Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #5 – “Stardeath”! In the previous installment, everyone ends up at the Spider Guild ship and spends most of the issue stuck in the Spider Guild ship before they all blast out of the Spider Guild ship.

But that’s not exciting, is it? Here’s something better: the spiders are destroying stars and turning them into black holes in order to capture the energy to feed their hive. And Oa’s sun is next, so we have to stop them before it’s too – hey, a penny *falls out of chair*

Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #5 [March, 2006]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Stardeath”

The Spiders of the Guild are rubbing their little spider hands together over the planetfall on Oa. The spiders are eager for their prey, and all the struggling from the Guardians and the Lanterns will only stimulate the Fathers’ appetites! Countdown to Explodey Star is a go!

The Lanterns – rookies or otherwise – scramble to try to defeat these incoming spider ships, but it’s too overwhelming! At least I think it is. The panels make it look like there are just people flailing at odd angles while things blow up.

But when things look too dire, like it’s too hopeless to continue, in flies the A-team! John Stewart and Hal Jordan responding to their Code Zero alert – trouble on Oa. This ain’t no training exercise, kids. This ain’t no drill. This is the real effing fucking deal.

“Who’s in charge?” Jordan asks. “Where’s Kilowog?”

He’s jacking off on the other side of the galaxy, sir. I’m Salaak and I’m the rootin’est tootin’est most senior Lantern here, by gum. John Stewart asks if Kilowog and his band of motherfuckers poked the spider nest with a stick while they were having a gay old time on Vega. Salaak agrees that they will have much to explain if they don’t show up Oa dead. “For now, the defense of the central battery is our prime concern.”

The Guardians are relying on the courage of the Corps to keep them safe, because (from what I can gather so far) the little blue guys are supremely useless at everything imaginable.

Suddenly, a non-Corps-sanctioned transluminal exit maneuver translight flare blinds the whole Corps, but it’s merely Gardner, Rayner, Natu, Kilowog, Vath, Isamot, and Linus from Peanuts flying in not at all dead (except for Linus, who was impaled by a stingray upon arrival). Salaak is not happy.

“You add disrespect for your superior to you misdemeanors, Lantern Gardner?” he gripes.

“Kilowog has my respect, Sal – and the rest of the Corps’! And only his ring has the capability to summon them all,” Gardner says. But Kilowog’s power is low, so he can only do so much.

This is exciting, isn’t it folks?

Most panels look like this, so if you can explain to me what’s going on that would be fan-fucking-tastic.

Kilowog directs all “poozers” — a Kilowogian racial slur, by the way – to the central battery. He doesn’t get much time over the intercom before his ring dies, so hopefully everyone was able to hear. But they did, and they’re worried.

“Have the Earthmen driven you mad, Kilowog? It’s insane to concentrate all our forces here,” complains Salaak, who is promptly told to like it or lump it. Kilowog tells him to trust the plan.

Guy Gardner things he’s King Tuff Shit and starts rallying the troops with words like “We’re the best in the business” and “We’re unstoppable if we just hug each other more”. So he directs everyone to put their rings forward toward the battery and recharge at the count of three: 1… 2… 3… 4… close enough.

While their rings charge, they say aloud that Green Lantern poem: “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape our sight. Let those who worship evil’s might beware our power. GREEN LANTERNS’ LIGHT!”

After Kilowog slaps those bongos, everyone revels in their newly-recharged rings. “Now here’s the deal,” says Gardner. “These creeps are controlled from their nest in the Vega system, where we just came from. They got a subspace web, joined to Oa’s sun. They want to make the sun go nova and suck Oa into the black hole that’s left. So, forget the spiders, forget their ships. They’re just drones. We haveta destroy their nest.”

The plan is to stabilize the sun, feed a ton of energy back through to Vega to blow up the nest real good. Salaak calls this takeover from Gardner mutiny, but all the Green Lanterns are with him, including Hal “Air” Jordan and John “Jon Stewart” Stewart. Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah!

