What I’m Reading: Blackest Night-Tales of the Corps #2

The second issue of the three-part Tales of the Corps miniseries focuses on the Corps of Red, Violet, and Orange. (Last week’s issue gave us Blue, Yellow, and Indigo. The last issue, I suppose, will be the two Corps in the spotlight — Green and Black.)

The first story in the isue is the best. In “Fly Away,” by Geoff Johns and Eddy Barrows, we encounter the angelic Bleez, a universally-recognized creature of beauty who runs into trouble when a member of the Sinestro Corps decides to take her as his own. As she struggles with him, her hatred of everything he stands for grows more and more intense… and hatred is often accompanied by rage. The story works well as an examination of how someone who is used to peace (of a sort — her world looks idyllic, but the story makes it clear it was not) can be consumed by hatred, and pretty quickly at that. In a way, it evokes the Joker’s “One bad day” argument from the classic The Killing Joke.

Next up is probably the most pertinent story in the book, “Lost Love,” by Johns and artist Gene Ha. Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan’s one-time girlfriend, has been eclipsed by the power of Star Sapphire several times over the years. Now, she is approached by the “real” Star Sapphire Corps, wielders of the Violet light of love. Despite her distance from Hal, Carol has never stopped loving him. The question she has to answer now is, will that love be enough to draw her into the war of light? This story is interesting on a few levels. It’s a good exploration of the Hal/Carol relationship, which of course is one that’s been broken and repaired more times than the Daily Planet building, and it also gives us a little more insight into how the Star Sapphires work. While Carol is sold on rejoining by promising to aid Hal and the Green Lanterns in the war, we are left with the question of whether or not that’s the real goal here.

The Orange Lantern story is written by Peter Tomasi with art by the legendary Tom Mandrake. The Oranges are different from the other Corps in that there’s really only one being running the show — Larfleeze, a.k.a. Agent Orange. A being whose greed knows no limits, Larfleeze’s corps is made up of energy recreations of beings he has murdered and absorbed into the power of the Orange Light. This story tells of how the “God of Hunger” called Blume came to belong to Larfleeze. There’s a nice bit of commentary here, but it’s Mandrake‘s art that really makes this story worth it. He has a style that really brings in a feeling of horror to whatever he does, and that suits Blume just fine.

Again, this book doesn’t feel like required reading, but there are some interesting bits here.

Rating: 7/10