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DC’s New Green Lantern Series ‘Far Sector’ Feels Fresh & New

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DC’s newest Green Lantern series is like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Called Far Sector, Sojourner “Jo” Mullein is assigned to a murder mystery case in a sector so distant from Oa (the home world of the Lantern’s overseers, The Guardians of the Universe)  that it may “not even have a number.”

Writer by scifi superstar writer N.K. Jemisin and illustrated by rising star artist Jamal Campbell, it’s a revelation that this material can be made to seem so fresh.

According to The Washington Post, “When Gerard Way (of My Chemical Romance/Umbrella Academy/Doom Patrol) reached out to award-winning science-fiction author N.K. Jemisin (photo below) and asked whether she’d be interested in writing for a new Green Lantern series, Jemisin admitted to being more excited than she thought possible about potentially working on a comic.”

A Green Lantern ring, the most powerful weapon in the DC universe, helps the superheroes police their respective sectors (the sections of space divided up among them to protect).

“Lantern Mullein,” as Jo is referred to in the first of “Far Sector’s” 12 issues, is so far out in deep space, her sector is off the books. She’s investigating a murder in a place where one hasn’t taken place in over five centuries, giving her innumerable suspects in a city that has gone to great lengths to void itself of emotion to prevent such crimes.

Speaking to the fact that Jo represents diversity, Jemisin says that, “A lot of times what people mean when they say diversity, it’s like a little smattering. What it ends up resulting in is, once you’ve got the black guy, people stop. We’ve already got a black person, we don’t need another black person, and it usually seems to be a black man. It’s kind of rare to see the lone black person be a woman.”

“Once you start to get to the point where you have actually more than one given set of people, maybe then you’re beginning to actually move beyond the sort of tokenizing effect of superficial diversity, and maybe you’re starting to sort of graduate into something more complex, more realistic, more holistic,” she said.

Jemisin and Campbell’s new Green Lantern, who both admit takes inspiration from the Afro-futuristic styles of singer/actress Janelle Monáe is also written with one of the most engaging literary styles that’s lyrically poetic in places like the smoothest hip-hop rhymes.

Definitely check it out!

 

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