Absolute Green Lantern #16 — Al Ewing and Sid Kotian Welcome Sinestro Into the Fray
Tomar Re and Jo Mullein’s nightmare just got a new name. Absolute Green Lantern #16 sees the heroes face the Blackstars and finally cross paths with Sinestro, bringing Al Ewing’s horror-tinged cosmic thriller into its most dangerous territory yet.
There is a specific kind of dread that Al Ewing brings to the Green Lantern mythos, a slow-burn unease that turns the Corps’ bright ideals into something much more fragile. Absolute Green Lantern has spent its run peeling back the layers of that hope, and with issue sixteen, the stakes shift from philosophical to purely physical. You’re going to feel the weight of that change the moment the panel count drops and the shadows lengthen.
Tomar Re and Jo Mullein have been wading through danger for a while now, but this drop marks a definitive turning point. They are finally confronting the Blackstars they’ve been tracking, but the universe has a cruel sense of humor. Just as they think they have a handle on the threat, they find themselves face-to-face with the ultimate authority on fear. Yes, that Sinestro. And he is not there to make conversation.
Sid Kotian’s art is doing the heavy lifting here, translating that sense of overwhelming power into something you can almost feel in your chest. The way he handles the scale of the conflict makes the Blackstars feel ancient and the arrival of Sinestro feel inevitable. It’s a masterclass in visual tension, where the horror isn’t just in the monsters, but in the sheer dominance of the man standing opposite them.
If you’ve been riding along with this reimagining of the Green Lantern Corps, this is the issue where the threads pull tight. It’s worth grabbing the companion issues if you haven’t already, just to see how Ewing sets the table before serving the main course. The atmosphere in the book is thick enough to cut, and that only gets denser when the Yellow Lantern finally steps onto the page.
I’ll leave you with this thought: the cover by Jahnoy Lindsay hints at the confrontation, but the interior pages tell you why you should be afraid of it. This isn’t just a battle; it’s a collision of ideologies made flesh. Keep an eye on the shipping, because titles that nail their tonal shift this well tend to move quickly once people catch on.