Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Omnibus Vol. 1 Hardcover – Illustrated, February 3, 2015

The media could not be loaded. Created in 1940, the first Green Lantern was Alan Scott, who carved his ring from a meteorite that gave him mysterious powers. The original holder of the Green Lantern title was very occult/sci-fi oriented about it, but never quite caught the attention needed. But with the birth of the Silver-Age in 1956 (thanks to Barry Allen, AKA The Flash) and DC changed up the aspects of Barry from his original golden-age counterpart, and Green Lantern was also part to the change up. So was born Hal Jordan in 1959, an air force pilot who stumbles along a dying alien who gives him a power ring to make any construct of his will and imagination, as part of an interstellar police force.The character proved to be a hit and latter lead to other human GL's taking over in place of Hal over the years like Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner. So while Hal has come and gone throughout 40+ years in the influence of the GL/DC universe, he never quite showed his star power to the fullest...until a young writer named Geoff Johns decided he wanted to bring the character back and in a massive way in 2004. Johns had already done marvelous work on Flash (Pre-52 Wally West), Hawkman, and Justice Society of America, so it was time for the then-young writer to re-cement Hal and the GL lore to the top of the comic heap. And boy-o-boy, did it deliver.Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the following:Green Lantern Rebirth #1-6 (Green Lantern: Rebirth)Green Lantern Corps Recharge #1-5 (Green Lantern Corps: Recharge)Green Lantern #1-6 and Green Lantern Secret Files 2005 #1 (Green Lantern, Vol. 1: No Fear)Green Lantern #7-13 (Green Lantern, Vol. 2: Revenge of the Green Lanterns)Green Lantern #14-20 (Green Lantern: Wanted - Hal Jordan)Green Lantern #21-23; Green Lantern Corps #14-15; and Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special (Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, Vol. 1)Green Lantern #24-25; Green Lantern Corps vol. 2, #16-19 (Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, Vol. 2 [Hardcover] [2008] (Author) Geoff Johns)Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman Prime #1 and Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files #1 from (Green Lantern: Tales of the Sinestro Corps)(Since this omnibus has way to much detail, I will summarize it as to not write out a massive essay. So please click on the links above for further information.)Hal Jordan is dead. The last and current holder of the Green Lantern title is Kyle Rayner and he has found a way to bring Jordan back to life, but numerous forces are at work that comes with a price for his resurrection. To make the long story short, yes, Hal Jordan does return (as the cover and book descriptions point out) in a spectacular fashion to the whole DC universe and most of the stories collected here are Hal getting re-adjusted to living and working as a GL again, while reconnecting with his family and friends (and running into many of his own rogues). All the while little nuggets of story lines slowly start coming together into the last quarter of the book into the Sinestro Corp War.That's a pretty much the summary I can give you without giving away any juicy information, but I assure you this is one hell of a start for people who want to try Green Lantern for the first time and begin a lengthy epic journey that is worthy enough to be side-by-side with Batman and Superman. Johns creates a hefty amount of action, character development, and world expansion within Hals world by giving him further motivations with his family, his rogues, and the very GL mythology in ways no writer has done before. All these aspects make for a world-building series that builds each step at a time and keeps readers hung on the entire time. It all comes to ahead by the last quarter of the book in Sinestro Corp War, one of the best and coherent events you'll ever read. It's massive in scale, epic in action and grit, and is handled extremely well considering the event crossed over with Green Lantern Corp, the sister series written by Dave Gibbons and Peter Tomasi (which thankfully is collected here in proper form and order). And it all ends for the next big chapter of Johns work on GL with the 2nd omnibus coming out this year.And although a good majority of Johns work is focused on Hal and his many associates, we still get some moments to shine from the other three human lanterns John Stewart, Guy Gardner, and Kyle Rayner (especially since Guy and Kyle get most of the panel time in GLC: Recharge miniseries as they rebuild the Corp and introduce new characters).Since this is an omnibus, there are plenty of artist to list off, most of which is top notch level stuff. Ethan Van Sciver does all of Rebirth and some issues in-between. Carlos Pacheco and Ivan Reis take up majority of the issues to excellent detail, with Simone Blanchi, Daniel Acuna, and Darwyn Cooke doing some fill-in issues.Okay, now for the real review here: this 2015 omnibus. It is in a deluxe-sized hardcover with sewn binding! Yes, that means there is no gutter loss in this beauty, something most DC omnibi have gotten better over time. You will see the sewn binding in the 2-page splash pages, but it's impressive a DC omnibus can open up flat from front-to-back. Any who, the dust jacket front cover has the beautiful Alex Ross cover as seen on the Amazon picture, the spine has Hals hand blaring his ring vividly, with a Van Sciver picture on the back. The next big improvement from DC is the board-cover under the dust jacket, where instead of the common black board that has become common among their omnibus collections as of lately, it has an awesome reflective-design of Van Sciver's Hal on the front and back boards. So well done there DC. The only extras include 7 alternative covers, 1 black and white unused cover, and 1 page of sketches.The only flaw with this collection is for new fans might be confused about the long history of Hal and the GL legacy from the REBIRTH story. Many plots only hardcore fans who are caught up on the story lines will understand. Questions like Guy turning into a crazy-monster, Kyle's history in space, and John's tragic backgrounds are things Geoff Johns doesn't really cover or explain in his work. Don't let any of those aspects scare you away though for new readers, as many questions and old plots do get explained as you read deeper in this series. If anything consolation, the Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files #1 gives you an entire rundown of every member of the GL and Sinestro Corps, as well as numerous other files on characters, planets, and information to catch you up with what is going on in the GL universe.So for the first volume of GREEN LANTERN BY GEOFF JOHNS OMNIBUS is a splendid start to this masterful run. It's highly enjoyable, great art, and fixes many of the common problems DC's omnibus suffers from. It's also much cheaper than buying the Absolute Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, though you may choose to buy all the softcovers as they are still plenty in print and easy to get access to. I love this character and Johns work so much I have all the soft/hardcovers and wanted to double-dip on buying this again in omnibus form.Later this year, the lead-up and entire GL/Blackest Night material in proper reading order in Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Omnibus Vol. 2 (Green Lantern Omnibus) and finally 2016 for the remaining parts of GL.

