Robert VendittiHal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 7: Darkstars Rising

“Green Lantern Corps 7 – Darkstars Rising” collects issues #42-50 of this title, and brings the series to a close.There are six pencillers and six inkers credited for this volume, though at least two names appear in booth lists, and they maintain a quality of style throughout, or if they don’t, then the story was moving to fast for me to notice any serious discontinuity. It’s only taken DC’s editors however long it has been since Flashpoint to get the hang of lining up artists who fit together.Anyway, our veteran writer, who as managed good epics in the recent past, has now delivered another one which feels more meaningful than previous ones, bearing in mind that the Justice League seems to have taken over the sillier epics and catastrophes of late.Here, another unstoppable menace arises out of nowhere and threatens to make the Green Lanterns redundant by replacing them with an even-more right-wing and popular police force (and note that neither organisation actually got elected, unlike some popular right-wing American politicians).However, this being the final big story for the GLC, instead of being a big punch-up with a heroic last-minute save, an actual plan unfolds, drawing in characters littering the back issues of this title and its predecessors, and a resolution is reached that reaffirms the principles of accountability and the rule of law – even if nobody actually voted for it in the first place – though there are references to universal codes of law and such like, even though I don’t remember seeing these before.Nit-picking aside, this was an excellent story that concentrated on the characters and not big meaningless fight scenes, and though there are big fight scenes, they are choreographed into “the plan” and not just there to fill space (pun unintended, but I’ll keep it).