EP0078: Green Lanterns, Volume 5: Out of Time (Review)

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Jessica and Simon have to go back in time to train the very first Green Lanterns to save the Universe.

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Transcript below:

Graham Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz have to train the first Green Lanterns ten billion years ago. Find out more as we check out Green Lanterns Vol. 5: Out of Time, straight ahead

[Intro Music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.

Graham: At the end of the previous Green Lantern book, after her Jessica Cruise had gone through her training, or basic and Simon had gone through some more advanced training, the two Green Lanterns had been led to the vault of Shadows by Volthoom, the First Lantern disguised as Remi, a former guardian. Volthoom was revealed and they ended up spiraling out of control and this book picks up right where they left off. Volume 5, Out of Time, collects issues 27 to 32 of Green Lanterns and it begins with Jessica and Simon crashing onto a strange planet that’s full of monsters. Because of the fight with Volthoom, Simon’s ring has been destroyed and the shards embedded in his arm and thus, he has no ring to manipulate. Although, he still has something called the Emerald vision, which helps him figure out some of what’s going on later on but it’s really up to Jessica and they are encountering all these strange creatures and they go into the surface of the planet and they discover the Life Entity, which in the Green Lantern’s mythology was supposed to exist at the beginning of time and they found out that they were on Earth ten billion years ago and at this point, the First Lantern start to arrive and we’ve seen a lot of the First Lanterns in the previous volume.
They were being revealed and the final ones were shown in issues in this book and there’s a wide variety of Lanterns There are some great colors and forms. There’s one that’s plant based, there’s one that’s AI based, there’s one that’s hairy and there’s actually a Krytonian amongst them called Jan-Al. Now, you’re probably thinking what I was thinking that this might be an interesting tie in between Superman and the Green Lanterns, if, maybe somebody who was related to Superman was one of the first Lanterns. However, I don’t think it turned out that way. The rings are given to these First Lanterns but they’re told that because of the threat of Volthoom, they were sent out untested and without any safeguards and Jessica offers to train these first Lanterns but they are very resistant and they’re fighting among each other using their rings. And then that’s when Jan-Al really runs into problems.
Her willpower starts to spike and because there are no safeguards, it can’t be controlled. It goes over 100% over 500% and then she explodes and at that point, people are a lot more open to being trained and this is actually a good story for Simon dealing with a seeming lack of power and trying to find the power within and the strength he has as a person that made him someone who was chosen to bear the Green Lantern ring rather than relying on the instrumentation. I also did like the fact that he was annoyed at Batman because Batman talked him into giving up his gun several books ago. Though, I will say there’s a lack of logic because given the sort of monsters they’re dealing with, a revolver or, I think it might have been a 45, wasn’t going to do him a whole lot of good.

Jessica really has to step up in this book. She started out as someone who had suffered with a lot of anxiety and a lack of confidence in who she was and she just completed training herself and she has to carry the weight through most of the story in terms of making constructs and being able to actually use the ring and also has to train and lead the rest of the group while at the same time trying to protect Simon and I can understand how some of that gets annoying or bothersome to Simon as she tries to keep him out of battle because he doesn’t have a ring but still it does show how much she’s carrying in this book.

All right, now we’re going to get into some heavy spoiler’s territory. Even after the training though, a lot of the Lanterns are reluctant to go to Oa to face Volthoom but she really does rally the troops and get them to go back to Oa and to come to the rescue of the Guardians. On Oa, we’re treated to an epic fight. Unfortunately, most of the First Lanterns perished in the battle and in many ways, that’s expected. Volthoom was the First Lantern and these are inexperienced Lanterns who are having to go into battle because they really don’t have much choice. However, in a really awesome moment when all the other Lanterns including Jessica are down, Simon confronts Volthoom and attacks him and that actually leads to the rings of the other Lanterns coming to him and so he’s able to fight and with spiking willpower was able to control the rings and make a construct that holds Volthoom long enough for Jessica really to calm him down, talk him down and get him back to a point of sanity. It’s a really beautifully, well done scene and she pledges to do what she can to get him back to his homeworld and she thinks she can avoid this all happening with Volthoom being imprisoned a billionaire years and turning evil and getting vengeance and starting this whole thing in the future but the Guardians have decided to lock him up and to seize all of the rings. Although they’re not able to get Jessica’s ring back because it’s from the future and a different time. Because Jessica and Simon had tried to help Volthoom, Volthoom goes ahead and sends them back to the 21st century using his travel Lantern where they find Remi and they find Tyran’r the only survivor of the original Lanterns who had been charged with guarding them and he gives his ring to Simon so that Simon once again is able to command the willpower. Don’t know if this doesn’t have the safeguards of the normal ring and Remi says that because of the fact that the first rings are still out there, many of them and will try to find their way home, with home being Earth, they need them back on Earth guarding it and so they return very happy and we get one more one shot story.
And this one is called House Party and it’s really just a nice character piece. They fight some evil monster and then after eating pancakes and then they go to a party where Simon needs to make up with his best friend Nazir and they are having a difficult time of it, so Simon actually flees the party. It’s really just a good character piece that goes back to all of the work that Sam Humphries has put into this book and put into really helping these characters develop into such great and lovable and enjoyable characters. This is the end of his run and I have to say that it’s just was a really strong run. Each book was really good and he managed to make you relate to and care about these characters who don’t have a long history or are particularly famous. He brought out what’s was heroic and noble in them and it was just a fantastic run. I recommend the entire series and I give Green Lanterns Out of Time, a rating of classy.

All right, well that’s all for now. If you do have a comment, email to me classycomicsguy@gmail.com. Follow at me on Twitter at classycomicsguy and be sure and rate the show on iTunes. From Boise Idaho, this is your host Adam Graham signing off.

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