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Green Lantern: Willworld

Green Lantern: Willworld

List Price: $17.95
Your Price: $12.21
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A well-drawn, well-executed story, but I just HAVE to ask...
Review: ...who in their right mind tells a story like THIS about a straight-laced SCIENCE-BASED hero like Green Lantern?

That's the thing that killed the book for me. I would have been able to accept something like this with a more magical character (even this character, Hal Jordan, during his several years as the Divinely-powered Spectre while he was dead), but Green Lantern is all about the mastery that science and logical human will has over things metaphysical. The thing that makes Green Lantern unique is that he has absolutely no dishonesty or fear. As a paragon of the sixties scientific era, he was an evolution beyond such things.

That makes him an ill fit for this treatment, which is not to say that the creators didn't perform well here. DeMatteis turned in a solid story that avoided most of the pitfalls that often cripple his work when he deals with the metaphysical, and the art is absolutely stunning in it's eccentricities.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A highly enjoyable ride!!!
Review: DC presents a totally fresh view of a popular character, Hal Jordan. It opens with Hal in middle of nowhere, and totally takes you places you never have been before. You will be with Hal when you meet creatures you have never, never seen before, worlds where anything and everything is possible, and ANYTHING goes!! The art is breathtaking, colors so beautiful ... the book is worth your time!!!!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Excellent art but poorly executed story
Review: I so wanted Green Lantern to have a good original graphic novel. Batman has several, Captain Marvel has one, Enemy Ace has one, Wonder Woman has one or two, but not Green Lantern. The other graphic novel I read, Fear Itself, was probably of even poorer quality.
The three stars above are mainly for the artwork which is simply stunning. Its so detailed and you notice new things about it every time you look through it. Seth Fisher is also given a lot of wierd concepts to visualise and he does it brilliantly.
The story, on the other hand, is the problem, partly because of the way its structured. You have to read about 80 pages into the 96-page graphic novel before it tells you exactly what is going on. You can keep a reader's attention for, say 10 or 20 pages, but 80 is going too far. By the time you come to the end of the story, you think, hey, this is a pretty interesting idea, why didn't he explain it in the beginning? Then maybe I would have appreciated the plot more!
The story begins with Hal Jordan lost with amnesia in a strange world. He meets strange people and is looking for some mysterious character but doesn't know why. Its hard for the reader to care about this character when we don't know its significance or even why Hal is looking for it.
The dialogue is also lacking, which is a shame because JM DeMatties is a master of humerous dialogue as you can tell from reading his Justice League International stories. Here it just comes off sounding uninteresting, like he's trying too hard to be funny.
Really is a shame, because this is one of the few times we've seen Hal Jordan on a solo adventure since Emerald Twighlight. Oh well, it seems he is being brought back to the DC Universe as a GL so maybe there is some light on the horizon.




Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Breathtaking World Class Seth Fisher Pencils
Review: Now if you're looking for a comic that's worth ... dollars, then I highly recommend picking up the Green Lantern graphic novel Will World.

The story involves a spectacularly surreal rite of passage that Green Lanterns (Hal Jordan here) have to go through in order to more effectively wield the power of the ring. He also recites the Alfred Bester penned Green Lantern oath at least once or twice. But the star of this show isn't the story but the incredible pencils of Seth Fisher. The only thing I might compare it to is that New York gallery level Dr. Strange annual that P. Craig Russell drew those many years ago. There are out and out homages/thefts of Man Ray, Escher, Magritte and Dali that burst from the page, not to mention the continuous suggestive ooze of Bill Plympton's animated mutations. It features a squealing zoo of bizarre images, such as: Giant Floating Heads, tiny people, people with six arms, flying carpets, flying saucers, architecture gone mad (Indian palaces mixed in with future organic skyscrapers mixed with Chinese houses standing beside a rundown tenement building, etc.) pipe smoking gorillas, zeppelins and of course Alien Grays. It has just a small touch of Moebius dappled with the sensibility of the Beatles Yellow Submarine Cartoon. It's the kind of thing that would make Windsor McKay fume with jealous anger. And that's just the first splash spread on pages 8 and 9 of this 96 page epic.

Stunning stuff. Not unlike walking through a living, acid tinged dream. I mean, I don't do drugs, but there are times when you're reading or listening to something where you get the faint sense that you're missing out by not being under the influence of, well, something. Every panel screams jarring and disorienting: a floating pixie here, giant levitating heads, a Joker card that features the Joker, towering 20 story clowns with lamprey-like arms, not to mention Green Lantern's head occasionally exploding into figures of people or a great twisted swirling cacophony of alien faces and organic vinelike strands..

Highly recommended. In fact, when computer pundit Robert Cringley's predicted cheap foldable plastic displays are a reality, this is the kind of art that I'd like to upload on my walls.

Philip Shropshire..


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