Green Lantern New Guardians #33 Review

Past crimes.

Kyle and Carol explore the caverns of the unknown place while the Guardians learn a horrible truth.

I’m still getting annoyed by Carol’s participation in this. While I get she is a ‘Love’ Lantern, the independence I saw before is disappearing fast.

Thankfully, the Psions prove to be a good challenge though feels a tad repeated.

The artwork by Walker is good though nothing exemplary. His human faces aren’t that well drawn, but the atmosphere and everything else give off exactly the vibe I feel Jordan was going for.

SPOILERS FOLLOW………………..

Carol and Kyle reunite, though not before the White Lantern blasts one of the ‘victims’ into space before rescuing her.

They give the cliff notes to each other about what’s been going on with each other, before Carol plants a big wet one on Kyle.

Now I’m not saying that Carol can’t have relations with different men. But ever since it started at the end of the First Lantern incident, this has felt forced to say the least.

Now if Jordan decided to explain it as an effect of Kyle messing with the Source Wall and altering reality (cause it has been apparent since the start of the New 52 that Kyle had a crush on Carol) or a better explanation as to why Carol is so ‘fond’ of Kyle, I would have accepted it.

But by keeping the source of this new found love so vague is proving problematic for both the readers and Carol as a character.

The Guardians’ plight is shown one by one, as the half Reptilian half robot Psions are revealed.

Kyle and Carol explore the chambers, finding more and more gruesome experiments the Psions have been conducing – mass replication, dissection, genetic splicing….leaving Carol shocked.

The Psions reveal their origins to the Guardians. Once they were very basic organisms but some Oans came and manipulated them on a genetic level, remaking them in their image with augmented intelligence and abilities.

They experimented on themselves and combined their bodies with mechanical parts, before searching out other organisms to….’uplift’.

Now I’m down with this. It has been done before in the New 52 itself (I think the Cyborg Superman storyline in Supergirl was similar), but the devastating images and the perverted notion of the 'benefactors to the universe' that the previous Guardians had, are interesting to delve into.

My problem is with the fact that it was the previous Guardians who created these circumstances. The New Guardians have come face to face with some of the legacies of their Oan brothers – the Lanterns chief among them. But their more disastrous experiments have passed them by.

Feels like a beaten track for us though…with the Manhunters, Krona, Atrocitus, Sinestro and the First Lantern and the Third Army being mostly direct results of the Oans meddling without considering the consequences.

Kyle finally realizes they are being led around instead of exploring after discovering a Guardian Quaros’ dissected body, and commands the inhabitants to reveal themselves, which they do in their full bionic glory.

SPOILERS END………………..

The new antagonists give some good fodder for thought and provide us with some effective gory visuals, but their origins feel like rehashed material.

Jordan has been building to something and it feels like this is a good challenge to what Kyle and the Guardians have been going through in their search for purpose.

My problem is….where does that leave Carol? Jordan is not using her well at all.

Still, the major themes have been well drawn and I look forward to some inner exploration.

So, I give it 8.0 out of 10.

+Some good themes

+Interesting antagonists

+Some effective visuals

-The origins of the antagonists feel rehashed

-What is Carol exactly doing here?