Green Lantern 23.1 reads like a fable.  The tale of Relic, a scientist who predicted the end of the Universe but was ignored only to be proven right in the end.  The issue served as both a Origin story and a prologue to the upcoming "Light Out" cross over event.  Relic is no longer a faceless villain, but one who thinks he is doing the right thing.  As of this issue, I may agree with him.  Highly recommended. Read Full Review

Rags Morales pencils are solid, but very bare bones. Green Lantern #23.1 is all about creating the idea of a universe bigger than ours, and Morales takes that to heart. Lots of splash pages, larger than normal panels filled to the parameters with figures. The scale Morales works with creates a perfect landscape for the story. Outside of a few pages, he is relaxed with backgrounds and high detail work. Like the light energy, most of this work is to generate a feeling or connection. Read Full Review

Your interest in the cosmic history of the Green Lanterns will greatly shape your opinion of this issue. For me it provided a needed piece to the greater puzzle of Lights Out and I really enjoyed it. Somewhere in my imagination I could picture Ganthet secretly depositing this much guarded and banned section of The Book of Oa in my pull list at my local comic shop. I hope this isn't the last that we see of Relic's universe and I'm looking forward to Venditti hopefully expanding that history somewhere down the road. Four out of five lanterns. Read Full Review

I'm glad I read this, but I didn't think it deserved an entire issue to be told or through splash pages. Read Full Review

Rags Morales gives series artist Billy Tan a break this month, and there certainly isn't the same sense of scale. However, combined with Andrew Dahlhouse's wonderful work with colours, he provides something that sits outside of Tan's universe, but is easy to draw parallels between them. Relic is crafted as a worthy opponent for the Lantern Corp, and promises a big crossover event in the coming months. Read Full Review

I'm torn about this issue because, while it does tell you everything you need to know about Relic and why he hates all the Lanterns, it doesn't give me a reason to love him or hate him or feel much about him at all. This story is all brain and no heart. This issue is completely dedicated to Relic, yet it focuses solely on the (admittedly awesome) plot without giving much attention to the guy whose name is plastered across the front cover. Read Full Review

Overall, the story feels a bit like an afterthought something meant to be a short story that got padded out into 22 pages. Its not bad, its just not as good as the stuff Robert Venditti has been doing the last 3 months. It didget me incredibly excited for Lights Out, which is impressive given how much Lantern Event Fatigue Ive had. So, while this isnt the A++ example of what the Green Lantern books have been recently, Id recommend you read it so you can jump in with issue 24. Read Full Review

Overall, this issue is not worth the extra dollar, but it's a decent enough single issue for hardcore Lantern fans or even those who are interested in the upcoming crossover. Save yourself a buck and get the regular cover if you're a regular reader. Read Full Review

This issue was really a disappointment when it came to the characterization of Relic. The reader doesn't learn anything new about Relic or what he was like before everything went to hell and hand basket. It was nice seeing the emotional spectrum in a different point of view, but it all just a tease that sadly won't amount to anything in the long run. While Rags Morales does excellent work and hopefully he'll draw more Green Lantern down the road, it was a bit of a letdown that all his pages were single page movie posters. While they are amazing to look at, they really don't offer much to the overall story telling that a book with panels would. If you haven't been reading New Guardians and want to know more about Relic without reading New Guardians, this isn't a bad issue to read. Read Full Review

If Green Lantern mythos is the name of your game then there is something in this book for you. If the only reason for purchasing it is because it leads into theLights Outcrossover than you need not worry.Green Lantern23.1 is an average origin of what hopefully won't become an average villain. Read Full Review

Whilst it doesn't do anything particularly wrong, this issue doesn't really do much right either. In fact, it doesn't do much of anything, which is probably even worse. It's basically a non-issue, giving us a brief glimpse into Relic's head but not enough information to give him much of a personality beyond 'sad', and it gives us little to no hints as to how Lights Out is going to evolve from his crusade against the Lantern Corps. It's not a bad issue, but it had the potential to be much more. Read Full Review

What really hurts this comic is how one dimensional its villain is. To be fair, Vendetti is trying to create a rich character history in the span of twenty-two pages so he's limited by space, but the end result is not effective and Relic is nowhere near as engaging as some of the other Green Lantern villains like Sinestro, Nekron, or even Atrocitus. So while Relic is meant to be a harbinger of bad things to come, the previous pages make his appearance more of a whisper than a bang, and his entrance into the Green Lantern pantheon weak and dismissive. Read Full Review

"Green Lantern" #23.1 sets the stage for next month's "Lights Out" crossover, so it achieves its goal. I just wish that it could have done so in a slightly more dramatic, or even attention-grabbing way. Something with some actual interaction could have done the trick; this lecture just doesn't quite hit the mark. Read Full Review

In the end, we get a nice glimpse into another version of the Lantern Corps, but little more. Readers of New Guardians won't get much out of this issue, and I fear that those who don't partake of that particular title will get most of this information again next month when Relic declares "Lights Out." Limited word count, panel count, and plot progression weigh heavy on this issue and, though it's not a bad comic, I just can't recommend it. I'm afraid that this would have been better as the first third of a much stronger comic. Read Full Review

Great art and an interesting background for Relic. He definitely has a heroic angle for doing what he's doing. It seems that the heroes not only have to defeat him but also defeat what caused him to want to destroy the lanterns in the first place, which might prove more challenging.

So i never perceived myself as a Green Lantern guy, not because I have something against the characters or the concepts, just most of my knowledge about those comics comes either from other dc titles or the animations(which are usually very different). I always wanted to start with Johns, but for now looks like that's not happening, so I decided to pick up some old cheap TPBs , that I have from some time at home, waiting for me to read. So here I am starting with Lights out.

I know that Venditti new 52 Green Lantern's stuff are not very loved by the mass, but I heard Lights out is kinda good and so far I must say, I agree. The first issue was not exactly my cup in the collection, but this one, I though was great.

The issue can be kinda heavy on the narration side of thing, because the whole issue consists of one page panels and narration, but tbh this time that did not bother me at all, I even think those things added to the issue. Venditti manages to create a narration, that adds to the book, which btw is so rare these days IMO, using some really colorful and precise descriptions and also fleshing out the themes and the environment. In a way it makes the issue pretty poetic and overall the issue is pretty poetic and the the one page panels have fingers in that too. Plus they made the story way more epic and consistent(again poetic).

As I said, I'm not too much familiar with Green Lantern's mythos, so I really liked the ideas and concepts here(those that I was not so familiar with).And yeah maybe that was because
again I'm pretty new to that series, so maybe the ideas seemed fresher to me, but I don't know. Also I liked how the war came to be and of course how every faction had a reason to be there(again helped by the narration), related to their color. Also the issue did a great job on the so-called villain, it's not the most original or complex story, but again it gave the guy a reasonable motivation, some depth and nice backstory , which explain his actions and some things, that were weird from the previous issue in the collection. For now looks like the villain has a really strong point and man, I'm simp for stories that are like that. It adds so much intrigue, excitement and I'm just so curious to see how the heroes would react to that.

I'm conflicted on how to rate this. It's not revolutionary, poignant or even original as far as stories go and probably not even that memorable, so it must not be a 10 . But for what it is, I enjoyed it a lot, more than I usually do. Tbh I don't even have any major complains. I think the issue was really well-presented and I'm for definitely glad that I've read it. more