The last time I was that excited by an outside entering comics was back when Ta-Nehisi Coates took over Black Panther. This one is a slow burn as Jo navigates the political potholes of The City Enduring as she finds that sometimes a murder isn't just a murder and threatens to pull on the strand that holds the society of The City Enduring together.

One that, with the gorgeous artwork of Jamal Campbell, creates a beautiful, terrifying, confounding, eye and brain popping world. But what can one Green Lantern do on a world without emotion where politics are a bubbling cauldron? And then once things start happening, it all happens full speed and intensely, dumping a lot of information and plot points all at once in one huge lump that gets a bit messy. As always, Jemisin’s worldbuilding is top-notch, her dialogue is refreshing, and her lead character is dynamic.But only because that slows her down for plot purposes so she can't get places too quickly when pursuing leads or bad guys. The art is distinct and sharp as it should be for a sci-fi cyberpunk epic, but by the final issue it is difficult to tell characters apart beyond the lone human.

Jemisin’s sci-if skills are fully on display here with the rich world-building being the strongest elemen, as she portrays the City Enduring as a detailed, colorful metropolis populated by three fascinating races, including one race of personified data and a group of intelligent plant-life for which the consumption of another person is a religious and social-bonding experience. Jo feels more human than any lantern before her, with flaws and all, and her growth over the course of this story was a joy to see every time I read this. Maybe it’s the fact that prior to this book I had no idea about the concept of Green Lanterns (and still really don’t know much except for that they are space cops with superpowered rings). Though this doesn't have the epic light-shows of Geoff Johns' GL-era, Far Sector is obviously trying to blaze a different path and it's one that's much needed in comics.The idea of individual freedom and great good are explored in a fresh and surprising way, as are ideas about equality, peace, choices and regrets. It was like I was under the blankets straining to read a book made from slowly fading glow-in-the-dark stickers. The next day, Syzn messages Jo asking her to quell an unapproved protest of over a hundred thousand people in Platform Forget Not. He is using the facilities to fund a revolution, and gave Jo the “tip” so she could investigate if the facility she entered wasn’t using voluntary residents like the others.

Canhaz then tells her that the Feelsnet is used for the exchange of illegal or scarce content, particularly memes made by residents of the City. The Council makes laws and enforces them through various agencies (including the "peacekeepers" who are ok with murdering peaceful protestants to keep the "peace"). I couldn't really get over that disconnect between what the images were showing and what the text was telling me. Due to the remote nature of this assignment, Jo doesn't have access to backup and her power ring has a limited power supply, which forces her to use her head rather than punch through every problem.Even if you aren't a bigger fan of superhero comics (which I am not), I would absolutely recommend reading this one. I especially loved the care given to the texture of Jo's hair and that she had more than just 1 hairstyle in the entire book. I feel weird about this book because I like so many aspects of it and yet page by page I just found myself a bit too bored. The perfect character for this story, and the flashbacks to her life pre-Green Lantern only add to the intrigue. In this society, there hasn't been a murder for 500 years because the people on this world have had their emotions turned off.

I would be remiss if I didn't say the fact that the currency here was memes felt kinda outdated and. She is a science fiction and fantasy reviewer for the New York Times, and you can find her online at nkjemisin. Murders can be committed for consolidating power, for profit, and in the case of psychopaths, for no reason at all, so it seems to be a bit unbelievable that merely turning off emotions would eliminate murder. But my attempts at tracking the characters' emotional states pulled me out of the story a few too many times. It has enough to make this a black label book, but as they are not overused the speech seems more natural and authentic.Jo realizes that Switchoff users are being used as a black market commodity since they become emotional enough to produce creative content.