beyond what was established over the past few issues but I think what Peter Tomasi was intending with this issue was to show readers just how much trouble the Lanterns were in against the new threat of the Ring Slayers. One major problem of the Green Lantern Corps is, it’s often hard to see how a group of heroes, each with one of the most powerful weapons in existence on their fingers, could actually be threatened. In the past, they were given a weakness to the color Yellow, which while providing the Green Lanterns with their own version of Superman’s kryptonite, was admittedly a little cheesy. The reason behind the Ring Slayers’ immunity to the Green power is much more believable and should allow the creation of some real villains for the GL Corps in the new DCU.

In the art corner, Geraldo Borges does a wonderful job this issue. In an epic space comic like ‘Green Lantern Corps’ the reader wants to see huge battle scenes with immense background details. One of the most fun things about reading some of the massive DC Comics back in the 80s when George Perez was handling artwork, was that a reader could spend half an hour just looking through the huge battle scenes to find their favorite hero in true “Where’s Waldo?” fashion. Borges gives us at least once major scene worthy of Perez this issue and I can’t wait to see what he’ll do in the inevitable coming battles.

‘Green Lantern Corps’ is one of the few titles that didn’t get completely overhauled by the New 52 relaunch, being as that it basically continued directly out of the pre-relaunch ‘Green Lantern’ tales. But Tomasi is still providing a tale that new readers of the series should be able to jump right into without previous knowledge of the ‘Green Lantern’ mythos. So, if you’ve ever been interested in reading ‘Green Lantern’, now is the best time to start that I’ve seen in ages.

Verdict: Buy

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #3
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art by GERALDO BORGES
Cover by ALEX GARNER