Comic review: Green Lantern Corps #36- Godhead Act 2, Part 2: The Power of Love

Writer: Van Jensen
Artist: Bernard Chang
Colourist: Marcelo Maiolo
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 12th November 2014

I’ve been very disappointed with this ‘Godhead’ arc over the last few weeks. The writing has lacked ideas, it has been treading water narratively speaking, and has been reading like the writers are not fully behind the crossover. It’s like this is something that they have to do, contractually speaking, and they have done it half-heartedly, with no passion, no intensity, no conviction and no love for the story.

I’m happy to report that writer Van Jensen has bucked that trend. He’s taken the time here to construct an emotionally engaging story with character development and heart.

I say ‘heart’ because that’s what is key here. His main character, Lantern John Stewart, has been emotionally damaged. He thought that he was loved, but he feels conned by it now. He feels that the love wasn’t real, that it was a construct designed to deceive and control him. Green Lantern Corps #36 develops his feelings of emotional betrayal, and takes them to a place with deeper meaning, not just on a narrative level, but on a ‘heart’ level as well.

This theme ties into the power of the main protagonists; a group of space aliens called the ‘Star Sapphires.’ This race of beings gets their strength through love, not violence. That’s one Hell of a deep message for a comic book, and I appreciate it, because it is true. Violence begets more violence, and its usage cannot lead to true spiritual strength. Whatever you use on your enemy rebounds upon yourself, so violence can never be the key to solving any of our problems. That’s how it works, it is a deep, moral, spiritual truth that is so often lost in this world today with our perpetual wars, done now under the deception of a propagandised word called ‘humanitarian intervention.’ That’s not how things work. It’s a lie, and that is why this world is in the mess it is in today.

Artist Bernard Chang and colourist Marcelo Maiolo have tapped into the undercurrent of deep spiritual and moral truth that is flowing through the narrative of this book and have constructed panels that perfectly compliment the story that is being told. It’s the panel variation that is key here, the use of colour, shadow, of hinting at what is taking place without letting it get too graphic, too bloody. It’s subtle, clever and always very, very interesting to the eye.

Green Lantern #36, or Godhead Act 2, Part 2, takes what was a wavering crossover arc and injects new life and passion into it. The character of John Stewart has never felt more alive, more real, and a story that was beginning to bore me has been giving an injection of love into it’s veins, giving it renewed momentum, new passion and new hope. This was achieved through the collaboration between a writer who knew his characters, knew the story and had something that he wanted to say, and an artist and colourist who were in perfect synch with what he was trying to achieve.

This issue of the Godhead arc is a great success all around. I really enjoyed the book and although they probably will never read this review I just want to put it out there and say a big thank you to writer Van Jensen, artist Bernard Chang and colourist Marcelo Maiolo. I’ve been very negative about mainstream comic books this week, but this one was extremely good, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading every single page of it.

Rating: 9/10