Cosmic Daddy Issues
Man, what happened to Aaron Kuder on interior art for this series? His cover for this issue is absolutely amazing. If I had to nitpick, I'd say that the cover text should talk about Arkillo being The God of Fear since that's the kind of sense this image evokes. It's super intense and well laid out and it made me really excited for Aaron Kuder to be taking over the interior art, but he hasn't done art since half of the zero issue. Andrei Bressan and Amilcar Pinna share art duties on this issue, I have no idea who did what, but the issue does have an inconcistent feel to it, and neither style is really that great. Kyle's face looks several different kinds of weird, and The Guardians look incredibly off. Arkillo looks good though.
The Green Lantern books have the strangest balance when it comes to the pacing for Rise of the Third Army. Green Lantern feels like it's dragging on, taking a bit too long to get to the point. Green Lantern Corps is just right, perfectly driving the core of the event. New Guardians feels very rushed. We get merely a glimpse of the wrap up of Kyle's training with Iroque, and he only has one more issue of training and two more emotions to learn before the last issue of the event. His training with Arkillo this issue has a similarly awkward pacing as his training with Atrocitus in the previous issue.
Iroque is always the vessel for the most intriguing aspects of the Indigo Lanterns. Kyle implicitly believes that the spectrum is divided into 'Good' and 'Bad' emotions, with Green being the dividing line. But the leader of the Indigo Tribe essentially tells Kyle that Compassion is the most centered emotion, and that all the emotions are equally important. It's not the colors on the left side you need to be most worried about, it's the two extremes. Love can be just as dangerous as Rage. This warning proves apt as we see more to the new alliance between The Guardians and the Zamarons.
I've been loving Arkillo's journey since Sinestro rejoined the Green Lantern Corps. I have a whole blog post about the 'Phoenix Rebirth' of the various corps. In it, I've talked about how the 'Sinestro Corps' was inherently flawed, corrupted by the presence of Sinestro's ego. Now that Arkillo has a new ring from The Weaponer, free from Sinestro's influence, he is the beginning of the new, more pure Yellow Lantern Corps. And yet even though his ring is free from Sinestro, his heart is not. His interaction with Kyle this issue is an equal benefit to both of them, and Arkillo begins a journey to truly conquer fear by conquering the former master of it, Sinestro. FINALLY freeing the Yellow Lantern Corps from his ego once and for all. It's also interesting how each member of this temporary is in this mission for a different 'missing' person, though Carol gets a bit of potential inner turmoil when she can't answer Kyle's questioning of her love for Hal.
In Conclusion: 3.5/5
There's actually a ton of things to love about this issue, Kyle's journey is extremely interesting, and really helps this current strong sense of individuality for all five of the Earth Green Lanterns. The Purifying Rebirth of the Yellow Lanterns is stepping into the endgame, and Carol's getting a lot of development as well. All the characters are very well utilized and grown, the only problem is the awkward and inconsistent artwork, as well as the rushed pacing.
