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A review by arrik
Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army by Doug Mahnke, Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarín, Geoff Johns, Peter Milligan, Miguel Sepúlveda, Tony Bedard, Aaron Kuder
4.0
Alright so as a reader of GL, GLC, and GL:NG, but not Red Lanterns, I opted to buy this trade instead of the Volume 3s of each title. Each Volume 3 includes issues 13-20. That'd be 4 trades to buy to get the complete crossover story of both Rise of the Third Army and Wrath of the First Lantern. Going this route, only two trades to buy. It does leave out a couple zero issues (GL and GL:NG) and the GL:NG Annual #1 going this route, so if you are a pure completist, maybe the four Volume 3s is a better option. But I personally did not feel like jumping back and forth between four books. So crossover compilation it is.
On to the story. Surprisingly, Hal takes a backseat here and a new lantern named Baz is given the ring. He ultimately doesn't play too big a role in taking down the Third Army either, so I'm assuming all those issues spent with him will play out in the First Lantern arc. Too, I really didn't think Red Lanterns issues added anything. In the last few panels when Atrocitus joins the fight, a reader who had skipped RL would not know where his army came from, but that's really it, and not a big deal. The shining stories are the fall and return of Guy Gardner and the completion of Kyle Rainer's assimilation of the emotional spectrum (that took place in GL:NG Volume 1, when he slipped on all the rings and almost died for it).
As usual GL writers manage to ratchet up universally apocalyptic events. Based on how the Third Army was portrayed early on, the story definitely had me turning pages to see how the Corps would get out of this one. The conclusion is a soft one spilling right into the next arc. And if there's anything I'm disappointed in, it's that nothing that took all these issues to happen really helped on this situation. It just came back to good old fashioned ring slinging. So in that regard, this entire crossover was just one big set up for the First Lantern arc.
The art was, as usual very good. Here my only complaint is the GL:NG inconsistency. Kyle has really changed from Volume 1 to now and many panels looked downright awful. His facial structure and hair had undergone radical alterations among artists. A shame since this title tends to have the best art and color, for obvious reasons. But I certainly wasn't let down but the full page spreads.
On to the story. Surprisingly, Hal takes a backseat here and a new lantern named Baz is given the ring. He ultimately doesn't play too big a role in taking down the Third Army either, so I'm assuming all those issues spent with him will play out in the First Lantern arc. Too, I really didn't think Red Lanterns issues added anything. In the last few panels when Atrocitus joins the fight, a reader who had skipped RL would not know where his army came from, but that's really it, and not a big deal. The shining stories are the fall and return of Guy Gardner and the completion of Kyle Rainer's assimilation of the emotional spectrum (that took place in GL:NG Volume 1, when he slipped on all the rings and almost died for it).
As usual GL writers manage to ratchet up universally apocalyptic events. Based on how the Third Army was portrayed early on, the story definitely had me turning pages to see how the Corps would get out of this one. The conclusion is a soft one spilling right into the next arc. And if there's anything I'm disappointed in, it's that nothing that took all these issues to happen really helped on this situation. It just came back to good old fashioned ring slinging. So in that regard, this entire crossover was just one big set up for the First Lantern arc.
The art was, as usual very good. Here my only complaint is the GL:NG inconsistency. Kyle has really changed from Volume 1 to now and many panels looked downright awful. His facial structure and hair had undergone radical alterations among artists. A shame since this title tends to have the best art and color, for obvious reasons. But I certainly wasn't let down but the full page spreads.