The Good
Those Guardians of the Galaxy are total jerks, and I love it. This is the most attractive thing about this story line to me: The Guardians are the true enemy and they'll do some pretty scummy things in order to create their new form of order, which is apparently a bunch of mindless drones they call the Third Army. This is the second time in a GL book we really get to see the Third Army in action. I'm not the biggest fan of how they look, but I really like them. I like the idea that these characters assimilate others to their race. The finale is a very cool scene of exactly that.
I like John Stewart's mission here. I felt, by far, his side of the story, in this issue, was the most appealing. John has to help a fan favorite Green Lantern come back. His moment in this issue was relatively brief, but it's the most memorable of the issue.
Peter Tomasi does a great job with dialogue, especially Guy Gardner's. I love how he writes him. There's a few times where I thought his dialogue was way too cheesy, but that's him. That's Guy. He speaks in cliches and bad 1990s catchphrases at times, and it puts a big smile on my face. I also really enjoy Guy in a leadership role. He's perfect for the job, even if he is a loose cannon.
The Bad
I felt like I was two steps ahead of the writing and story here. Maybe I have ESP, but at every turn, I knew what was happening. I've come to expect the worst from the Guardians, so the numerous reveals we see here felt obvious to me. The same thing happened with John Stewart's mission. I felt like I knew what was happening the second I saw a rock in his hand.
There's a guest penciller on this issue, Cafu. Cafu's art is consistent and is ok. My biggest problem is that the page and panel layouts are incredibly dry. At the end of the issue, we see numerous pages with four long panels on each page, and it's a 50/50 split between medium shots and close ups. We're in the midst of battle. I'd rather see chaos. I don't like these static pages.
The Verdict
This is a down the middle of the road issue for me. GREEN LANTERN CORPS is an ok book. I think Tomasi's writing is pretty solid, and he does well with the dialogue, but I felt the most compelling part of this issue, John's story, was so brief and it overshadowed Guy's story which was just alright for me. The art was, again "alright," but I had big problems with the face we saw numerous pages with the exact same panel set up.
Overall, I wasn't too impressed with this issue. I think there's some good set up here for the Third Army story line and this is a great place to jump on, but overall, it's a mixed bag of nuts. If you've been wanting to jump on GLC, this is a good place to do so.