Green Lantern Corps (2025-26) #10 - Review

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Green Lantern Corps number 10 is written by Morgan Hampton with art by E. Gual Fernando Pasarin, Will Conrad, and Oclair Albert with colors by Arif Prianto and Matt Herms and letters by Dave Sharpe. The title of this issue is Back to Life.

[00:00:14]John Stewart and Katma Tui left their farm in the dark sectors and are flying to the planet Oa in their cool little spaceship to return the ring containing the essence of John's deceased mom so that he and Katma can get back to building a peaceful life for themselves.

[00:00:28]John probably could just sent the ring away instead of going in person, but who knows if this version of his mom would have agreed to leave him alone. Plus, he probably wants to make sure the core knows not to come looking for him anymore and some points hit harder when made face-to-face.

[00:00:43]And hey, let's talk about Katma for a minute because the reason she's here at all is that John found her in hypertime and pulled her into the main DC timeline. So, it is the real Katma. She just lived a different life that didn't involve becoming a Green Lantern which likely means she never met any version of John Stewart until our John found her and brought her here. And I think that's a very weird choice because it essentially makes this Katma a stranger.

[00:01:10]She and John are taking things slow right now, but in a very real way she isn't the woman he married and as long as John expects her to fill the void in his heart left by the Katma who died, I don't see how this relationship could possibly work.

[00:01:25]John's inner monologue tries to bring the reader up to speed just in case they haven't read the last few years of John Stewart's stories, which is a good idea because as you can probably tell based on the way I discussed Katma, John's life has been especially weird and complicated for a while now. So, I probably shouldn't have been surprised when I read panel three of page one and saw John explain the reason that there were two John Stewart's until recently is because John split himself in two.

[00:01:52]Later in the issue, he would muse over the fact that he isn't sure if he and the other John were two perfect copies or two halves of a single whole. The only problem is that anyone who's been reading the comics or watching my videos knows that none of this is what actually happened and doesn't even get close to explaining why there were two John Stewart's.

[00:02:15]I have talked about this a lot with Jeremy Adams writing and I was hoping that Morgan Hampton would be different, but it's the same problem again. I do not expect every new Green Lantern writer to know everything about Green Lantern history. That would be absurd.

[00:02:30]But if you're going to base your new story on someone else's older story, you do in fact need to get the details of that older story right, especially when that older story is only from three years ago. And at first I thought they were just trying to dodge the whole hypertime thing since it can get confusing and maybe it would be too hard to explain in a clear and concise way.

[00:02:54]But then later in this same issue, John explains to Fatality that the planet Xanshi exists again because it was pulled out of hypertime and that means it's not a copy or an alternate version.

[00:03:06]It's the real Xanshi again and that's the exact explanation for why the other John Stewart existed. So, Morgan Hampton does understand the concept of hypertime and can explain it pretty easily, but chose not to acknowledge that it happened to John Stewart.

[00:03:24]So, yeah, I was really looking forward to seeing what Morgan Hampton could do as the solo writer on this book. But the fact that we're already running into problems like this on panel three of page one is a pretty bad sign.

[00:03:39]John and Katma arrive on Oa and immediately we're hit with just how out of the loop this John Stewart is. It's important to remember that the other John, the one who died, was the John who participated in Dark Crisis and starred in the series Green Lantern War Journal.

[00:03:55]So, this John, the one traveling with Katma, hasn't shown up since the one-shot John Stewart the Emerald Knight which ended the Geoffrey Thorne run of Green Lantern. That means he knows nothing at all about what's been going on with the United Planets or why every central battery is on Oa now. He also has no idea that his mother died or that his sister was brought back as a sentient construct. This is also his first time seeing the Green Lantern suit that his other self has been wearing since Green Lantern War Journal, which John begrudgingly agrees to wear once he finds out that Fatality escaped from her jail cell. And John has an interesting idea about how to deal with her. Finding Katma retiring from the Corps and starting a new life in the dark sectors has made John do a lot of thinking about second chances. Now, when he looks at Yera, who insists on being called Fatality, he sees their terrible tangled history together and he wants to do something different. He realizes that just because the Green Lanterns act like cops doesn't mean the answer to every problem is throwing someone in jail. He realizes that the symbol on his chest can't just stand for the law anymore. It has to be something bigger, something that'll restore people's trust in the Green Lantern Corps. So, he offers Fatality a chance at a better life. John tells Fatality that her dead homeworld, the planet Xanshi, is alive and well in the dark sectors that the New God Esak pulled it out of hypertime. She can have her home back, but first she has to atone. John gives Yera a ship and a list of every Green Lantern she's ever killed and tells her to make amends in whatever way the families of those fallen Lanterns will accept. The pain she's caused can't be undone, but she can at least attempt to give the families some kind of closure.