Then this happens, which I think might be good?

Spider Guild HQ instructs their little spidery brethren to destroy the Corps, because the Guardians will fall if the Corps falls. They blast yellow sun power onto Oa, which is now too yellow for the rings to work. Isamot tells everyone to fucking try harder as they all beat up spiders. And they push, push, push with green. Push with green. Beat the yellow by pushing with green.

And soon, the sun gets enveloped in green light, somehow. It gets so overwhelming the Spider Guild orders the spiders to sever the connection between the sun and Oa. Overload! Overload! Too much green! Ahhhhh!!

Then the sun disappears, but where? Gardner smiles, knowing that it just disappeared down the subspace web to the Vegan nest. That’s not good for the spiders, I reckon.

“Central accumulator meltdown,” reports the Guild. “Unable to offload excess. Containment fields breached.” They all start dying, and for every spider that dies the other alive spiders feel it! Ahhhhh! Booo! Dying sucks! Urrk!

The nest dies completely.

“Take care, Lanterns. Even in death, the Spider Guild is dangerous,” says Salaak, based on nothing.

The Guardians note that the immediate threat to their citadel has passed. Huzzah to the Corps, especially Gardner who really stepped up this time. Someone get him a celebratory Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese.

But there’s no time to get too complacent. “The time-space rift in the Polaris system now requires urgent investigation. Lantern Rayner’s destiny lies there. He and Kilowog must resume their involvement with all speed.” Whatever that means. Another Guardian asks Ganthet why the safety of Oa isn’t the utmost priority right now. Why do those blowjobs Rayner and Kilowog get special consideration? Ganthet is like “oh yeah, right”.

Yeah, I don’t really know. I give up.

The Corps celebrates their victory with hearty fist pumps and toothy smiles. Hal Jordan compliments Guy Gardner on his fabulous abs, then congratulates him on a job well done. Even Grumpy Salaak gives Gardner a grumpy thanks for his services, and struggles to additionally tell him that he’s promoted to Corps Honor Guard. This is something that Kilowog has to finish saying for Salaak. Salaak doesn’t like Gardner, I’m gathering. He hates him, you might even say. Loathes him. In fact, fuck the Corps. They should’ve all died just to spite Gardner!

“Your actions bordered on the mutinous,” Salaak says, busting up the mood again. “Incursion of the Vega system, reckless flying, unauthorized usurping of command, and disrespect for your superiors… accordingly, your home leave has been cancelled for the next year.”

Rayner tells Salaak to cancel his too, since he was with Gardner the whole time. This little scene doesn’t get resolved, but I expect that Salaak thumps Gardner over the head with his cane.

So now what? Oa is a wreck. There’s no sun. What do they do? Well, shit son, the Corps is only wounded. The Corps is going to come back stronger than ever in a day, or a few days, or a few years. Decades, maybe.

But, yeah? The sun? I dunno! lol

Final Thoughts

Yeah right, buddy.

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #4 – “Hunted”! In the previous installment, Rayner and Gardner find Soranik Natu and convince her to go from “I’m NEVER becoming a Green Lantern!” to “I’m a Green Lantern now!” by doing nothing more than calling her a chicken. Meanwhile, Kilowog saves Vath and Isamot from the black hole, but it turns out that they ended up in Vegan space as well (and no, that’s Vegan as in “Vega”, not vegan as in “you’re annoying”).

So everyone has converged in one place! Oh yeah, and random space bounty hunters are after the Lanterns, so they’re going to have a field day rounding up these sad-ass sacks. That’s what this issue is going to be all about.

Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #4 [February, 2006]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Hunted”

Vega is where the party’s at. Rayner and Gardner, through their ring walkie-talkies, tell Kilowog to sit tight. They’re coming to get him. Kilowog is floored that Rayner and Gardner are even here. They’re not supposed to be here! What a coincidence, at any rate.

