COACH'S STAR PLAYER OF THE WEEK - GREEN LANTERN #38

Over the last 5 years or so my consumption of DC Comics has gone from occasional to die-hard. There are certain books which I look forward to each month, but none of them have been able to hold a candle to the absolute guaranteed good reads of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps.

I have never been a Hal Jordan/Green Lantern fan. He was always just one of many of a corps intergalactic police officers with a green ring who banged around the DCU and made big hammers and hands out of light. However, all of this changed when DC came up with the Sinestro Corps War. Written by Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons and drawn by Ethan Van Sciver and Ivan Reis. It set a new standard for great artwork, big time action, and excellent writing in the book. Which brings us to my pick of the week, Green Lantern #38.

Throughout the last year or so the running theme in both Green Lantern books has been a prelude to the upcoming "War of Light" which is then going to bring about the dreaded "Darkest Night" and the birth of the Black Lanterns. Oooooo - Scary! From all of the preview stuff so far, it's a good bet that the Black Lantern has the ability to raise the dead so we're looking at an interstellar zombie war in the DCU. Oh boy!!!

Aside from having great artwork by Ivan Reis throughout the book, this issue brings to a close to the Rage of the Red Lanterns storyline (Red Lanterns are consumed by rage and can vomit red corrosive blood/light from their mouths to destroy their enemies). The recently revealed spectrum of emotion/light-based power rings is a great idea and so far we've seen Green (Willpower), Yellow (Fear), Blue (Hope), Red (Rage), Orange (Avarice), Violet (Love), and Indigo (Compassion) get into the act. As Hal Jordan - Green Lantern gets consumed by the power of the red ring, the Blue Lantern Saint Walker slips a new blue ring onto his hand and turns him into... something new. You have to read it to see but there's lotsa action, Sinestro getting his big pink ass fried, and best of all, the Red Lantern alien space kitty Dex-Star who spits flaming blood on everyone in sight (this gives a whole new meaning to the expression "angry pussy").

The backup feature is just as cool as it contains an episode of the Origins and Omens story which is running through most mainline DC books in February 2009. Needless to say, the banged up female guardian Scar dripping black blood from her eyes to write the book of the Black Lanterns makes this comic more than worth the $2.99 price of admission.

If you haven't been reading Green Lantern, do yourself a favor and pick up the trades for Green Lantern: Rebirth, The Sinestro Corps War and get caught up with the latest stories via the back-issue bins. You won't be sorry and you'll be prepared for all the badassery which will be coming with the Darkest Night.