[00:05:43]Once she's finished, John will give her the location of Xanshi so that she can finally go home.

[00:05:49]And just to make sure things work out, a Green Lantern named Glynn will be accompanying her. And can I just say this would be an awesome premise for a Fatality series, but it sadly isn't meant to be since the moment they step onto the ship, Lantern Glynn turns into a shriveled husk. An alien named En'carr was using Glynn's body to sneak off of Oa. He's some kind of sentient water alien that can seep into another person's body and take it over. They actually did a callback to the water baby joke from issue number one. I kind of liked it better when that was just a one-off gag, but it's an interesting choice to make that be the way this new villain enters the story.

[00:06:29]En'carr wants to join forces with Fatality since he also lost his homeworld because of the Green Lanterns and now thinks they can help each other get their revenge. I don't know how willing Yera will be to actually go for that since En'carr is offering her more of the same battle she's been fighting for years while John is literally offering her the planet Xanshi alive and well. It seems like a pretty lopsided choice, but I guess we'll see.

[00:06:55]While all that's going on, Guy and Kilowog are putting the new recruits through boot camp. Those new recruits are Kelly, Aya, V'zarro, and Narf. And after a little endurance training, Guy unleashes the real test, a giant monster construct that they have to fight without their rings. This is meant to be like the Kobayashi Maru from Star Trek, a test meant to see how they'll handle a no-win scenario. But then Kelly remembers that Aya is a superpowered robot who doesn't actually need a ring, so Aya drains all the energy from Guy's ring making the construct disappear. But then Kilowog traps them all in a bubble and declares that they all lose. I wish this test was more specific and well thought out.

[00:07:37]Also, I get Narf and V'zarro and Kelly being there since they've all had field experience without being properly trained, but there's something incredibly strange about seeing Aya lumped in with rookie Green Lanterns, especially if Kilowog is supposed to have a history with her and knows what she can do. I suppose the argument is that it's all a formality that anyone new to the Corps has to go through, but still Aya should be overqualified for this.

[00:08:02]I also hope we get to see Kelly have some trouble adjusting to a normal Green Lantern ring. She spent so long using that gauntlet and there should be a noticeable difference in both the functionality and the power output of a ring compared to what she's used to. I would expect the ring to be weaker than the gauntlet, but also easier to use.

[00:08:21]The only other thing I want to mention about this issue is the surprising number of errors that made it through. A line of dialogue repeats on page one where John says, "No history with the Corps. She's the same, but different."

[00:08:33]And then immediately after that says, "She's the same, but different. I can't quite explain it." When John tells Fatality about Xanshi, he says, "It's not a copy or some alternate version.

[00:08:44]It's your home." Which should have been "It's your home." And on the same page, Larfleeze is bald for some reason. The character has hair. Sometimes it's depicted with fiery orange light flowing through it, but still he's not bald.

[00:09:01]Also, it's probably not a mistake, but it's still worth pointing out that when we see all of the central batteries, there's no violet battery like there was in previous issues. And actually, the presence of the violet central battery was itself a mistake since the dialogue said they didn't build one and yet the art still depicted one anyway. So, good on them for correcting a past mistake, I guess.

[00:09:26]So, that's Green Lantern Corps number 10. Now, I want to know what you think about this issue. Does it make sense for Aya to undergo basic training? What do you think of John's new perspective on the role of the Green Lanterns? Does the lack of consistency between current Green Lantern comics and the past runs they're directly pulling from bother you? Tell me all about it in the comment section down below. Subscribe if you haven't already and follow Mosaic Comics on Blue Sky for more of my thoughts on comics in general. I'll be back with another video before you know it, so until then, thank you for taking the time to watch. My name is Dan. We'll talk again soon.