Green Lantern Week Part 5: Green Lantern: The New Guardians.

Wow, this article took a while to come out. I hope it's worth it, as this is the comic that has the potential to be my favorite of them all. Green Lantern: New Guardians took the ideas that a lot of readers found most compelling about Geoff Johns's run in Green Lantern and Blackest Night, namely the emotional spectrum and the seven Corps. While these aren't the "New Guardians" as I believe they were described during Brightest Day (Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Atrocitus, Indigo-1, Carol Ferris, Larfleeze and Saint Walker), this group is made of the same basic concept: one member of each Corps. As of issue 2, Saint Walker is the only returning member of the group, with New York Comic-Con hints lending to Larfleeze's catching up with his rogue ring in issue #3.

For those unfamiliar, the "emotional spectrum" is the foundation that life and emotion are built on in the Green Lantern universe. It was founded by seven entities (who were secondary to Entity, the personification of life, and Nekron, the personification of death), each of which created a powerful energy source and tied in to a certain emotion. These emotions and energy sources were Rage (Red), Avarice (Orange), Fear (Yellow), Will (Green), Hope (Blue), Compassion (Indigo) and Love (Violet). From each of these power sources, an almost omnipotent ring-wielding corps was formed, the members of each corresponding with their ring's guiding emotion. Each Corps has its own strengths and weaknesses, many of which have been explored, but most of which have not.

Let me give you some insight into my own tastes, and you might see why I love this concept so much. Some of the shows I enjoyed as a child: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Sailor Moon, Captain Planet, even Care Bears and My Little Pony. What do these all have in common? A group of individuals, each with similar yet subtly different powers, that would combine these abilities in order to combat a threat. Of course, you get this with any group dynamic, but it's usually exaggerated to epic proportions in this kind of team, and so is the enjoyment factor in watching it.

And then of course, you get things like this:

By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!

There are so many tropes and shows based around this kind of combining powers that I couldn't do the topic justice in this post. Generally, it's awesome whenever it happens, and it's pretty much the premise that New Guardians was based on. While we still don't know why six extra rings sought out Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, the indication is that we're getting ever closer to a true answer, and an ultimate upheaval of the balance of power in the universe. Unless this series takes a grave misstep at some point in the future, it's something that I'm going to look forward to on the last week of every month.