Dramatis Personnae:
Hal Jordan
John Stewart
Kyle Rayner
Guy Gardner
The Guardians of the Universe
Agent Orange
The Orange Lanterns
Fatality
Ganthet and Sayd
The Blue Lantern Corps
Plot Summary:
The Controllers, a sub-tribe of the same race that evolved into the Guardians, have been searching for a method of supplanting the Green Lanterns as the dominant police force of the galaxy. Their journey has taken them to Okaara in the forbidden Vega system; there they discover an orange power battery, and attempt to take it for themselves. However, they are attacked by the mysterious owner of the battery, and though they are as powerful as the Guardians, they are killed. The Orange Lantern sees this as betrayal by the Guardians (not realising they no longer work with the Controllers) and makes plans for retribution.
This comes to a head as the badly damaged Green Lantern Stel, who was pursuing an opponent in the Vega system despite the Guardian's edict, arrives at Oa bearing a glowing and (for the Guardians) horribly familiar symbol; the owner of the Orange battery is finally revealed as Larfleeze, who demands that the Guardians recompense him for his near-loss. This triggers the writing of the Fourth New Law; the Vega system is no longer off-limits to the Corps, and the Green Lanterns go to war with Agent Orange to end the threat of the orange light once and for all...
Verdict:
Agent Orange is, without a doubt, an absolute delight to read.
In this collection, a lot is revealed about the Guardian's past, and the reasoning behind the immunity of the Vega system builds up the mistakes that the Guardians have made over the years yet further; once again, they short-sightedly create another enemy in the long term in the form of Larfleeze. All of these mistakes, of course, will be exploded and shown for what they are in Blackest Night, but the build-up to that realisation is tense and nerve-racking.
Now, let's talk about the characters. Let's talk about Larfleeze.
Far and away, Larfleeze is my favourite Green Lantern villain. There have been many attempts to create a petulant character whose motives are primarily selfish (such as Superboy-Prime, damn his whining) and I would think it's fair to say that not many of them have been successful. Larfleeze is that success. He is, of course, powered by the orange light of avarice, and as such his character pretty much has to be self-centred in the extreme. This has the potential to go badly wrong, as I have explained, and yet it has done quite the opposite. Larfleeze's dialogue, in a similar fashion to that of Atrocitus', manages to be both very eloquent and yet delightfully immature, in a strange combination that appeals greatly to many readers. One moment he's indulging in a serious monologue about his past conflicts with the Guardians, the next minute he's screaming at Hal Jordan for "stealing my idea!" A lot of what he says is intended to be amusing or even outright funny, yet at the same time he's clearly a very sinister character; his method of recruiting people into his Corps is to kill them and create an identical construct of them so that he doesn't have to share out his power rings. This almost brings to mind necromancy, which is an undoubtedly dark and monstrous act in any context. In short, he's awesome and I love him, messy eating/paranoia over his possessions and all.
Now, another interesting aspect of Agent Orange is the return of Fatality, now a Star Sapphire. Originally, this character hunted John Stewart for his failure to save her homeworld of Xanshi; now, she has a new quest, to find and forgive him, and more importantly to help him forgive himself. Though a minor part of the story, really, I still kinda liked this, if only because there are hints of John Stewart finally moving on from Katma-Tui, which the big guy kinda deserves, as well as the idea that Stewart has lived with the burden of Xanshi for too long.
Plot-wise, Agent Orange ties in neatly with the events of the preludes, with none of the relative confusion where Sins and Rage were concerned relative to each other; the story moves quickly and easily along, even fitting in a flashback scene with ease, which is something comics have had a bumpy history doing in the past. The actions of the Guardians and the consequences those actions have are explored even further here, with the ending (which I will not reveal - Comic nerd's honour!) showing just how desperate and wrong-headed the Guardians have become in their quest to prevent the Blackest Night from occurring.
In terms of artwork, Agent Orange does not suffer from the fluctuations that Rage of the Red Lanterns did; the art is crisp and clear pretty much all the way through. The design for Agent Orange is very cool; he resembles a humanoid boar, although I think Hal Jordan was tripping on something when he said he could see a resemblance to Gonzo of Muppet fame in him. Unfortunately, Fatality suffers from Star Stripper Syndrome, but that's really just a minor quibble as opposed to a major issue. Overall, the art is a treat to look at, and Stel has been given a pleasantly Transformer-esque new body, which I thought looked pretty damn awesome.
So there you have it; Agent Orange gets my full seal of approval, and probably the highest level of support for any of the Preludes. Get it now, if you haven't already, it's about £12.99 in hardback.
Rating:
9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment