Completely new to the character, but I’d like to start him up. Is this newest run okay for a newbie?
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Honestly, I would start with Green Lantern Rebirth (2004), by Geoff Johns and go forward from there. It’s going to give a great background in the character and all the relevant highlights of the last 15 years.
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Agree with Biel, Johns run is the high point of GLs run. Epic stories that build a GL universe of characters. I still haven’t made up my mind about Morrison on GL yet.
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Depends if you want to get serious about GL and or if your just looking for really good standalone stories . Both are all time great DC writers and both are well recieved runs.
If you want to get seriously into Green Lantern, Id start with Geoff Johns run on Green Lantern. He is basically responsible for a lot of the Lantern Lore that we know and understand today. His run on GL is really highly recieved by fans, and he really revitalized the character and lore in the modern age.
The Green Lantern by Morrison is probably top 3 best DC books going on right now. According to Liam Sharp its the bestselling book outside of Batman and big event comics. Morrison really shines with the sci-fi and the weird. And thats exactly what Green Lantern is all about. From my understanding so far each of the comics have been standalone stories, so its not encompassing saga/epic like Geoff Johns run.
If your looking for good reading, I highly recommend Morrisons run and its also a treat for hardcore green lantern fans. If your looking to get serious about GL and witness an epic/saga then look no further than the stories Johns created like Green Lantern Rebirth, Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night, Brightet day.
Both runs are really good.
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Any point is a good starting point. It just depends on what feels right for you.
The Green Lantern: Rebirth mini-series is the beginning of the best Green Lantern run of all time.
Conversely, if you just want to hop into the current GL pool and see how the water is, give The Green Lantern a go.
Win-win either way.
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Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Scivers run starting with Rebirth. You’ll want to read Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night for sure.
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Personally I LOVE Morrisons current run. It’s a different take and thats just what GL needed IMO.
Having said that, I agree 100% with @ Biel_Wunde, start with GL: Rebirth. You wont be sorry.
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Geoff Johns Green Lantern. His run is what made GL so popular.
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Morrison’s current ongoing is the first Green Lantern series I follow. My knowledge of the character comes primarily from the Justice League comics over the past few years and from animated shows/movies. I like space sci-fi, DC, and Morrison (based on All Star Superman and early New 52 Action Comics) so decided to give it a try and haven’t missed an issue. Liam Sharp’s art alone is worth the price of admission…just stunning…very intricate and detailed. Sometimes the stories are a bit hard to follow. Several times I wondered to myself what the hell was going on, only to come to a reveal a few pages later that clarified everything. In that sense, it’s a very rewarding read. I would definitely recommend it. Still haven’t read Johns’ run though, so can’t make that comparison. I did read his Blackest Night event, which focuses on Lantern lore, and thought it was fantastic.
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Grant Morrison is a trash writer. This run is so fubar, that after 15 uninterrupted years of reading GL, I have to stop. Morrison ruined Batman (Batman RIP) and Wonder Woman Earth 1 was awful. If you have to write an entire epilogue TPB to explain the ending of a Batman story, you stink. Not only is the writing in this current series so bad (its like he either doesn’t know what real exposition is or hates it and purposefully leaves it out.), but the art is also sub-par. Ivan Reis is easily a top 3 GL artist. Liam Sharp’s work, while not ugly, certainly doesn’t do the character or the universe he lives in any favors. It’s like what you’d get in a Lucasfilm garage sale of alien masks not good enough for Jabba’s palace. Geoff Johns’ work and the subsequent Grren Lantern Corps, Red Lanterns, Sinestro, Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan and the GLC series were some of the best soace sci-fi DC had ever produced. Do yourself a big favor and stop after that. Grant Morrison deserves no one’s time or money.
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Ignore this Nate troll. Morrison is one of the BEST Darn Writers in the Industry! His Green Lantern Run is Great So Far!!
I’d also reccomend his Doom Patrol Run, His Action Comics Run, Seven Soilders, Final Crisis & Multiversity!
Really you can’t go wrong with Morrison.
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@natepepka
Could you expand on your point? One of the draws of a Morrison story is that you’re supposed to substitute your own exposition for the imagery and themes he provides.
I’d say it depends on how much you like Grant Morrison. It definitely leans very heavily into his ouevre of self referential meta-fiction. You’ll get more out of it if you’ve read the continuity he refers to but at the same time if you just assume anything you don’t understand is just a reference to a silver age comic or some obscure occult principle you’ll be fine.
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It seems every time anyone criticizes Morrison, they’re attacked and called a troll. Sure, Natepepka could have given some more details of what he doesn’t like about the writing, but there’s no need to call him a troll because he really doesn’t like Morrison’s writing. I personally can’t stand or follow most of what he writes, and I’m not a stupid person.
I think it’s lazy writing when a writer leaves so much up to the reader to fill in. I think Morrison has crazy ideas, sure, but I want a cohesive story. Morrison is like the kid who writes Axe Cop. I’m not saying that as a thoughtless burn. He really is like that. He just seems to write whatever seems cool with no thought as to how it fits together, or taking any time to explain it to the reader. Everyone keeps saying how he refers “X” mythology or continuity, or if you just understand “Y” you’ll know what he’s writing about. The thing is, you SHOULDN’T have to.
I suppose you could say that Morrison is recreating the way silver age comics were written. Like the early Justice League books, which I’ve recently re-read, and maaaaaannnn they make very little sense, but the writers apparently believed they were writing for children and didn’t try to make a realistic cohesive story. If that’s the case, Morrison nailed it.
I think Morrison’s JLA was strong, as was his DC 1,000,000. I also think his editors reigned him in more. The more popular and successful he’s been, the less anyone’s bothered to try editing his stuff so it makes more sense. That’s my opinion at least.
As for the OP’s question: I absolutely do not think you should start with Morrison, especially if you’ve A: Just started reading DC, and B: Have never read any of his stuff. It usually starts off pretty cool, and then spirals into the insanity of a dream that gives you strong feelings, but makes no sense.
I’d recommend trying Green Lantern (1990) where Kyle Rayner is introduced, or try Green Lantern Rebirth (2010) and then the regular series after that, by Geoff Johns. I’d also recommend reading Dave Gibbons (and then Peter Tomasi’s) Green Lantern Corps (2006).
Here are links, and the dates listed seems really off for some of the listings on the site:
https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/series/green-lantern-1990/24892081-6a1e-4946-8ddb-6e7255fdbe29
https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/series/green-lantern-rebirth/f5230e62-7a7d-4953-b545-b8f6b60e3424
https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/series/green-lantern-2005/6b75d6f3-dfcb-487f-b905-311738cc4d9a
You could also go even earlier before the Kyle Rayner stuff here:
https://www.dcuniverse.com/comics/series/green-lantern-1960/c873857c-4ddc-4b81-a125-d913f613e750
But I can’t really speak to which of those issues are worth reading or if they’ve aged well.
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Just a thought or two: Morrison reminds me a lot of Warren Ellis in that when he’s good he’s very very good. Some of the best and worst stuff I’ve read has been from those two writers.
And it seems harsh to talk about editors at all right but some of the greatest writers in history were greatest writers because they had fantastic editors.
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Well, that’s my point. Editors have more power to make a great story than we give them credit for. But if they don’t do their job, they can also make a story worse.
I love Morrisons stuff, but not sure he’s for everyone he can get kinda weird with it. So I think it might depend on if your into the weirdness or not.
Morrison 's works are very Metatextual. As you can tell from this thread, some people are better at picking up the meanings of the stories then others.
But Back to Green Lantern, Geoff John’s Run is probably the Best starting point IMHO. Though later runs by Venditti, Seleey, etc are decent as well. Honestly there hasn’t been an awful lantern run in the 21st century so far IMO. All range from decent to great if you ask me. Though certain storylines get pretty darn iffy at times admittedly .
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I agree @SuperBraniac Green Lantern has been a consistent high quality title since Goeff Johns. Every writer has managed to keep the ball rolling. And Morrison has a homerun with this new series.
Im curious OP on what you decide
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Howdy. My point about Morrison is that a writer’s first job is background and exposition. The reader should not have to infer much of anything, especially in a comic book. Its a verbal and visual medium for goodness sake! I should never have to guess what’s going on in an issue. Their job is to lay it out for us to see. Morrison just seems to throw you into the middle of a story and say ’ see ya! Have fun!’ and move onto another mid-story. I think issue 3 made the most sense out of all of them. It didn’t seem like you were 4 issues behind already. In issue 1, given where Hal Jordan and the GLC left off, I thought ‘Ok, why is Hal back on earth? Who is this random woman he’s shacked up with? Why did he lose his job? What was this job?’ There’s just always so much left out and I severly dislike it. Johns made sure everything was in place, came together properly and you understood it clearly. I never had to guess about what was happening or what had happened a month before. A series like GL, I feel, should be handled like Star Trek or Star Wars, where going in, you know its going to be a large storyline. Those 2 properties are easy to follow for most people. Thanks to Johns, GL is more than a superhero title now. Its a massive sci-fi epic the scope of Star Wars and Star Trek, as it should be. And it should be handled as such, not some ‘fight of the month’ book. Lots of books way back when were like that. Johns (and others to be fair) took what was a fight of the month book long ago and expanded it into a great big universe that was a pleasure to get lost in. I’ve read a lot of Morrison and I’ve always come away either empty or angry at the quality. I hope that clears my opinion up a little (clear as mud, right?). Take care!