Comic Book Guy: Green Lantern-Emerald Knights

Neatly locked, loaded and released as ammunition in the live-action Green Lantern promotional build-up, Blu-ray animated feature Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is now in stores. Featuring the voice talent of Nathan Fillion (Firefly) as Hal Jordan, this feature-length DVD is actually a collection of short tales, essentially 'story time' for the Green Lantern Corps, and centres around Fillion's Jordan regaling new recruit Arisia (voiced by Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss) with the exploits of various Green Lanterns as they prepare for their own encounter with an ancient enemy.

DC/Warner has an outstanding track record with its critically well received feature animations, including the previous Green Lantern: First Flight. Emerald Knights is not a sequel but a quasi-tie-in of sorts, and its choice to focus on the ensemble of Green Lantern Corps is a curious one. Nowhere near in the same public consciousness as Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, Hal Jordan is hardly a household name; so why go even further afield with the Corps? Narratives such as why Drill-Sargent Kilowog is so tough (his own Sargent was tough on him, you see) or how Lantern Laira had to fight her own family in service of the Corps, are such overzealous morality messages you are left waiting for the 'don't do drugs' episode in these exploits.

This omnibus of vignettes designed to introduce the audience to the ensemble of Corps actually serves to stifle any interest in the overall story. Light, fluffy and entirely predictable, this release has a younger audience far too much in mind and contains none of the grit that was in DC's other collection of shorts, Gotham Knights. The animation is of the highest quality and the voice actors are all game, but this collection of fables is left adrift in space with a target audience that remains a mystery.