Green Lantern Corps: The Dark Side of Green by Dave Gibbons, Keith Champagne, Patrick Gleason and Prentice Rollins

This graphic novel contains two stories, "The Dark Side of Green" and "Friends in Need", both starring Honor Guardian Guy Gardner

When a Dominator Scientist comes up with the idea of designing an army of Khunds by gestating them in the presence of a certain Asteroid known to mutate anything living near it into a faster, stronger, more savage form, he's given the go-ahead by his superiors to make more like his original experiment. But they don't give him any credit for coming up with the idea. As soon as he has given them the clues to his research, they plan to do away with him. And when he discovers their plans, he's very upset- upset enough to kill them...

Meanwhile, Guy Gardner and a Green Lantern named R'amey Holl of Papillox go in search of a Durlan named Von Daggle, a shapeshifter who works jobs that the Green Lantern Corps are too nice and upstanding for. His section is known as the Corpse, and Gardner and R'Amey have been sent to be inducted into the Corpse. Their job, after a thorough vetting from Vox Daggle, is to track down and eliminate the Dominator Scientist, who not only wants to evolve the Khunds into a better army, but wants to evolve the Dominators as well. Something the rest of the Dominators don't wish to agree with, as they already view themselves as the highest life form in existence. But can the three members of the Corps bring down this free-thinking Dominator and his Kund soldier?

Friends In Need has guy being called back from Shore Leave when he's needed to help other Lanterns mopping up across the galaxy. But when the Lanterns he is helping leave him to deal with everything and bug out, he's steamed, and after the cleanup is done, he goes after them to find out why they left, and beat them up for abandoning their duty. However, when he arrives at the guardhouse, they are all killed, except one, and he tries to save the last survivor. Jon Stewart and another GL arrive and try to help him, but the dying Guardian accuses Guy Gardner of killing them.

Guy denies it, and escapes to try and clear his name, But all across the galaxy, other Guardians are dying, and nobody really knows why. All they have in common is that they Last took R and R on Mogo, the living planet. But as Guy Gardner heads there to find out what is wrong, Kilowog, who has also taken R&R on Mogo, finds out what Gardner is accused of and heads to Mogo to bring Guy to justice, Can Guy and a crew of Green Lanterns take out whatever is infesting Mogo before it takes over the living planet completely? And what will be the cost?

I'm not normally into the Green Lantern Books, and this didn't really make me change my mind. I don't know if this book came before or after Darkest Night, with the 7 different flavors of Lanterns, but it didn't really matter much to me. The stories were interesting, but, well, the characters themselves seemed lame. It didn't seem like most of the characters in the second story even deserved to be GL's, the ones that were killed, I mean.

Yeah, okay, I'll admit I don't know much about GL's, but would a bunch of people who were supposed to be helping someone just shove off from the job and leave, even if they thought Guy Gardner was an ass? Are they picking the GL's differently now, for them to be so self-righteous whangdoodles? Yes, one of them was the infected, but it wasn't a fault with just one of them. And the whole "Corpse" thing seemed very Un-GL. It was just strange and out of character, which is why it seemed like a lead-up to Darkest Night. Either that, or they need to find some better way of picking Green Lanterns.

I didn't find this a book that held my interest for long or even one I liked very much. It was only okay, and it didn't really have any characters that interested me. Hal Jordan, of course, is notable by his absence here. Not recommended.