Expendable: Green Lantern Corps #5 Review

We’re now five issues into the New 52 reboot of Green Lantern Corps, and the one thing that has become undeniably apparent is that this book has a distinct identity. Unfortunately, that identity is that it’s the book that swipes from – or to be charitable, is inspired by – other forms of entertainment. Issue 3 was lifted from a video game in hoard mode. Issue 4 looked a lot like an episode of 24. This issue’s a knockoff on Sylvester Stallone’s flick The Expendables. At this rate, issue 6 will be about a Green Lantern whose ring is positioned in the back of her throat and can only be activated by Harry Reems.

Seriously: this issue is about The Expendables of the Green Lanterns Corps: The Mean Machine. As Guy Gardner calls them, “…the toughest sons of bitches in the Corps.” They’re old soldiers, so old that after more than forty years of modern Green Lantern stories, this is the first time we’ve ever heard of them. So old they wear the traditional Green Lantern uniform of jeans, muscle shirts and leather jackets. So old they have code names like, “Lee” and “Flint” and “Bronchuk”. So old they drink heavily, and probably occasionally tip a forty for their dead homies Norrisum, Schwarzeneggerzil, and Van Damme (Van Damme being Oan for “Michael Keaton.”).

Mean Machine’s mission – their one last job before retirement, if you will – is to take on the Keepers that have been vexing the Corps since the reboot. The Keepers are generally immune to the power of the Green Lanterns’ rings, which will require a novel and out-of-the-box solution that only a clever and experienced soldier from a 1980s action film – I mean, from the early history of the Green Lantern Corps – can provide: “You need two things: Some kind of fear bomb and guns. Lots of guns.” Because clearly it requires years and years of experience to know that, when faced with a difficult problem requiring lateral thinking, the best answer is to shoot it in the face.

Look, on paper there’s nothing wrong with a comic book that’s inspired by 80s action films, or even by recent movies about 80s action flicks. There’s a reason that those movies were so popular: they’re a lot of fun. There’s a place for cocky, over-testosteroned, shoot first and never ask questions types, and frankly if you can’t do it in a book that stars Guy Gardner, then you can’t do it anyplace at all. The tricky part about this book is just how obvious and on-its-sleeve its influences are. From almost the first page, writer Peter Tomasi all but screams “Lookit what I’m doing! It’s an action film!” It really served to try and do its level best to yank me out of the book… to the point where I just realized that I’m about 500 words into this review and I haven’t mentioned much of anything about what actually happened in this book. And considering that I recently reviewed a book that similarly wore its influences on its sleeve and didn’t have any similar issues, that says something about how distracting it is here.

The art by Fernando Pasarin is pleasant enough. It’s good, straight-ahead comics art: realistic figures (Or as far as the concept of “realistic” goes in a book where half the characters are weird fucking aliens), reasonably clear storytelling, and not-bad action sequences – there’s an attack on a space pirate ship that is kinetic and exciting, but good luck actually trying to figure out what’s happening in any kind of linear sense… but then again, you could say the same thing about Commando, Rambo, or any of the movies this is supposed to be inspired by, so I’m willing to give it more of a pass than I often would.

The two biggest problems with Pasarin’s art are his facial expressions – he tends to like his squinty, angry, intense looks a bit much; there are panels upon panels of characters who look like they’re either filled with rage or consipation. In addition, Pasarin’s a little on the nose with his depictions of “space pirates” – the ship has big solar sails, and the pirates have piercings, eye-patches and even a Goddamned spyglass… but considering Tomasi has one of the pirates yell, “Yarghh!” Like it’s Talk Like A Pirate day in space, I’m guessing the description for the pirates was in the script… which means that when Harry Reems “stimulates” that ring, it’ll probably be to shoot a space ninja.

I get that Tomasi is trying to put together some big, dumb fun here, and I’m willing to accept a certain amount based on that hypothosis. But his influences are so front and center that it feels like he’s bending the plot around to fit the Expendables model, so half the time it seems like the book is winking at me. This storyline could wind up working – after all, this is just another part of a massive, decompressed storyline that’s been going on since issue 1 – but on its individual merits, this book’s just a little too clever for its own good. Tomasi chucked everything into this book but the kitchen sink… which will probably appear in issue 5 named Kittttchinsynk with a power ring rammed on its spigot. Wait for the trade.