After a five-issue battle against the Sinestro Corps, Green Lantern #6 gives the reader a breather before the title dives into its highly-anticipated second arc
Now don't be fooled, this issue is not "filler" as it does include some very interesting, if not important, moments that will shape the year for all the Lantern titles. But as stated earlier this is a breather issue and the issue begins with Hal on a date with Carol. Geoff Johns takes us through the date with Hal leaving his ring at home as Johns gets down to the human aspect of these characters with no threats. Johns shows us how Hal has changed without his ring, as he sees what is important in his life. Of course the writer is careful to not take away some of Jordan's qualities that the readers have grown to love over the years, but it is nice to see Hal relaxed (relatively) and doing "normal" activities. He still has his "act first" attitude, but his heart is in the right place.
As the previous issues have had Hal and Sinestro team-up, this book has them on opposite ends of the galaxy as the former fear monger seeks out an old nemesis. To not give away the entire issue, his plan is to use this old nemesis to find a certain Sinestro Corps member holding a particular Black Book. However, it is when they find this keeper that the plot thickens as Sinestro receives a vision from the book regarding future events. This all culminates with Sinestro realizing that he needs Hal to prevent this bleak future from happening.
Issue 6 has the usual art team of Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy replaced by Mike Choi and Alex Sinclair. Whether Mahnke needed a break as he drew the next arc is unknown, but this issue fails because of the new art team. Choi is not a bad artist, his art is just not a good fit for this kind of story. The characters look nothing like their incarnations (especially Hal) and the colors are very uneven. There are a few panels which were really good, but they were few and far inbetween.
A great example of how lackluster the art in this issue was is the constructs created by Sinestro. They looked like they were created using the airbrush tool in Microsoft Paint which compared to the very detailed and high-ink used by Mahnke is a downgrade.
Glad to know he'll be back for the start of the Secret of the Indigo Tribe arc.
Overall issue #6 was a good read. Johns continues to extend his legendary run by giving great characterization to Sinestro and Hal, directing their new directions while bringing in some old threads from earlier in his run. What keeps this issue from being better is the art but this is still a good read for any Green Lantern fan.
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