Rayner, Gardner, and Natu scramble and head in the direction of the Spider Guild (?) while the bounty hunters prepare to nab them a few fresh Lanterns. “I would follow Rayner to Hell itself if it meant I could kill him,” Fatality says. The other two bounty hunters don’t really want to follow Rayner to the Spider Guild. Spiders give them the boo-boo jeebies. Bolphunga, who is named after a tick-borne disease or a salad dressing or something, agrees to go with Fatality.

“Scary, huh, Natu? Confined spaces and spiders… brrr!” Gardner says once they get to the Spider Guild. He is obviously hitting on her here. She tells him he’s an arrogant caveman and that she’s neither claustrophobic nor arachnophobic. So fuck right off. Rayner and Co. stick to the service ducts to avoid most of the spider drones. By the time they’re done, the spiders won’t know what hit ‘em!

No, I have no idea what these fool are doing. Best keep reading.

Oh, they’re looking for Kilowog. And they found him. Well, uh… well, this is kind of embarrassing, ha ha, um…

Kilowog is floored again! Soranik Natu is alive! Yes, she too ended up in Vega after falling into a black hole. Isn’t that odd? All black holes lead to Vega. Kilowog doesn’t seem to think they’re true black holes, or else they’d all be the deadest people who have ever lived!

So where are ol’ Vath and Isamot at? Are they up to some shenanigans?? Whatever they’re doing, they powered down their rings to reduce their energy signatures. You know, gotta keep stealthy against the spiders. Speaking of stealthy, gotta stay very quiet here or–

Yo, Chris Farley. You’re scaring the kids.

“COME OUT, LANTERNS! I KNOW YOU ARE NEAR! COME OUT AND FIGHT, YOU COWARDS!” That’s the bleated yelling of who I assume is Tick-Borne Disease. Gardner is like, well shit, we gotta find Vath and Isamot before the spiders follow the raucous noise.

As they move down the ducts they find a room glowing in purple through a vent. Central Command. There’s something that looks like something out of Metroid in the center of the chamber. It’s a map of the galaxy. You can see stars an’ shit. “Our models had Oa in the center. The stars only seem wrongly placed to us,” explains Isamot to Vath. Then he realizes that it’s a fuckin’ spider web and they need to get out of there instead of ooh-ing and aah-ing over it.

“Don’t you see, Isamot,” says Vath. “It’s how we got to Vega – the black hole we fell into is connected to this place by a subspace web. All those black holes are.”

Well, that solves the mystery of the – wait a minute! Why spiders, exactly? Is someone going to answer that particular question for me?

The alarms in the facility begin to sound. Finally, some of these hosebags are going to get caught. It’s all Vath’s fault, he added a smidge of power to his ring to get more of a visual of the web and now they’re both boned. So are the fools in the ducts, they’re boned too.

Kilowog does not want to be boned! He creates a gigantic, loud diversion by sending some green ring energy toward a machine and blowing it up all over the place. “Speed now, not stealth!” Rayner exclaims obviously.

The spiders in the Spider Guild are hooded and mysterious. The speak in these squiggly letters with purple speech balloons. Eight intruders have been revealed by the alarm and sentry systems! “Eight?” booms one. “Who dares enter our nest?”

Well, sir, only six are emitting Oan ring energy. Two are emitting rogue bounty hunter energy! Wait, did someone hear an explosion?

“The Guild Fathers will be displeased by this unexpected violation,” says a spider. Lanterns aren’t allowed in the Vega system in the first place, let alone destroying some Space Spider hovel. Let the underlings capture the Lanterns. The Fathers can get involved in their punishments! Muahaha!

