Sinestro Corps Special
I expected a lot better from Johns. Really did.
Maybe it was written logically and in-character, I dunno; I was frankly a bit numb during the read-through and couldn't really tell. But frankly, I don't even think I care if it
was. If I took Spider-Man into an alleyway and raped him in every hole until he passes out from blood loss, it would
probably be "logical" and "in-character" for him to become psychologically traumatized and unhealthily withdrawn. That does not make the idea any better, or the story any less of a shtty idea for shock value sht.
So the idea here through the past year, then, was to make everything as horrible and traumatizing and soul-wrenchingly painful for Kyle as humanly possible and then act like it's "good writing" when he gets tentacle-raped into an evil, two-dimensional footnote.
Fck that. I'm not going for it. And Johns really should know better.
I can hear the responses already..."Isn't that exactly what happened to Hal?? Isn't it okay, then? It's like poetic justice or something
!" Well, three things: one, can I see show of hands here of anyone who actually
liked the original Parallax story and
didn't think it was a mistake that would only get mollified with time and effort through years and years of "caveat" stories? Did we actually need
another one of those? Two, how is it possibly a good thing that we're basically cloning a story here but with a different character? Are we
that lacking for originality? Three, anyone who's actually getting their rocks off here seeing something horrible happen to Kyle to somehow "make up" for what happened to Hal should possibly just castrate themselves now to save mankind the trouble of dealing with your genetic stock.
.
The thing was that everything was
fine. Hal was back in his own okay-ish solo series and the JLA. Kyle didn't have an ongoing solo but had a solid, powerful presence in the DCU further exemplified by the esteem he's garnered for himself anyway, and is going to play a significant hand in Countdown. It was a good balance. Everyone wins. Cosmic consonance had been served!
And then this. And to further the painful irony of this book, the Sinestro Corps is actually a pretty good idea. There
are things to like, here. The reemergence of Superboy-Prime, while a bit premature, is a great turn of events. The Anti-Monitor being back is...well, I don't really care about that, but I'm sure it's very exciting for some. Even the reveltion of the "Ion" being as a counterpart to Parallax as a sentient embodiment of willpower had interesting possibilities. See, even in the midst of a horrible trainwreck of a ploy, bits and pieces of Johns' ingenuity still shine a bit. And yet he had to ruin it all for...what? Why, exactly, did he have to? What purpose does it serve? How could he possibly have thought that this was a good idea?
And yeah, yeah..."This is surely only temporary! He'll get his redemption soon!" Yes, I'm perfectly aware of that. Or else his upcoming appearance in Countdown (brr) wouldn't make any sense. But as I said, just because an idea will be mollified in the future doesn't make the original idea any less shtty. The only way this particular subplot could ever be redeemed is if it's all revealed to be a hoax and boy does that speak volumes about the state of the story.
(5 out of 10)
