Green Lantern Recharge #3

Despite having one of the ugliest covers in some time, the contents inside are often quite fun.

Green Lanterns Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner are going against protocols by entering a restricted area of space to rescue a captured colleague.

I was a bit worried when I heard the GL Corps was returning that the GLs would lose their individual personalities. Often military stories focus on the big picture, ignoring the small, and making everony a generic character.

Yet at least in this mini that has not been the case, as Guy is still the irrelevant loud mouth, whose bark is worse than his bite. While Kyle still questions his role, and is willing to work outside of the box if pressed to while trying to do what is right.

Unfortunately, while the human characters are still interesting. The alien characters still lack that level of connection for me. Two alien GLs from warring races are just too generic so far to make their bickering matter. They come off more as the odd couple rather than two bitter enemies out for one another’s blood as their story should be.

The female alien, Natu, who comes from the same race as GL’s arch foe Sinestro and whose entire race has a burning hatred for anything Green Lantern related after what Sinestro did to them during his time as one. She has the most potential, as she sees her first duty to be as a doctor, not a part of the hated GL Corps.

This should be been fodder for many stories, yet in just two issues that conflict seems resolved because she gets captured and then gets an empowering speech from Kyle. That just seems like too quick a resolution, especially considering that if the ring hadn't picked her she would never have been captured in the first place.

Art wise, artist Patrick Gleason’s work is very uneven. At times his figure work and scene layouts are quite intuitive. While at other times it seems like everything is mashed together, making heads look squashed. I'm not sure if this is the artist's frailty, the fault of having two different inkers, or perhaps a production problem that for some reason doesn't resize the art correctly.

Whatever it is, it can be quite jarring to see, especially in regards to other scenes where the problem isn't evident at all.

Still Kyle and Guy's buddy movie style interaction make the book work. The two characters play off each other well, with Kyle being a calming influence for Guy, that doesn't come off as preachy since Kyle isn't as stodgy as others. While Guy brings out Kyle's independent nature, as he is someone Kyle can relate to but not be in awe of as some of the other legendary GLs are.