After Guy Gardner busted his pal John out of the hoosegow in ‘Green Lantern Corps’ #10, the Alpha Lanterns are none too pleased and there’s almost an all-out Green Lantern war brewing.

As this issue opens, Guy, John, and Kilowog, and several other Lanterns are getting slammed by the Alpha Lanterns. It’s a losing battle as the Alphas are also draining the Lantern ring’s powers as they fight. It won’t be long before they’re out of juice and the Alphas will have won.

Beware: There are minor SPOILERS below.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a good Lantern book if the Alphas just beat our heroes that easily. Over the course of the epic battle, the entire Green Lantern Corps (and even one of the Alphas) begin to realize that the Alpha Lanterns are abusing their powers in their pursuit of “justice” against John.

The only problem with this issue being mostly a 20 page battle is that the story doesn’t really move. The issue opens with action and it closes on action. That, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing. The Green Lantern titles are often about epic space battles, but when no one is really getting seriously wounded and no major characters are killed, it just seems like fisticuffs for the sake of showing off. It’s like a Michael Bay movie with lots of flash and no substance. The only cool thing that happens is the Lanterns turning on the Alphas and I’m sure that’ll play a bigger part in the issues to come with the Guardians looking for a way to get rid of the Lanterns anyway.

Still, I like where Peter Tomasi and this Alpha Lantern story are taking us, I just didn’t like the interlude of all-action on the road to get us there. So it’s not a bad story… just a slow chapter that could easily be skipped without missing much.

On the plus side, with it being a big ring-slinging battle, there’s lots of pretty pictures and artist Fernando Pasarin does a bang up job with the visuals. In the scenes when there is space debris, Lanterns, and beams firing everywhere, there’s never a lot of focus or detail. But still, visuals aside…

Verdict: Borrow

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #11
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Fernando Pasarin & Scott Hanna