Tim Seeley comes aboard as the new writer of Green Lanterns, taking over from Sam Humphries. Humphries launched the title and created a great foundation to build on. Seeley doesn’t waste any time and accomplishes quite a bit in this first trade. First and foremost, the relationship between Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz doesn’t skip a beat. It feels like Seeley has a good handle on how these two characters work individually and he understands the dynamic between them. This allows a wide range of subject matter to be covered in this trade.

Within a tight seven issues, Lanterns Baz and Cruz run the gamut of saving a species from extinction and relocating them to Ungara, the home planet of legendary lantern Abin-Sur, to dealing with xenophobic reactions of a militant group known as the Red Tide that wants to exterminate the refugees on their world as well as expel any and all alien interference. Certainly, a book that has relevance to our current political climate, there are some lessons to be learned for those who are willing to listen. During this ordeal, there are a couple of good twists that Seeley has written in that I didn’t see coming, as well as expanding on the unique ability of Lantern Baz with Emerald Light.

This volume had a few artists working on it. As had been my concern with prior Green Lanterns trades, I would prefer to see fewer artists on a run. I liked everyone’s work in each issue, I just feel that having one, maybe two artists working on a story arc pulls work together better and creates a more cohesive feel to the work as a whole. I was particularly enthralled by Eduardo Pansica’s pencils on the first issue. He brought a sense of rough realness to the out-of-this-world storytelling that is inherent to a Green Lantern book and made it more palpable to the senses. Overall, a good first outing from Seeley and company. I look forward to what is set up for the next run.

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