I think I have to admit, the Green Lantern Corps is probably one of those story arcs that I will never like. I don't quite know if it's because of the characters, the story telling or the chaos of the plots. But as much as I had hoped for a different outcome, I have to admit that I really didn't enjoy Hal Jordan and The Green Lantern Corps, Vol. 2: Bottled Light. And I had such high hopes for this title!

I don't think that I'll continue with reading the Green Lanterns any time soon.

Robert Venditti offers a flawless depiction of a number of classic Green Lantern characters in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2: Bottled Light. His Guy Gardner is funny, his John Stewart and Soranik Natu heroic, and I like that Venditti doesn't have the corps leaders acting childishly and that there's a positive lack of angst. Venditt's Hal also seems to have an extra amount of exuberance these days, calling out "Lar-friggin'-fleeze" and wanting to hug one of Mogo's trees. New series artist Rafa Sandoval offers a youthfulness to the series that matches a tone of Venditti's -- it's been a while since the franchise has seemed this happy.

Things start out pretty bleak at the beginning of 'Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corp Vol. 2: Bottled Light' by Robert Venditti. Sure, Sinestro is gone and the Corps has found each other, but the cost has been pretty great.

In the opening, a lone ring flies through space pronouncing that Hal Jordan is dead. Meanwhile the Corps is trying to get operations together and doesn't know that Hal is gone. They end up answering a distress call on Tomar Tu's world and end up trapped by....well, you'll just have to read it to find out. There are twists and turns aplenty in this volume. If you think Hal Jordan is gone for good, you don't read a lot of comics.

There are a couple main stories, and a nice backup story that takes place years later. I like John Stewart as the leader. I like the uneasy truce they have to strike to solve the problem. There are some good cameos that I won't discuss.

The art and story are pretty good. I look forward to seeing where this title heads next.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from DC Entertainment and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

ARC from Netgalley.
Another excellent outing for this title!
First storyline deals with the aftermath of the destruction of Warworld (end of last Volume). Hal Jordan's ring is wandering the cosmos and finds its way to Ganthet and Sayd, who summon White Lantern Kyle Rayner to help investigate it. They realize that the ring contains the full essence and spirit of Hal. From Hal's point of view, he has entered the "Emerald Space" (think heaven for Green Lanterns who gave their life in service) and is chatting with Abin Sur, Tomar-Re, and others. Kyle and the Guardians pull him out of his ring, bringing him back to life, and they all fly off to help the GLC with....
The second storyline is about the rest of the GLC, and the rebels from the Yellow Corps (led by Soranik Natu). Back on Mogo, restoring and recuperating, they are dispatched to a planet being attacked by Starro. That's all a ruse... Brainiac has lured them there to collect them, not for himself, but for his master, the Grand Collector of them all, Larfleeze. Combining the power of the GLC and the Yellows, with Hal and company as they arrive, Larfleeze is driven off and (that particular model of) Brainiac destroyed.
The final issue gives a hint as to the future direction of the series, including another war of light, Tomar-Tu as a Yellow Lantern, and some enemies I am unfamiliar with. Geoff Johns did this near the end of his run during the New 52 and I appreciate a little cryptic foreshadowing.
Loving the Rebirth Lantern stuff. High Recommend.

I haven't read a ton of lantern Corp comics despite being drawn as Star Sapphire next to my Green Lantern on my wedding invitations. I enjoyed this book and the look into teamwork between unlikely groups, learning about a white lantern (say whaaat), and seeing unbelievable will. This is volume 2 in this rebirth line so you would likely want to check out volume 1 first. If not, they do fill you in a bit with flashbacks.

I feel like Venditti is FINALLY getting Green Lantern after writing the title for the last several years. At the end of the last volume, Hal turned completely into willpower to destroy Sinestro and Warworld. Now all that's left is his ring. Can Kyle Raynor, the White Lantern, restore Hal to life before he is completely gone? At the same time, the Corps has returned to our universe and answers a call for help from Tomar Tu's homeworld. Starro is taking over. I love where the story heads from here and will let you read it yourself.

The Good: The story featuring John Stewart and the rest of the core is fantastic. I loved seeing Starro attach somewhere else besides Earth and how it was only the beginning of the story.

The Bad: Hal's story in the book isn't nearly as compelling and mainly serves as a lead in to volume 3.

The Ugly: The book is much better off without Hal in charge of the Corps. While he's a great GL, he's a terrible leader. The book was very boring when he was leading the Corps.

I'm not even going to try and give a plot synopsis because it's so convoluted that I'm not even sure what the hell happened. I was very excited to see a new Doom Patrol book. It's always been one of my favorite books at DC. I liked the Kupperberg run, the crazy weird Grant Morrison Vertigo run, and Keith Giffen's run from about 10 years ago. Gerard Way didn't even scare me away. Umbrella Academy was actually pretty good. But this just sucked.

The Good: Way brings back most of the team from Morrison's run and brings back plot points from more than one of the previous Doom Patrol runs.

The Bad: The plot threads Way brings back are from 10+ years ago and yet he gives very little reference so you don't really know what's going on.

The Ugly: The plot was a mess. There's so much going on I couldn't keep it all straight. The book was weird but it wasn't interesting. I found myself not really caring what happened.

