Read this as part of the "Rise of Third Army" / "Wrath of the First Lantern" event. It was fun, but all these different color rings seem a little cheesy. Also didn't like the way the First Lantern looked. The story was good though and obviously some huge changes going on in the universe. ( )

An amazing end to a great run. Thank you, Geoff Johns. ( )

Wow. There’s a lot going on in this. We start out by following the story of Simon Baz, a character who I definitely thought I wouldn’t like, and now I really, really like, which surprised me (because really I only really really like the John Stewart Green Lantern (and Guy Gardner is sorta growing on me). He manages to blow up an abandoned factory, and then get shipped off to who knows where (Guantanomo Bay?) because he’s Muslim and so everyone is assuming that the bomb in the back of the van he stole was his. But, then there’s the twist (which I assumed was going to come at some point or another), the ring, in this case Hal/Sinestro’s ring, chose him and suddenly, he’s a Green Lantern.

So, we get to see a bit of B’DG who comes looking for Hal’s ring and finds Simon. We also get to meet an interesting Agent Coulson type guy named Franklin Fed, a cool character who I would have liked to see more of. There’s a bit of the Third Army storyline, but, for the most part the baddie in this particular collection of issues is The First Lantern, Volthoom (awesome name). He has awesome powers, he can mess with time, make and unmake people’s lives, and boy is he pissed because The Guardians have been using his power (and therefore also keeping him in an energy bubble, yes, where can that go wrong) to fuel the Third Army.

Hal and Sinestro meanwhile are stuck in something called the Chamber of Shadows, or perhaps they’re in Black Hand’s Black Lantern Ring, I was fuzzy on that. But, they’re somewhere where there are lots and lots of dead people. I won’t spoil what comes after that, and how Sinestro and Hal get out (two different ways). But, I really liked that part of the story.

As usual, since this is a Green Lantern story there’s the big ole fight at the end, with the Earth Lanterns playing a pivotal role, (I am very glad that Kyle has his own series, ‘cause, I do like the idea of a White Lantern), not to mention Sinestro switching sides at least ten times (okay, maybe a bit of an exageration, only five or six times…).

I wasn’t sure what to think of the very end of everything. Does DC really want to hook those characters into those futures, for sure? I guess since they had someone else telling the Earth Lanterns’ future stories they can take it back, but, I always worry when a writer or writers set a character’s future in stone, it makes the character suddenly less malleable.

Overall I really loved the TPB. I’m slowly appreciating the police force of the galaxy stories just a little more, they’ll never be above the Batman (or Woman/Girl/Bat Family) stories, or the Superman stories, or Green Arrow stories, but, I like what they’ve done with them so far in this New 52 reboot.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment. ( )