In the Green Lantern comics we've had back to back crossovers. With the current storyline ending, we'll also be seeing possible new directions as all the titles will be getting new creative teams. GREEN LANTERN CORPS will be taken over by Van Jensen with Robert Venditti co-plotting. We wanted to find out what we could expect in the title so we asked Jensen a few questions.
Comic Vine: After all the chaos in Wrath of the First Lantern and Rise of the Third Army, what's the tone of the series going to be?
Van Jensen: There's definitely some heavy stuff that's just gone down with the Green Lantern Corps. A big thing we want to do is focus on where things are, what the new status quo is and how it affects these characters. We're definitely building up on that and picking up the pieces where they are. Going forward, I think maybe there's a shift in tone. We're going to try to go back a little bit to a sort of high adventure feel. I think the Green Lantern books have been great. They've been maybe a little darker in the past than where they're going to be headed for. We're trying to return it a little more to the 60s and 70s era Green Lantern feel.
CV: Hal Jordan is going to be the leader of the Corps, will he have a big presence in this title or just the occasional appearance since he has his own book?
VJ: He's not going to have a huge presence. A big part of that is by design. We don't want to have one character dominate multiple books. Really for the time being, GREEN LANTERN CORPS is very much going to be John Stewart's book. We really wanted to take these Green Lantern books and use each of them to focus on one of our main Lantern characters. Of course GREEN LANTERN is going to be Hal, Guy will be over in RED LANTERNS and Kyle continuing in NEW GUARDIANS. The good thing about that is it gives me a chance to really explore John Stewart's character, where he's at, what he wants and where he's going, the role he's going to play in rebuilding the Corps.
CV: What can you tell us about issue 21 and Guy Gardner's role? He was originally listed in the solicit.
VJ: He will not be in the issue. He does not show up for the immediate future, at least not in GREEN LANTERN CORPS.
CV: Will this book have a closer connection to RED LANTERNS?
VJ: They'll be fairly separate for the time being. Definitely going forward there's going to continue to be some points of overlap in our shared universe. Our characters all have a lot of relationships and, of course, John and Guy have a very close and long friendship. In their new roles, there's going to be some obvious points for them to come together. In the short term, we won't see Guy for a little bit.
CV: You mentioned a bigger role for John Stewart, is that what we'll be seeing in the next few issues?
VJ: Exactly, yeah. I would say it's really primarily his book.
CV: John never got a zero issue either. Will we get to find out more about his origin in the New 52 and if anything has changed?
VJ: There's probably going to be a little bit of that going forward. There's not any in the next few issues just because twenty pages is kind of a limited amount of space. Once you start adding in flashbacks, you can pretty quickly limit the amount of story you can tell. I do really want to focus a lot on his background. His background in architecture as well as his military experience are going to play a pretty big role. Some of that is just going to rise through conversation or within the ongoing plot of the book rather than be a whole issue of blow by blow character history.
CV: Is John going to be stationed on Oa or will he be going out in the universe?
VJ: John, with the other members of the Corps, they will be stationed on Oa primarily but it is just as it's always been, a base of operations. Issues 21, 22 and 23, we're already going to see the Lanterns out and about, active in the universe. The real idea that we're exploring, going forward, is like you mentioned, we had Rise of the Third Army and Wrath of the First Lantern, the Green Lantern Corps through the Guardians have been made to look very poor to the eyes of the universe. The universe sort of lumps the Guardians the Green Lanterns all together. Everyone really sees the Lanterns as almost a threat more than anything. It's a very new dynamic for them. How do you police people who don't want to be policed?
CV: How much of Bernard Chang's art have you seen so far?
VJ: I've had the chance to look at all of 21 and I've seen several covers and quite a few sketches. I think he's actually working on 22 right now. The art I've seen is great. Bernard is someone I've been a big fan of for years and years. It's really exciting to get a chance to work with him and see those pages pop up in my email.
CV: I can't wait to see them. You're right, he does great stuff. Since you've been known to write a book or two with vampires, any thoughts to having space vampires show up?
VJ: [laughs] There's definitely a history of vampires showing up in the DC Universe, of course more recently. There have been some Green Lanterns that have been known to fight vampires. So not in the near future but I'm definitely open to the idea of exploring that idea.
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #21 is on sale June 12, 2013. Be sure to pick it up to see John Stewart's adventures in the Corps.