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Threshold #1-8
Threshold, Vol. 1: The Hunted
Introducing Jediah Caul, a disgraced Green Lantern stripped of his power ring, who is hunted for sport on a televised reality show! Forced to battle aliens from across the galaxy, Caul must band together his own group of rebels to storm the metaphorical castle of their abductees before the game ends and they lose. Plus, Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern goes on a quest across the galaxy when someone steals his stuff--and NO ONE steals from Larfleeze!
Collects Threshold 1-8 and Green Lantern New Guardians Annual 1
Collects Threshold 1-8 and Green Lantern New Guardians Annual 1
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 4, 2014
About the author
Keith Giffen
1,981 books227 followersKeith Ian Giffen was an American comic book illustrator and writer. He is possibly best-known for his long runs illustrating, and later writing the Legion of Super-Heroes title in the 1980s and 1990s. He also created the alien mercenary character Lobo (with Roger Slifer), and the irreverent "want-to-be" hero, Ambush Bug. Giffen is known for having an unorthodox writing style, often using characters in ways not seen before. His dialogue is usually characterized by a biting wit that is seen as much less zany than dialogue provided by longtime collaborators DeMatteis and Robert Loren Fleming. That approach has brought him both criticism and admiration, as perhaps best illustrated by the mixed (although commercially successful) response to his work in DC Comics' Justice League International (1987-1992). He also plotted and was breakdown artist for an Aquaman limited series and one-shot special in 1989 with writer Robert Loren Fleming and artist Curt Swan for DC Comics.
Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher (to be re-released in a collected edition by Boom! Studios)., T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law. For Valiant Comics, Giffen wrote XO-Manowar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Punx and the final issue of Solar, Man of the Atom.
He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.
He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series. He also wrote the Star-Lord mini-series for the follow-up story Annihilation: Conquest. He currently writes Doom Patrol for DC, and is also completing an abandoned Grant Morrison plot in The Authority: the Lost Year for Wildstorm.
Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher (to be re-released in a collected edition by Boom! Studios)., T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law. For Valiant Comics, Giffen wrote XO-Manowar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Punx and the final issue of Solar, Man of the Atom.
He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.
He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series. He also wrote the Star-Lord mini-series for the follow-up story Annihilation: Conquest. He currently writes Doom Patrol for DC, and is also completing an abandoned Grant Morrison plot in The Authority: the Lost Year for Wildstorm.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
December 22, 2014
Ten reasons why my friend Anne should have read this instead of me:
1) It’s published by DC. Anne loves DC. It’s the home of her imaginary boyfriend, Aquaman
2) It has a space opera-ish quality to it. She loves space opera stuff. Me, not so much. Plus, they keep mentioning the Third Army. I don’t want to know what this is, but I know Anne does.
3) People get hunted down on TV. It’s all the rage on planet Whatever.
4) It has a bunch of different colored Lanterns – Green (whiny boy Kyle Rayner makes an unwelcome cameo), Blue (some emo alien), Yellow (some ugly alien), Star Sapphire (okay, that would be for me) and much, much more.
5) There’s actually a Green Lantern that features prominently in this – Jediah Caul. I never heard of him either, but I’m sure Anne has. She loves everything Green Lantern. She loves emerald green. She wears Green Lantern jammies and dresses her kids up as the Lantern Corp. It’s not nuts at all.
6) There’s a giant jackrabbit that calls himself, Captain K’Rot, he has a pig-like dude for an assistant. He’s amusing. Anne likes amusing anthropomorphic characters.
7) There’s a bunch of ancillary characters that I’ve never heard of including Stealth, Lady Styx, Ember, some space smugglers whose names I’ve forgotten, Blue Beetle (I’ve heard of him but isn’t he supposed to be funny) and Lonar, a New God. Trust me, Anne knows who these people are. Why? See #1.
8) Star Hawkins, ace PI and Ilda are hilarious. Kind of like a sci-fi version of The Thin Man. Star has the memories of his late wife on a small hard drive which he inserts into a robot. They constantly bicker and even though she’s a robot, she always one ups him. She briefly takes over Brainiac. Anne likes the funny. These two bring it.
9) Larfleeze, some sort of dog/wolf Orange Lantern is featured in his own story at the end of this volume. Orange Lantern = Greed. His butler/assistant/captive Stargrave is a hoot. It’s another Lantern and it’s funny. Win-Win, Anne.
10) I know I promised ten, but I fell one short. Sue me.
1) It’s published by DC. Anne loves DC. It’s the home of her imaginary boyfriend, Aquaman
2) It has a space opera-ish quality to it. She loves space opera stuff. Me, not so much. Plus, they keep mentioning the Third Army. I don’t want to know what this is, but I know Anne does.
3) People get hunted down on TV. It’s all the rage on planet Whatever.
4) It has a bunch of different colored Lanterns – Green (whiny boy Kyle Rayner makes an unwelcome cameo), Blue (some emo alien), Yellow (some ugly alien), Star Sapphire (okay, that would be for me) and much, much more.