Kilowog, Rayner, Gardner, Natu, and Seinfeld all catch up with Vath and Isamot, whose power rings are running out of delicious power. They’re shocked to see Natu, just like EVERYONE ELSE. “I’m not trusting her with my life,” Isamot says of the deserter. She’s about to say that hundreds of lives have trusted her, but Rayner interrupts like a man to say Lanterns trust each other or they die, so let’s fucking go.

Oh no! Fire! One of my 700 weaknesses!

Fatality jumps in to make things harder on everyone. Now there’s an unnecessary fight mucking up the plans. She’s delighted to see that Rayner’s ring energy appears to be quite weak. His sword projection is getting cracks in it. Next comes four incomprehensible panels where Rayner fights Fatality and the rest of the Lanterns fight spiders. Natu gets chided for not helping, but she claims her ring isn’t working. “It’s cursed!” she says. A likely story.

Bolphunga shows up to the room all “RAWWWRR!” Kilogwog works on him. Everyone’s rings have now dipped below 10% power, which isn’t good if you’re a Lantern who has no other skills other than letting your ring do all the fightin’.

“BOLPHUNGA FEARS NO LANTERN, LARGE OR SMALL!” bellows Bolphunga, who talks in the third person like one of those douchebags.

Everyone seems to be floundering here. Kilowog orders everyone to combine ring energies and create a spherical force field. Natu’s ring is the only one whose power level is still high because, as Isamot puts it, “GUESS WHO’S NOT BEEN FIGHTING?”

Kilowog says it’s suicide to stay any longer if the power rings are almost dead. Time to retreat. Now it’s up to Natu to come forward and help, dammit.

So she busts a hole through the hull of the spaceship and they all blast out of there in a big, green force-field balloon. The day is saved! *Superman theme plays*

This is boring. Do you guys get Nintendo on this thing?

So let’s regroup here. All these black holes lead to a Spider Guild base in Vega. So that means that the ship can store the energy of collapsed stars! (?) The Spiders are sucking the life out of stars and suns! (!)

So who’s next? Ah, here’s who’s next. Earth’s sun, Polaris, Deneb, and Oa’s sun. Nothing to worry about, then. Wait, what’s that? I wasn’t paying attention.

Something explodes around their force-field. Natu’s ring couldn’t hold the shield for long enough, and now a couple of jerkass bounty hunters are on their tail. “Knew it,” says Isamot. “She’s got us all killed.” Then Kilowog calls him a poozer, as is the fashion.

Things look quite dire for our heroes until two more Lanterns show up out of literally nowhere to help. It’s so anticlimactic that I’m jerking off right now to make up for it.

Now that everything is ok, the last thing that anyone needs to worry about is getting caned back on Oa for working outside of the Lantern jurisdiction. Rayner is distracted by Natu’s ring, which is emitting a faint Code Zero alert. Do you know what “Code Zero” is, motherfucker? “Code Zero” is a direct attack on Oa itself!

It seems that the Spider Guild has black-holed their way straight to Oa’s star! Way to skip a couple of landmarks along the way, you silly geese. Oa was caught unawares, and rookies and full-fledged Lanterns alike aren’t able to take these spiders down with just their rings. Looks like everyone is fully b-b-b-b-BONED!

And the Guardians want a report on the damage. “Masters. The situation is grave. Our sun is showing instability – the radiation fluctuations replicate those preceding the sudden formation of black holes in other Sectors.” Uh oh is right! And on top of that, there are creepy crawly spiders everywhere! Gross!

Ganthet hangs his withered little blue head. “I am afraid, fellow Guardians, that we have left the reconstruction of our Corps too late. And most of all, afraid for the universe itself.”

But one thing is certain! The Green Lantern Corps will fight the Spider Guild to the death!

Or at least until that new Matlock with Kathy Bates gets cancelled.

Final Thoughts

I like what I’m reading, but the art is so busy most of the time that it’s hard to see exactly what’s happening when there is fighting or when things are exploding! Otherwise, no notes, except maybe let’s try a different color next time? Green is so gauche. I want some Purple Lanterns.