3 out of 5

Comprising issues #14-17 of GL vol. 3 (introducing Stewart’s ownership of the mosaic) and the Mosaic series #1-18.

Weeeiirrd.  I’m still getting a feel for Gerard Jones’s writing style.  He’s definitely a smart guy, and sort of an annoying smart guy who wants to drop his references on you non-stop, but an interestingly annoying smart guy at the same time who seems to be aware that he’s interestingly annoying and smart and doesn’t feel the need to play it down… which would end up just making his writing stupid and pretentious.  It’s a very precarious edge, and depending on the vessel into which his stories are funneled, it works or it doesn’t.  From what I’ve seen/read, though, it seems to fit when Gerard (Jerry?) has a loose border limiting his style – loose enough to allow his flourishes, but grounding him all the same.

So Mosaic was a good fit.  In GL vol. 3 (also written by Gerard, but not really open enough to let his poetry-slam style mesh well), a crazy guardian grabs a whole bunch of cities from random worlds (including Earth) and transports them to Oa, inhabitants included, to create some kind of ideal world filled with the best locations from his memory.  The regular guardians put the smack down on the crazy one, but for vague guardian reasons, “can’t” return the transported cities to their original locations.  The problem is that you have all different types of cultures literally next door to one another – cultures based around violence, based around expansion, based around mimicking what’s around them – and in such close proximity to one another, issues are bound to come up.  Thus, someone has to watch over it, and in our GL universe at the time, there were only a few active lanterns, so John Stewart is given the task.

Stewart is also the best fit for Jerry, as his personality has been sketched out as reliable and structured and yet prone to psychological musings… which, I’m sure, seems similar enough to every other character, but not really.  Hal Jordan is more reckless and heroic, Guy Gardner is a jerk, Superman is an alien, Batman’s pursuit is narrow minded… all of the main characters have been fleshed out to a certain degree, but are defined by some kind of core trait.  Stewart was, natch, created by the sorta originator of socially relevant big-name comics – Denny O’Neil – and so we can attribute his “intelligent” leanings to that.  Also, Stewart’s a black man, which worked for O’Neil, and works for Gerard as well, who gets a lot of mileage out of identity crisis stuff relating to race… and you can imagine how that can be tied effectively into a series about cultures mixed together.

The first issue of the Mosaic mini is purposefully surreal, GL seemingly talking right to the reader about what the mosaic (the name given to the mixed worlds) means, backed up in the editorial section with Gerard Jones blabbering on at length about what a mosaic is.  It would be obnoxious if it wasn’t so prosaically fascinating, the bastard, as Gerard just throws everything into the pot – all of these ideas about culture and influence – and mixes it with his love of tossing out literary and music references, and just gets to pour it onto the page.  I dunno how the hell this made it to a major, because it is weird stuff, assisted in the weirdness by then newer artist Cully Hamner, who (someone in the letters makes this comparison) had a wacked out penmanship, at the time, similar to Richard Case – recognizable but out there, angular, and very far from his more Cameron Stewart-esque pulpy style of later years.  Gerard has tried this mix elsewhere – I’m thinking of the Fortunate Son graphic novel – but again, he needs the proper forum for it to not seem stupid or cheesy, and this was it.

Overall, the series wanders a bit too much and never quite gets to a point, but that seems to be a point.  You can jump in or out at any issue, really, though for maximum mind-fuckery, a start to finish read is good.  It’d be nice if this was all collected.