Truth of the New Guardians Revealed!!
By: Andrew Hines
Before I get into the writing and artwork, which is good, I feel like I have to give you full year's synopsis. Okay, so a ring from each Corps was stolen and its wearer basically left to die. They all got sent to Kyle Rayner who then looked like a "ring thief" despite having no idea what was going on. An uneasy alliance was formed by Rayner along with Munk, Saint Walker, Fatality (Star Sapphire), Bleez, Glomulus (Orange Lantern construct), Arkillo and eventually the weaponer of Qward. So they get duped by Larfleeze to do his dirty work and whack this Invictus dude who's the sole protector of a giant solar system/space ship. Then Kyle gets recruited by Invictus to kill Larfleeze. That obviously ain't gonna work so Invictus follows them and decides to take on Agent Orange and that brings us to the here and now. Any questions?
Tony Bedard has done a passable job on this one. There's too much expository dialogue and not enough real interaction. It was a very slow beginning and the biggest action sequences took way to long to round out. I'm all for some good old fashioned ring slinging, but come on. It was a decent ending, but at the same time, it was way too clean. The title in general has been far too slow paced.
Tyler Kirkham's art is good and all but at the same time, he often makes the characters' necks far too veiny. With one exception (page 18) I never really got the feeling that Kyle was an artist, which typically shows through his constructs. It looked a lot like Hal's stuff, just beams of light and very run-of-the-mill. Batt's inks on the other hand have been good. Nei Ruffino and Wes Hartman's colors were pretty good and fit what the effects were trying to portray.
I have to give this one a "B-". I want to love it because Kyle is one of my favorite characters, but the writing didn't work out as well as I wanted it to. It was wrapped up a little too neatly. I'm just hoping that better things happen after the 0 issues.
