Summary: <br> Jessica Cruz gets the worst instructor ever while Volthoom plots revenge eons in the making.<br> Affiliate link included. <br> Transcript below:<br> Jessica Cruz gets the worst training officer possible. We’ll tell you all about it in Green Lantern Volume Four: The First Ring, straight ahead.<br><br> <br> Welcome to the Classy Comics Podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. from Boise, Idaho here is your host, Adam Graham. <br> When DC Rebirths launched there were two different Green Lantern titles. There was Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps which focused on the better known Green Lanterns out having space opera adventures. Meanwhile, there were two Green Lanterns who were stationed on earth: Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz, and they were forced to work as partners because Hal Jordan gave them only one power battery between them. At first they clashed but then they became friends as well as partners, working together and growing through the first three books. At the end of the third book Jon Stewart recalled them to Mogo for training without really giving them much chance to prepare. It’s kind of a dubious move because they really could have been in the middle of something when he just whisked them away. But in the first three Issues of this book they do arrive on Mogo and undergo training. For some, and this is a mere matter of you learning to use more imagination when he uses his power ring, and for that he’s trained by Kyle Rayner. Rayner had been an artist before he became a Green Lantern, and so this is a really fun section. The art throughout this book is really good and really expressive, fitting the unique power set of the Green Lanterns in terms of being able to make these will power constructs, as well as showing all of this majestic stuff in space and the different species. <br> It’s particularly fun as Simon has to work his way through a maze that Kyle created with his ring, and it’s just a pretty fun battle. Jessica faces a bigger challenge. Prior to getting her ring she suffered from anxiety; so much so that she couldn’t even leave her apartment. But she’s shown marked improvement and has achieved some key victories as a Green Lantern also in finding on the side of the Justice League having helped take down several heavy hitters. So of course when she gets to Mogo they take away her Green Lantern symbol because she is in training and hasn’t even passed her basic training. This but having this whole saving earth several times thing, they’re not going to stop that from standing in the way of the rules. To top this off, for a training officer Jessica gets Guy Gardner – probably the worst possible person you could give to someone who has had some emotional challenges. As well Gardner definitely has his good side, he can be a pretty big jerk when you’re first getting to know him and that’s the case here as he makes her absolutely miserable throughout the entire training period. She manages to hang on partially with some very kind advice from Killowog, the longtime Green Lantern veteran who’d really does play that sort of sage-veteran role in giving her just some really good inspiration. And it’s a beautiful scene as he tells a Lantern legend and reminds her that she has what it takes. And she does, of course, pass training – though after she decks Guy Gardner; and who could blame her? <br> Of course, while our heroes are going through training that’s not actually the most important thing that’s going on in these first three Issues. This is all setting up a bigger story and part of this has been set up throughout the Green Lantern’s story, and I strongly recommend if you haven’t read the earlier volumes to pick them up. But there are a couple key things going on: first, we’re seeing some people who were recruited as the earliest Lanterns at the very daw...