5) There’s actually a Green Lantern that features prominently in this – Jediah Caul. I never heard of him either, but I’m sure Anne has. She loves everything Green Lantern. She loves emerald green. She wears Green Lantern jammies and dresses her kids up as the Lantern Corp. It’s not nuts at all.
6) There’s a giant jackrabbit that calls himself, Captain K’Rot, he has a pig-like dude for an assistant. He’s amusing. Anne likes amusing anthropomorphic characters.
7) There’s a bunch of ancillary characters that I’ve never heard of including Stealth, Lady Styx, Ember, some space smugglers whose names I’ve forgotten, Blue Beetle (I’ve heard of him but isn’t he supposed to be funny) and Lonar, a New God. Trust me, Anne knows who these people are. Why? See #1.
8) Star Hawkins, ace PI and Ilda are hilarious. Kind of like a sci-fi version of The Thin Man. Star has the memories of his late wife on a small hard drive which he inserts into a robot. They constantly bicker and even though she’s a robot, she always one ups him. She briefly takes over Brainiac. Anne likes the funny. These two bring it.
9) Larfleeze, some sort of dog/wolf Orange Lantern is featured in his own story at the end of this volume. Orange Lantern = Greed. His butler/assistant/captive Stargrave is a hoot. It’s another Lantern and it’s funny. Win-Win, Anne.
10) I know I promised ten, but I fell one short. Sue me.
April 22, 2020
[2.5 Stars]
I originally picked up this volume because I like Blue Beetle and wanted to see more of him. He’s in this, but he’s very minor to everything else that’s going on.
I think this had so many things happening all at once that it created a barrier for me to really get into it. There are a ton of characters, and especially with me not being familiar with a lot of them, I found it overwhelming at times. I’m glad that I have some familiarity with the lantern corps because quite of few of them make appearances. I think if the run had been longer and spread out a bit more, it would have worked better.
I originally picked up this volume because I like Blue Beetle and wanted to see more of him. He’s in this, but he’s very minor to everything else that’s going on.
I think this had so many things happening all at once that it created a barrier for me to really get into it. There are a ton of characters, and especially with me not being familiar with a lot of them, I found it overwhelming at times. I’m glad that I have some familiarity with the lantern corps because quite of few of them make appearances. I think if the run had been longer and spread out a bit more, it would have worked better.
November 20, 2019
Interesting premise, of a world-wide bounty-hunting game against enemies of the state in a high-tech world where anyone can be filmed anytime. I got lost among the characters, as I guess that there was some assumption by the authors that I should know who v=everyone is, from a background of Green Lantern (I didn't). There seems to be the hooks for a volume two (pretty sure that there isn't.) I recommend only for die hard fans (I'm not) of Green Lantern (still not) of the Late New 52 era (nope nope nope).
I read it mostly for the return/continuation of the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, who was nothing but a token player here.
I read it mostly for the return/continuation of the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, who was nothing but a token player here.
June 15, 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy, DC style! Except much worse! There's a space cop, an anthropomorphic lagomorph, a tree person, a lady ghost, some more or less normal people, and aliens! Aliens on every page! Panels almost boilin' over with 'em!
But awful. I wouldn't even recommend this for GL completionists. Blue Beetle is in this also, but serves no purpose except as a crossover cash-in. Artwork bad and busy, reminding me of some old Heavy Metal issues at times. Premise weak, especially considering this was supposed to showcase space DC: why would you choose to spend the majority of the time on one planet then? I think they were attempting to be humorful with some of the dialogue, but that flopped too.
Not the way to go to showcase the seedy side of the DC galaxy.
But awful. I wouldn't even recommend this for GL completionists. Blue Beetle is in this also, but serves no purpose except as a crossover cash-in. Artwork bad and busy, reminding me of some old Heavy Metal issues at times. Premise weak, especially considering this was supposed to showcase space DC: why would you choose to spend the majority of the time on one planet then? I think they were attempting to be humorful with some of the dialogue, but that flopped too.
Not the way to go to showcase the seedy side of the DC galaxy.
August 23, 2014
The Running Man meets Guardians of the Galaxy, complete with a human sized rabbit, an exiled green lantern, a plant with sentient seeds, a detective with a robot assistant programmed with the personality of his dead ex-wife, and various other wayward individuals. And all of it is an indictment of reality television, or, more accurately, faux-reality entertainment. Or something. Honestly, in the last issue or two I kind of lost the plot. There's lots of running around, lots of double and triple crosses, and lots of people living and dying. It just gets kind of run together at the end, which is unfortunate because the early story is strong (and surprisingly funny), even if there are a few more character cameos than strictly necessary (Blue Beetle especially seems wasted here). The art is good, and there's a secondary story involving Larfleeze that's worth a couple laughs as well (namely his assistant Stargrave, whose droll commentary and cynical outlook saves the day on numerous occasions - like an interstellar Jeeves). But the main story feels rushed at the end, like it was cancelled too soon. DC space stories have that tendency, unfortunately. There have been some great ones, but they're usually brief burnouts. Threshold felt like it was on the threshold of something strong, but it got pulled back at the brink.