Finally I've been waiting a long time for this. Now the big question on everyone's mind is, the quality? Is it good? Is it bad like almost all dc omnibuses?Well it's definitely an improvement but for the time I've had it some of the binding started to come off, now it was just a little bit, I don't know if it came this way, just noticed it now but common DC!!.But overall the binding is way better than other dc omnibusesSo everything else is pretty good the book stays open it doesn't closes on you like some omnibuses.It doesn't have page numbers, table of content and not that many extras, for me it's not that bad but some people like page numbers or extras or a table of content to know what and where is it in the book, so it's just 1200 pages of pure GL!!!.The hardcover is awesome, without the jacket it does has some nice artwork.And now the content itself. It's half of Geoff John's Green Lantern run! In my opinion the greatest run of the green lantern.I would recommend this, if you still haven't read any of the Geoff John's green lantern then this is the collection for you, now if you have all or most of the HC or TPB of Geoff John's green lantern like me I would say skip this one unless you really like omnibuses and how they look on your bookshelf.Looking forward for vol 2.Overall review:Story 5/5Quality4/5 (so far, will update)extras2/5Content 10/5!!!

I love graphic novels especially Green Lantern. It was delivered on time with care.

This was one of the greatest omnis i have read if not the best, i would definitely recommend this and pick volume 2 and 3 as well

I didn't really get the hype around Geoff Johns as a writer until I read Doomsday Clock (2018). I'd never had much of an interest in the characters or world of Alan Moore's Watchmen (1986) before but Johns' story got me invested in both. Since then I've gone back and read through some of his other best known works, including Green Lantern: Rebirth (2004), which I recently read and reviewed on Kindle.Rebirth marks the beginning of Johns' fan-favorite run on Green Lantern and was so impressive a series that I decided I would go the Omnibus route for the rest of the run rather than read through it digitally. A total of three of these massive volumes is what it takes to collect his full almost 10 year tenure on the character, this being the first of those three.I'd recommend reading Infinite Crisis (2005) sometime during or probably better before, jumping into this book. The events of that series fall somewhere in the middle of this collection but without any sort of heads up, which might be a bit confusing to new readers. While Crisis is also written by Johns he makes no direct connection between it and the Green Lantern series. There is no direct tie-in and instead there is a significant time jump between two arcs where the event series itself is only referred to in the past tense and this edition offers no explanation of it.Now as for the book itself. Most of what I know about Green Lantern, and specifically the Hal Jordan version who is the primary star of this series, comes from movies and cartoons. While the character, as well as many of the other Lanterns, have had supporting appearances in other DC Comics I've read over the years this is the first book where any of them take center stage. Johns does what he does so well with this. He takes every aspect of a character, of their entire history, encapsulates all of it, and then relates it back in a way that makes it feel new and exciting without disregarding what came before. Take Hal, a fearless pilot who never backs down from a fight and will alway put his life on the line for orhers is able to shine in a story that mixes humor with some seriously bleak drama. Johns' approach doesn't just apply to the main character either. The other Lanterns like John Stewart, Guy Gardner, and Kyle Rayner are just some of the strong supporting cast of both preexisting and new characters that fill out the book.What Johns is able to do with this book is very impressive, but he doesn't do it alone. There are a lot, seriously a lot, of artists that help shape the book as well. Ethan Van Sciver, Patrick Gleason, Carlos Pacheco, Ivan Reis, and even Simone Bianchi, Darwyn Cooke, and Daniel Acuña contribute an issue or two. The artwork all these talented artists provide is so in sync with the story being told that it makes this a truly special read. It's easy to understand why this creator run went on for nearly 10 years.My only complaint has to do with this edition itself and not what is collected in it. How It's collected is the problem. While the covers for the individual issues are included before their respective issues, and the creator credits are placed behind the covers on the backside of the page, the titles have been removed making it hard to figure out what you're reading at what point. This is not uncommon for DC Omnis and its not as difficult when its all one series, but when you're dealing with a book like this that includes miniseries, one-shots, and crossover issues with another series it can be a little difficult. Outside of that, this is a book I highly recommend.5/5