Basement X

Starting in Green Lantern #53, we have the story of the "New Guardians" (Hal, Carol, Sinestro, Atrocitus, Larfleeze, Saint Walker, Indigo-1) coming together on Earth to now find, protect, and most likely battle, their respective Entities.

After Blackest Night, the Corps seemed to call an "intergalactic truce" and most of them heading for their home planets. But Larfleeze stays on Earth and confronts Luthor to learn more about the planet and people after their discussion in BN.

Saint Walker helps burry and put to rest all of the bodies resurrected on Earth, giving each a prayer to carry back on and comfort those who's loved ones came back.

Atrocitus learns he has a new mission, including a deal with Ganthet and Guy Gardner (Played out in the upcomming Emerald Warriors) and heads back to Earth to fulfill it.

Hal and Carol are confronted by Sinestro, who learned of the White Lantern that appeared in New Mexico, and the three of them learn none of them can lift it individually. When they try all together, it speaks to them of the Entities, and how they have to protect them all. Because someone is going around and collecting and storing them on Ryut. Whoever it is, they're the being who pulled away Parallax during Blackest Night, and they then went to steal Ion out of Sodam Yat, turning Daxam's sun yellow again, and launching him down onto the planet. Now they have 2 of the 7 Entities chained on Ryut. They also claim to be the being who wrote the Green Lantern Oath


So far, we've gotten the names for all the Entities, and their locations:

Red- The Butcher- Somewhere in Montana, also being tracked by the Spectre
Orange- Ophidian- Trapped in Larfleeze's Power Battery
Blue- Adara- Possibly heading into Michigan
Indigo- Proselyte- Appears to be with the Indigo Tribe on their world

And the Predator of the Violet Lanterns/Star Sapphires appears to be in Las Vegas.

Hal Carol and Sinestro engage Atrocitus in New York, who's searching for the Entities as well, and help him defeat Lobo who's there to claim a bounty on him. The four defeat him, as Hal declares that for the time being if one of them is attacked, the others may just as well been also. Turns out Atrocitus hired Lobo to attack for that very reason, and paid him with a Red Lantern Ring.

The whole time, the Entity Collector has been speaking to Hector Hammond, and in the recent issue (56) he frees him, and he goes on to find Hal and Larfleeze in Minesota, where Hal is trying to learn where and how Ophidian was trapped in the Lantern so they can use that to contain the other Entities. But Hammond manages to steal the Battery, and swallos it, those becoming Possessed by Ophidian. He then decides it's "time to get even" with Larfleeze, who tells hal it was a bit tricky trapping his Entity. Seems Larfleeze and Ophidian don't get along. At all.


Overall, it's a promising story but feels to be moving a bit slow for me. The solicits make it sound like we're dealing with 1 Entity each issue, but that's clearly not the case. However, I LOVE having those 7 characters together which is why I loved BN so much, and hope this storyline really pays off.

ehhhh

I'm not really a fan of Sinestro being a Guardian; Sinestro made for a great villain. Total badass, murderer, butcher etc... To see him as a Guardian waters him down in my view. It's a trend I see happening a lot lately: Villains becoming good guys. Juggernaut, Spike, Harley, Ivy, Harvey Dent, Kingpin (briefly) etc...

I get that writers want to examine different facets of a villain but making them into heroes really throws a bucket of cold water on everything they did previously.

But hold up, before I make any rash judgments on Sinestro, what is Sinestro's personality and role within the New Guardians? Is he still an antagonistic prick bent on bringing order to the universe through fear or is he <shudder> coming around the GL Corp. way of thinking?

Oh by New Guardians, I don't mean they're not Lanterns. My bad. that's just the name of the storyline, and the un-official name of this group of 7. They are all VERY much still leaders and actual members of their Corps. They haven't become like.. Ganthet and Sayd or anything. Sinestro is still the leader of his corps, weilding a Yellow Ring, and hell-bent on bringing the universe to order and making Jordan the first to be under his boot, but he wants the power of the White Lantern again, but realized he's being forced to 'play along' with Hal, Carol, etc in order to possibly get to that power again.

None of them want to be working together, but have to. No worries. He's still a villain.

Update:

So basically, not a lot has happened other than Hal going to find Carol in Las Vegas where the Predator entity was. He, Carol and Larfleeze fight the entity after it possesses a man and Carol shows him he's not in love but infatuated. The three travel back to the Star Sapphire homeworld where the Central Power Battery is failing without a source in it's center.

The Queen of the Zamarons offers herself to be the center rather than the Predator as the others want. Carol tells them that the Battery can run on the power of Love and belief in it alone like the GL Battery does, and it doesn't need a source of love in the center of it to operate. As the Queen reignites the battery with her dying breath, she names Carol her successor, the New Queen of the Zamarons.

