Sinestro #4
Bunn, Morales, Wright
SPOILER ALERT!
I will most certainly be SPOILING!
Last issue , the Inquisition finally caught up with Sinestro, inconveniently in the middle of saving a group of Sinestro’s people from a slave auction. They are a religion based around not feeling emotion. Sinestro sends his daughter to escape with their people and tries to engage the members of the Inquisition.
Sinestro seeks to end the fight quickly, but finds that they are protected against the yellow light of fear. He turns his strategist mind to finding a weakness in their armor, when one of his corp, Romat-Ru, is caught in the pale light and forced to go through what the Inquisition refers to as the purging. It appears that he is immediately forced to live one of his greatest fears. Why this effects him so powerfully I am not sure, as part of training for the corp involves overcoming that fear in the first place. However, I digress.
The next person to feel the touch of the purging is Sinestro himself. He feels numbed by it, but also assured that should he submit then all misery and pain would be removed. Our protagonist sees a hallucination of his people singing Hal Jordan’s praises as the greatest of the Green Lanterns. For obvious reasons, this enraged Sinestro and he refuses to submit to the light. After this, Sinestro is bomarded with fear after fear; Hal Jordan romantically involved with his daughter, and Hal leading the Sinestro Corp. By will and passion alone, he defeats the purging.
While the Inquisition is deciding what to do with our hero, incidentally they all seem to agree on execution, if you were wondering; Soranik returns and lays into the three pale assailants with a gattling gun. This unexpected development gives Sinestro the insight he needs as he notices that the Inquisition can only defend against emotion if they are purged of it. For a moment he reminds them of their fears, and he brings them all down.
Sinestro’s daughter obviously disagrees with the uncompromising way he handles the Inquisition, and after she argues with her father, she has to duck the advances of one of the more talented members of the corp. Before they move on, Sinestro’s ring is repowered by Lyssa Drak, an ability we had no idea the two of them shared, and an ability that doesn’t work for anyone else.
Three of the lanterns enter the Pale Inquisitions ship and find hundreds of purged aliens from varying races tending to the ship. Sinestro discovers their plans and decides to blow the ship, mercy killing those purged. Of course he doesn’t tell his daughter about them.
The final page reveals that Soranik has left the freed Korugarians with none other than Hal Jordan himself!
This issue was excellent, mostly because we got to see more of this mysterious Inquisition and what it’s powers are. The little window into Sinestro’s inner thoughts and fears was revealing, especially with how Jordan-centric they turned out to be. I still find myself compelled to read about Sinestro more for the odd duality of him; Fighting to save a people that hate him and dealing death in an almost offhand, if large scale, manner. This series si shaping up to be an excellent, if not redemption story, then reintroduction of a beloved, morally grey character.
My rating 4 / 5
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i really need to get back into the green lantern books. i stopped after johns and tomasi left the main two books, but it sounds like i made a mistake.