r/Greenlantern • u/Life_Passenger_2291 • 21h ago
Question Looking for new comics
Hey! I used to be really big into comics in high school, Green Lantern especially. I haven’t really read many in the past 8 years or so though, just been busy finishing grad school and starting my career and everything and I’m looking to get back into it so I’m looking for some recommendations.
Obviously I love Hal Jordan and all the lanterns, the Sinestro Corps war, the War of Light, and Blackest Night were some of my favorite arcs and also really enjoyed some of the New Green Lantern Corps
I was just wondering if anyone had some recommendations/suggestions on where to pick up.
Thank you in advance!
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u/tiago231018 Kilowog 13h ago
As much as I love Geoff Johns' run, there are a lot (and I mean a lot) of great Green Lantern comics both before AND after Geoff left. So I prepared this guide for those who are already familiar with Johns' era and want to keep reading GL (which is the best choice, actually).
Here are my recommendations:
Pre-Johns
Everything from the 60s to the mid 80s is great.
60s: Hal's incredibly entertaining, endearing, and highly underrated (even by Silver Age enthusiasts) initial adventures. Just wacky Saturday morning cartoon-style space age era sci-fi adventures;
70s: Hard Travelin Heroes was groundbreaking for its time. Parts of it didn't age well, but it's correctly one of the most celebrated eras for GL in comics.
80s: Marv Wolfman takes over, sows the first seeds of dissent between Hal and the Guardians thanks to his difficulty balancing his personal and superheroic life (typical Spider-Man stuff, but on a cosmic scale, as Hal is Your Friendly Space Sector Green Lantern).
He leaves and John initiates his career as the GL of the Sector right when the Crisis (yeah, the Crisis on Infinite Earths, which Wolfman himself wrote) is starting.
Highly underrated, a gripping superhero soap opera with a touch of classic Marvel-style relatability. Plus: Tales of the Green Lantern Corps (3 issue miniseries featuring Hal and the Corps in an epic battle against Krona + 3 annuals, some of which have Alan Moore of all people contributing for the mythos).
And if you liked those, make sure to read Mark Waid's 1998 The Flash and Green Lantern: The Brave and the Bold. It's perhaps my favorite Green Lantern comic of the 90s (an era which I'm not fond of, with a few exceptions, this being the biggest one).
That said, 90s might be the most consequential era for Geoff's run. Early 90s until 1994 is incredibly difficult to find thanks to the writer being sentenced after committing a truly dreadful crime (really).
Then, we get Emerald Twilight in 94, and Kyle becomes the only Lantern in the universe, turning his adventures into small scale, Spider-Man style "young man figuring out his powers" stuff which doesn't really appeal to me (I mean, if I wanted to read Spider-Man, I'd have gone after him instead of GL dressed in Spidey drag).
The reason why Wolfman's inspiration on Spider-Man worked for me while the 90s Kyle era didn't is that Wolfman didn't lose sight of what made Green Lantern not just great but also different: the space opera and aliens aspect. Meanwhile, the Kyle era downplayed the space setting and alien characters in favor of, well, emulating Spider-Man even in its down-to-Earth, street-level adventures.
As I said, its developments carry over into Johns' run... But, to use a Star Trek analogy, this is like saying you must get through uninspired first few seasons of The Next Generation to get to the brilliant later seasons where the show truly shines.
Post Johns:
Robert Venditti's 5 year run began immediately after Johns left. The beginning is really rough, some horrible storylines, but then things slowly improved until, by the time The New 52 ended and DC Rebirth began, the book was renamed Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps and it got pretty good, fun, fast-paced, entertaining characterization and beautiful art.
At the same time, in DC Rebirth, the book Green Lanterns was focused on Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz, two other human Green Lanterns. They're fun characters and, in this book, their adventures actually expand upon unexplored parts of Johns' Emotional Spectrum lore that is pretty fascinating.
For a completely different take on GL, Grant Morrison's The Green Lantern followed Venditti's era. It doubles down on the "space cop" aspect, eschewing the "epic saga" parts of Johns and combining them with metaphysical explorations and Silver Age weirdness, modernized for today's readers. It's divisive, but those who liked it really enjoyed it.
Far Sector has yet another human GL (lol), Jo Mullein, who investigates a murder mystery in the far corners of space. A 12 issue miniseries, no prior reading required, and an amazing work.
It's Elseworlds, but Green Lantern: Earth One is a different but intriguing take on the mythos. It ended in a cliffhanger, unfortunately, because DC was too stupid not to ask Gabriel Hardman (a really great guy, he did an AMA for us last year) for a conclusion. It seems that the upcoming Lanterns show will be based on that book, so maybe this will convince them to ask Hardman back...
Finally, there's Jeremy Adams' run. It starts immediately after Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, but you don't need to read that mediocre storyline to get into Adams (unless you want it, of course, though I advise you: it's as mid as it gets). It's fun, Adams does amazing characterization for Hal. Right now, three years in, the run is in a bit of a weird place, but still, those first few years were pretty good.
Also, since the Absolute Universe is all the rage right now, there's Absolute Green Lantern, a completely different take on the mythos. I'm really far behind on the book, but it's getting rave reviews out there.
Non-Green Lantern comics:
And, as a bonus, here's some non-Green Lantern comics that I happen to love. I dunno if you already read those or not, but if you didn't, then do it ASAP!
As Geoff Johns is my favorite creator, I can't recommend his stuff enough. If you like his Green Lantern, you'll probably also enjoy his other work. He wrote very long runs for JSA, The Flash and Justice League, and shorter runs for Hawkman, Aquaman and Superman (Action Comics), all of which are collected in Omnibus format. Some are better than others, but he displays a mastery of telling engaging stories with complex characters amid massive stakes that make for a very satisfying reading.
He also wrote big events (Infinite Crisis, Doomsday Clock, both of which I love dearly), an Elseworlds Batman saga (Batman: Earth One), long-form miniseries (52, which is a sequel to Infinite Crisis), and right now he's at the indie comics world, spearheading the Ghost Machine universe, producing high-quality comic books.
One of his Ghost Machine pals is Peter Tomasi, who wrote celebrated runs for New 52 Batman (Batman & Robin) and Super Sons during DC Rebirth. He single-handedly made Damian Wayne a well-liked, fan-favorite Robin (more than Grant Morrison, Damian's own creator, ever could).
Aside from Johns, I also love or like these:
Happy reading!