Green Lantern Corps Volume 2: Alpha War

There are actually two different storylines here. The first is the Alpha War one, which has an excessively rigorous bunch of super-Lanterns on the HQ planet of Oa tasked with policing the rest of the Corps. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guardians? The Alpha Lanterns, that’s who!

And who is watching over the Alphas? The bobbleheaded Guardians hanging out in their Planetary Citadel. And you wouldn’t want to trust that lot.

Anyway, one of the dark moments in the previous volume had John Stewart kill a fellow Lantern who was being tortured by the Keepers into giving up the pass code they needed to break into Oa. As things kick off here, Stewart is judged by the Alphas and sentenced to death. But then Guy Gardner and some of his buddies break John out of his prison (what they call the “sciencell”), and have a battle royale with the Alphas, who end up being defeated.

I didn’t care for any of this. I couldn’t tell any of the Alphas apart except for the centaur guy and nothing about the plot seemed right to me. To be honest, by the time they wrapped things up I was thinking of giving up on this series.

I’m glad I didn’t, because in the next story line, that only gets introduced here, we learn about some space zombies who are just floating around turning everyone, including any Lanterns who cross their path, into more zombies. These zombies form a “third army” that the Guardians seem to be behind in some way. I told you those bobbleheads can’t be trusted. They’re also up to something when they release Xar from his prison and send him out to stir things up. Meanwhile, Kilowog and Salaak are on to the Guardians but they’re a little slow in piecing things together.

Then John Stewart, who has been sent off on a wild goose chase, meets up with the busty Fatality, and Guy Gardner gets his team of Lanterns wiped out by the space zombies, which results in him getting kicked out of the Corps and sent back home to Earth without any of his Lantern powers.

I don’t know where any of this is going, but I’m interested enough in what Fatality, Xar, the Guardians, and the space zombies are all doing to keep reading for another volume. Power up!

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