Three and a half stars for this - it's nowhere near as grand as volume one, and is really a very simple tale. The Green Lanterns think they're up against a weird alien starfish face-hugger thing, but the Yellows join them, and then they realise they're up against the devilish nastiness that is, er, glass... So it's a silly story in parts, but still an enjoyable one - I even forgave the slow rebirth the story itself contained, as so many Rebirth books have been a lot worse. AND I didn't mind a character was called Tomato - heck, I'm not speciesist. I also liked the one-shot closer, defining willpower against fear to be a great virtue - certainly one to borrow here on earth in 2017.

Following on from the previous volume, the Green Lanterns are back but Hal is gone. Sinestro has been defeated, but now the Lanterns are defending a planet from an attack by Starro.

While the Lanterns are fighting Starro, Hal Jordan finds himself in some mysterious realm with Abin Sur and other deceased Green Lanterns. The remaining Guardians of the Universe summon Kyle Rayner to try and retrieve Hal.

The Starro attack turns out to be a lure, though - bait. Brainiac is behind it, having captured the Green Lanterns (as well as the entire planet). But who's behind him?...

It took me far longer than it should've to understand the title of this volume...

This is a really, really good story arc. I like this comic series in general, but this was really enjoyable and interesting. 4 stars. As well as the great plot, the writing is clever and pretty funny.

I liked the action and how the green and yellow green lanterns were fighting together. It wasn't boring and left me wanting to know what was going to happen next. The pictures were well designed and easy to follow with the storyline.

I think that since I have such high expectations for anything to do with the Green Lanterns, no story is going to be good enough. I finished this a few days ago and whilst I did enjoy to, I am struggling to put into words how it did not capture me like I wanted it to.

Lets start with the art style. Once again, Green and Yellow are very dominate colours; but unlike the first volume where they seemed to be balanced perfectly, they seemed to overrun everything. I can only imagine how hard it would be to balance the colours when 90% of the people are wearing either Green or Yellow but it could have been done better.

Now the storyline follows Hal Jordan coming back from the dead, kind-of. At the end of the lsat volume he sacrificed himself but became pure willpower or something like that. I am not going to lie, I found that to be very confusing and as you can probably tell it wasn’t that interesting either. Also, apart from Hal Jordan we follow a John Stewart lead Green Lantern Corp. Whilst I found this storyline a lot more interesting, it seems to have been written to get Hal Jordan where he has to be for the next volume. Hopefully it pays off in the next volume.

If you enjoy the Green Lanterns then I suspect that you will have already read this, but I do not believe that this would be a good starting place if you are looking to start reading about Hal Jordan.

The Corps are back thanks in part to some of the Sinestro Corps, but Hal's gone, or is he?

The Corps don't get too much down time on Mogo though, because a world is in trouble.

Oh, and we get to see an old style Brainiac too as well as another color ring of ring.

There's also some Kyle, and a lot of pretty John and Guy as well.

The Sinestro Corps is a pretty cool story too.

Usually I'm not crazy about Hal Jordan stuff, but this series has gotten a bit interesting.

I got this ARC through Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment

After the epic events of the first Green Lanterns Rebirth story arc, Sinestro's Law, the Green Lanterns have returned to Space Sector Zero thanks to the efforts of Hal Jordan. What happened to Hal Jordan and what will happen to what remains of the Sinestro Corps.

The book has two big plots that move together. Sinestro's daughter (and former Green Lantern) Soranik wants the Sinestro Corps to have a role in maintaining order. Her team were Yellow Lanterns who brought order to the galaxy after the Green Lanterns Corps disappeared but wanted no part in Sinestro's insane fear engine plan. Solanik's role in this fascinating. When John Stewart asks her why she's trying to clean up Sinestro's mess, she response, "Because he was my father." When Stewart suggests she just accept he was a psychopathic dictator, she responds, "He was my father." She's a fascinating character throughout this entire storyline.

This plot does really come to a head when the two corps run into Brainiac and an Orange Lantern and have to make a decision about the future. It's an interesting book and it challenges a long-held idea. Do the Yellow and Green Lanterns have to be at war or was Sinestro really th'e main reason for it? It's fascinating idea to explore. Though they have to work much of this out in battle as they face off against Brainiac and Agent Orange.

The other big plot idea is what happened to Hal Jordan. Without giving too much away, this is actually dealt with in a classic comic book way that manages to pay tribute to Green Lantern history with a trip to a Green Lantern afterlife and the return of an old friend.

The five part Bottled Light story is just a delight to read. It weaves in some good character moments with a great galaxy spanning comic book space opera.

This trade wraps up with the one shot story, "Heroes," which is set sixty years in the future and has a Xudarian telling a story of the Green Lanterns to kids. There are a few previews of coming attractions (including a hint on how the Sinestro Corps thing might work out but I didn't enjoy this as much as the rest of the book. In a book like this, I'd rather have a one shot focus on one of the characters in the book. Still, the art's nice. The issue's not bad. It's just not as good as the rest of the book.

Overall, this is just as strong as the first book. It manages to capture the epic nature of what the Green Lantern history while having some solid character moments as well. The art remains solid from start to finish. Highly recommended.

****I received a free digital copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review."***