Geoff Johns Ends His Decade Long Green Lantern Run

Well I say a decade long run, but this will actually be Geoff Johns ninth year taking on Hal Jordan and his adventures. This is a particularly bittersweet day for me as well being that I returned to comics in 2004 from a long hiatus and Green Lantern: Rebirth was my first exposure to the mythos and also one of the first books that brought me back.

From my own opinion this has been the most consistently solid and entertaining comic book in either of the big two companies. Johns brought back Hal Jordan and made the book one of DC top selling titles each month. It's hard to let these things go when you have followed it from it's existence, but Geoff has said he's leaving on his own terms and I'm pretty excited to see how it all gets wrapped up leading into a new chapter for Green Lantern.

Johns has over 100 issues of Lantern tales under his pen now and along with him will be the shake up of the other Green Lantern related titles as well. He had this to say about what awaits in his final issue;

"So what will 'Green Lantern' #20 bring? The bizarre return of Hal Jordan, the final fate of Sinestro, the revelation of the First Lantern and an ending that I hope pays off everything we’ve ever done and ever created with 'Green Lantern,'" Johns said in his post. "It has art by Doug Mahnke, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis and Joe Prado and I’ve poured everything I can into the script."

Comic Book Resources also has a great look at potential writers that could take over the main Green Lantern title. My first pick would be their top pick also, Peter J. Tomasi. He has worked in this corner of the DCU for a long time and would bring familiarity with his own unique style. Next would be as they put it and absolute dream team for fans with Abnett and Lanning taking on the Corps with all their experience in galactic characters.

Green Lantern and all of it's supporting titles have easily been the highlight of my return to comics in these 9 years that I've been reading. While there are definitely hit and miss issues throughout, Johns had a clear vision of what he wanted to do with each big story arc and I feel like he delivered in full each time. I can only hope that the next batch of creative teams can bring something fresh that we will be in awe of years later.