Meanwhile, Sinestro and Atrocitus are tracking down the Butcher, where Atrocitus discusses how he believes anyone who murders in rage deserves to lose their life, and he will gladly take it when he kills dozens of men on death row.

Saint Walker calls Hal to Earth since Adara has chosen a host. Carol refuses to go and stays with the Predator and Zamarons to rebuild, turning the tables on Hal and saying she'll be home when she's home like he used to say to her.

Meanwhile, the guy who was possessed by the Predator tells Larfleeze that he learned things about him, and how Larfleeze used to love and that he knows Larfleeze isn't his real name. Larfleeze goes off and tries to kill the man but Hal steps in and saves him.

Hal and Larfleeze head to earth, and when trying to talk Adara out of the girl since she's too young and was a kidnapping victim, and she tells Hal none of that matters. Saint Walker's all kinds of happy and wants her to spread hope to the world, and she tells Larfleeze his parents still live and wish for him to return. We're getting lots of little hints about our resident Orange Lantern it seems.

Barry shows up suddenly, going off on Hal for the company he's been keeping.



So far.. it's moving really slow. I dig the story, but it's taking a long time to get where it's going. We won't even get the reveal of the entity collector for another 3 issues, and this one started 5 issues ago. I feel like it's just taking too long to work out, or that it's way too decompressed.

Does anyone else have a problem with how fast they are travelling though space now?

Didn't it use to take them weeks to travel, and now, it's just zoom, we are there.

I wondered about that as I wrote that up. My guess is that Central power Batteries can 'teleport' them back or so since they're so close to the source, but yeah I dunno how Hal and Larfleeze got back to Earth so quick. I know the Zamaron's teleported them all to Zamaron when they had the Predator, but after I have no clue.

Tragic Angelus wrote:I wondered about that as I wrote that up. My guess is that Central power Batteries can 'teleport' them back or so since they're so close to the source, but yeah I dunno how Hal and Larfleeze got back to Earth so quick. I know the Zamaron's teleported them all to Zamaron when they had the Predator, but after I have no clue.

Ack, I missed that.

My bad, I think I forgot to mention that. But still, they don't exactly explain how Hal and Larfleeze got back to Earth so quick. I suppose it's the same deal, but that's a rather convenient plot device.

At one time, was there an ability of the ring to travel long distances, like from Oa to Earth, in a faster way? I mean.. otherwise it seems like it'd take the Earth GLs a few hours at least just to get to Oa.

Tragic Angelus wrote:My bad, I think I forgot to mention that. But still, they don't exactly explain how Hal and Larfleeze got back to Earth so quick. I suppose it's the same deal, but that's a rather convenient plot device.

At one time, was there an ability of the ring to travel long distances, like from Oa to Earth, in a faster way? I mean.. otherwise it seems like it'd take the Earth GLs a few hours at least just to get to Oa.

I always remember Kyle Rayner leaving earth would be a big deal, there was no popping over to OA, it would take weeks.

Now they can pop around the entire universe, no problem.

I thought this whole thing would be way more interesting if they couldn't immediately respond to everything.

Yeah, I remember it being something of a trip at one time or another, but lately it seems to have shortened to a few hours, like the rings have a warp drive kind of thing. I'd assume it drains the rings a bit but I'm not sure.

As far as other things in the story go, everything is mostly taking place on Earth, because apparently all of the Entities are on Earth. They only went to Zamaron because the Star Sapphire Guardians brought them there since they had the Predator.

But it is a good point to bring up. Apparently it's something that seems to get overlooked often and not even considered anymore.

Tragic Angelus wrote:Yeah, I remember it being something of a trip at one time or another, but lately it seems to have shortened to a few hours, like the rings have a warp drive kind of thing. I'd assume it drains the rings a bit but I'm not sure.

As far as other things in the story go, everything is mostly taking place on Earth, because apparently all of the Entities are on Earth. They only went to Zamaron because the Star Sapphire Guardians brought them there since they had the Predator.

But it is a good point to bring up. Apparently it's something that seems to get overlooked often and not even considered anymore.

I also don't remember that last time I ring needed to be charged.

Do they even need to be anymore?

Yeah, they do. In GLC and EG they bring up how much charge a ring has all the time. In fact it was a big part of the newest EG because the rings weren't supercharged around a Blue Lantern like they should be.

This came up at NYCC too. Johns said that he just basically assumes they're charged in between issues, though ring charges typically last for 24 hours. The reason we've not seen them charge tho I guess is so that it's not a scene that takes up space in the book unless necessary.

Ring Charging is like taking a dump; it happens off panel