Emerald Warriors Sure Do Seem To Mope A Lot
Spending much of its time recapping what many Green Lantern readers already know, the second issue of Emerald Warriors is a step down from the first. It lacks the excitement of the first issue, which had a lot of new and interesting developments brewing. This issue dwells mostly on the current emotional problems of Arisia, Kilowog and Guy, which most readers likely already know enough about.
Arisia continues to mourn the apparent loss of Sodam Yat, complete with a traumatic dream sequence that crosses the border into the overdramatic. The Arisia/Sodam almost-relationship has never been very compelling. It may have something to do with how it was telegraphed so blatantly from the very moment the two characters met yet has not gone anywhere since then nor has there really been any chemistry between them. Arisia also suffers from the problem that she was far more interesting as jailbait than as the veteran Green Lantern Peter Tomasi portrays her as. What personality she now has is fairly stock for a Green Lantern.
Kilowog's exhaustion over seeing Green Lanterns he has trained die is a powerful and understandable inner conflict for the character, but there is something almost artificial and predictable about how Tomasi writes it. In a scene where a rookie comes to speak with Kilowog, you know from the very beginning how the entire scene is about to play out. It is almost a cliche.
The one new thing we get this issue is further introduction to the main villain of the book. It is an effectively disturbing scene, but the villain himself so far is not very intriguing. He seems to be yet another threat from the Guardians' past much like Larfleeze, Atrocitus and the current cloaked figure sneaking about in the Green Lantern book. The Green Lantern mythos already has a wealth of villains like this, and not much stands out about the one we are introduced to here.
It is a disappointing issue, but it is not a bad one. Tomasi continues to write a good Guy Gardner, who is really the selling point of this book anyway. The main problem with this issue, spending too much of it filling in new readers in less than interesting ways, isn't something that should plague the book in later issues.
Though, I have my doubts Tomasi can ever make Arisa/Sodam Yat interesting.
