Comixology.Com has released a free eight page preview of the upcoming Green Lantern Corps: Lost Army series. This sneak peek left a very, very good impression on me. Jesus Saiz does a tremendous job on the art. It seems he is handling every visual aspect of this title aside from the lettering. He is credited as artist and colorist. His depiction of John Stewart is one of the best I’ve seen. His John is very handsome and totally idealized. From his facial features to his physique, John looks great. The only criticism I have is that his eyes are brown instead of green. John Stewart’s green eyes are a very striking and distinctive visual feature, so it’s always disappointing when artists forego them in favor of something much less interesting. I can only hope that Jesus Saiz changes them for future issues.
Saiz’s Arisia continues to impress me. She is really beautiful, confident, mature, and adventurous looking. She carries the weight and presence one would expect of a veteran Lantern like herself.
Writer Cullen Bunn introduces a new character called Xrill-Vrek. She is described as being a morphic empath, and it seems she takes on the traits of beings around her. She begins the book with hair and facial features similar to Arisia, a skin tone similar to John, and a body type and eyes similar to Two-Six, who is also present. Events transpire that immediately reveal her to be an interesting character that I’m looking forward to seeing more of.
Comparing the work of Jesus Saiz to that of the previous art team on Green Lantern Corps–colorist Marcelo Maiolo and artist Bernard Chang–is tough. Concerning John Stewart, I easily prefer Jesus Saiz’s work. Chang and Maiolo made a great looking John, but there were times I felt his facial features were over exaggerated; notably the size of his nose and his lips. To the GLC team’s credit, John usually did have green eyes under their art, but all in all, I believe Saiz makes the better looking John Stewart. One area where Chang and Maiolo continually excelled was in crafting brilliant alien cultures and characters over and over again. I don’t think we’ve seen enough work from Saiz in this range to make a strong determination of who may be better, but what I can say is that he and Bunn make for a very alien environment. The landscape and creatures within definitely convey a sense of foreignness and strangeness. Beyond that, everything is lushly colored and interesting to look at.
Saiz really gives Maiolo a run for his money in the coloring department, which is huge praise, because Maiolo stunned me again and again with his work in GLC. Saiz’s coloring is rich, warm, and vividly shaded. Where Maiolo is certainly stronger, in my opinion, is the way in which he depicted the emerald energy. It was more vibrant, dynamic, and more recalling of real light than what Saiz is showing us in the sneak peak.
I’m happy to say that the surprise character that was touted in the solicitation for the first issue is revealed in this preview, and I literally fist pumped when I saw them. They’re a great character and also depicted the way that I prefer to see them. Bunn left things on a great note that has me slobbering for more.
Another thing that I like is that Bunn has John monologuing in this series, so we can see what he actually thinks about things. I think this may allow for a deeper exploration of his character. Bunn continues the theme of leadership that began with writer Van Jensen in Green Lantern Corps, which is nice. John is depicted as a competent leader in this preview, but I’m not sure where this whole leadership angle is going. When the Guardians asked him to be the leader of the Green Lantern Corps back in Van Jensen’s run, John seemingly turned them down. We’ll have to stay tuned to see what will end up happening with all of this.
There are some strange discrepancies going on. First of all, the title of the book is still not totally clear. It is listed as both Green Lantern Corps: Lost Army, and Green Lantern: The Lost Army. I guess we won’t fully know which the official title is until the issue is actually released, but I’m leaning toward it being the former, since there is what seems to be a finished logo prepared for that title. Also, and this is just a small thing, but the Lantern insignia on the characters changes on the second page to a variation of the traditional version, and then changes right back to the traditional. I guess that was just an innocent blooper. Despite what the solicitation says, Green Lantern Corps: Lost Army will be released on June 17, as opposed to June 24.
Bunn and Saiz definitely have me hooked with this one, and for whatever it’s worth, in my opinion, this book, like Green Lantern Corps before it, looks considerably better than the Green Lantern title by Robert Venditti and Billy Tan. The art, writing, and premise of this is of a much higher grade, and I’m really happy that DC has been giving such a strong effort to the John Stewart character lately.
Check out the free preview at the link below:
DC Sneak Peek: Green Lantern: Lost Army (2015-) #1
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