Green Lantern: The Animated Series “Blue Hope” Review


Its time for another review for Green Lantern: The Animated Series. I wasn’t crazy about last week’s episode (at all), but did this one suit me more? Possible spoilers ahead!

In this episode, Green Lanterns Hal Jordan (Josh Keaton), Kilowog (Kevin Michael Richardson), and Aya (Grey DeLisle) arrive at the Blue Lantern planet to enlist the help of Saint Walker (Phil Morris) and Ganthet (Ian Abercrombie) in their fight against the Manhunters. They are pleasantly surprised to encounted Razer (Jason Spisak) there too. Razer, who has been trying to escape his rage, has been meditating with the Blue Lanterns, with limited success. Sitting still just isn’t his thing. Anyway, Blue Lanterns have the power to energize Green Lanterns, which is good. Unfortunately, they can also juice-up the Manhunters. Not good.

This episode is a HUGE improvement over the last one. I found the previous episode to be boring, but not this one. This episode maybe has some of the best battle scenes I’ve seen in this show in a while. Those powered up Manhunters can fight, and the Lanterns get to show their stuff too.

It isn’t all just action, though. In a sub-plot, Aya attempts to turn a Manhunter into a good guy. She tells the Manhunter that even though it is programmed to kill, it is possible for the robot to change it’s purpose. Its sweet, and you kind’ve root for Aya. The writers impressed me. I figured that Aya would convert the robot, only to have it die in a later scene. But no. In the end, despite her efforts, Aya fails in converting the Manhunter, who even up untill the end, wanted to kill. It is a sad scene, but I’m happy that the writers went for the realistic route, and not the naive one.

I do think it would have been nice if the Anti-Moniter appeared, and while I did like the scene where Aya tries to change the Manhunter’s ways, it got annoying after she fails, and than tries again. It is a good thing that she isn’t a quitter, but c’mon. And where is Tomar-Re? He has been traveling with Hal Jordan in the last few episodes, yet he is nowhere in sight here.