The Good
Kyle and Carol need to find their way off of New Genesis and get their rings back. Luckily, they reunite with Saint Walker and John Stewart. However, they have to take on Highfather and stop his plan.
The one thing that is endearing about GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS is that writer Justin Jordan always presents a sense of fun in the series. It's always a fun book to read and he really has Kyle Rayner's voice down. The early scenes of dialogue between he and Carol are fantastic and a great little additive to the overall story, highlighting the relationship between the two characters and the struggles they've gone through during this series.
We get a couple of really fun battle sequences in this issue as the team tries to pull together without the use of their rings, aside from John. It's a scene where you'll really be pulling for the good guy, which I feel like we really haven't had too much in Godhead, since the New Gods are such a huge, unstoppable threat. However, as soon as things start looking good for the team, they get much worse. We're not going to spoil anything, but the final page will leave you wondering "what's next?"
Both Diogenes Neves and Rodney Buchemi did the pencils here, Andrew Dalhouse was on colors, and arc Deering, Buchemi, and Daniel Henriques are on inks. There's a ton of artists working together on this issue, but the team works well on the book and while the art switch is mildly noticeable, it's not distracting. Multiple artists on a book can kill an issue's flow, but all of these folks work very well together and their art is pretty to look at as well.
The Bad
The cover is a bit rough. The colors look real nice, but Kyle's face is incredibly rough. Normally, I don't say too much about covers, but this one really bugged me, especially after Godhead has had quite the collection of amazing looking covers.
There was one moment that bugged me so much. Carol and Kyle end up meeting with John, Saint Walker, and Malhedron. Kyle boom tubes his way into the scene and John's reaction is essentially "hi. you're not dead." He smiles, but it's so cold and while John isn't a dude who emotes like a madman, it still felt too cold for the scene, especially when Saint Walker loses it. Maybe I missed something.
The issue is a lot of pages of not too much happening. Sure, we get a battle or two and everyone is reunited, but the overall issue was just ok. For someone reading all of Godhead, it feels like a disappointing tie in. For someone who is just reading this book and following Kyle's journey, there is a lot to love here. It's a mixed bag of nuts.
The Verdict
GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS #37 is a solid issue for Godhead but feels a tad like there's too many cooks in the kitchen. There's a pretty obvious line in the sand between the things Justin Jordan wanted to put into the book and the things he had to put into the book to move along the story. What we're left with is a decent issue that is by no means the worst part of this event, but a pretty middle of the road issue that serves the purpose of connecting a group of lanterns with each other. I'd still give this a mild recommendation because it is a lot of fun to read, but just a bit weaker than other Godhead issues.