May 10, 2014
I like the fact that this brought back a bunch of old DC/National Comics scifi characters - Captain Carrot, Stargrave, Star Hawkins, the Star Rovers, Tom Tomorrow, and Rik Starr, Space Ranger.
I don't like that Giffen messed with the origins of these characters, making a lot of old heroes into opportunistic mercenaries.
I like Keith Giffen's typical dialog style and the humor it brings to the story.
I don't like that he devoted so much attention to the dialog that he didn't give us much character development.
I liked the premise of The Hunted, where enemies of the state are made contestants in a Running Man-style tv show.
I don't like the plot twist at the end.
I liked the Larfleeze backup story, but to be honest, I'm still a bit confused as to what actually happened.
I don't like that Giffen messed with the origins of these characters, making a lot of old heroes into opportunistic mercenaries.
I like Keith Giffen's typical dialog style and the humor it brings to the story.
I don't like that he devoted so much attention to the dialog that he didn't give us much character development.
I liked the premise of The Hunted, where enemies of the state are made contestants in a Running Man-style tv show.
I don't like the plot twist at the end.
I liked the Larfleeze backup story, but to be honest, I'm still a bit confused as to what actually happened.
August 2, 2014
Giffen should be commended for his attempt to bring back and integrate so many DC SF stars of the past. Unfortunately that large cast is one of the things that tanks the story. Giffen seems to lose track of some of his characters from time to time (with Blue Beetle getting particularly bad attention), and no one gets very interesting characterization because there are so many people.
Worse, the story is mainly dull. People run from stupid Hunted TV show. And they run. And they run. Then they get randomly involved with a super baddie. Then a final issue makes it all meta and ends up feeling pretty disrespectful to the reader.
The Larfleeze story is better than the rest. It's actually the weakest of the Giffen Larfleeze run because he's not at his best in the short format, but it's not bad. However, you'd do better to just read Larfleeze, Vol. 1: Revolt of the Orange Lanterns rather than this somewhat boring volume (which I actually considered not finishing).
Worse, the story is mainly dull. People run from stupid Hunted TV show. And they run. And they run. Then they get randomly involved with a super baddie. Then a final issue makes it all meta and ends up feeling pretty disrespectful to the reader.
The Larfleeze story is better than the rest. It's actually the weakest of the Giffen Larfleeze run because he's not at his best in the short format, but it's not bad. However, you'd do better to just read Larfleeze, Vol. 1: Revolt of the Orange Lanterns rather than this somewhat boring volume (which I actually considered not finishing).
June 9, 2014
I picked up this book as a fan of the Green Lantern books and to see where Blue Beetle's story went. The story was a fairly standard space-opera story, with folks on the run from a planet-wide competition where natives kill criminals on live TV. The tie-ins to Green Lantern, New Guardians, and Blue Beetle were pretty minimal, and the glut of characters left most of the storylines less developed than I'd like. Also, some of the characters were tough to distinguish from one another. I found myself idly flipping pages for most of the last few issues. The backup was a story of Larfleeze, a character I enjoyed in Green Lantern but found a little too campy when given the lead role. Overall, this wasn't a terrible book, but I do not recommend it if you're just looking for Beetle or Lantern material.
December 14, 2013
Text book example of a good idea done badly.
Giffen is so concerned with all the dialogue being funny that almost no one in the cast has any emotional depth to them and so this attempt to bring a bunch of old sci-fi characters into the new 52-verse falls flat.
Somebody needs to tell Kieth that humor and characterization are not the same thing. If all you do is make fun of the cast, then why should we treat them seriously or care what happens to them?
Most of the cast is boring, outright unlikable or given very little to do. Ideas are thrown around, like we should know what's going on, yet isn't this supposed to be the first time we've seen any of these characters or settings?
shame, as this died a quick death, that means we are back to the Green Lanterns being DC's only space heroes.
Giffen is so concerned with all the dialogue being funny that almost no one in the cast has any emotional depth to them and so this attempt to bring a bunch of old sci-fi characters into the new 52-verse falls flat.
Somebody needs to tell Kieth that humor and characterization are not the same thing. If all you do is make fun of the cast, then why should we treat them seriously or care what happens to them?
Most of the cast is boring, outright unlikable or given very little to do. Ideas are thrown around, like we should know what's going on, yet isn't this supposed to be the first time we've seen any of these characters or settings?
shame, as this died a quick death, that means we are back to the Green Lanterns being DC's only space heroes.
April 21, 2014
Larfleeze backups: 4/5. He's so great, he gets his own comic after this short arc.
The rest of this collection: 1/5. I commend Keith and DC trying something new, but I was not impressed. Cancelled after 8 issues.
The rest of this collection: 1/5. I commend Keith and DC trying something new, but I was not impressed. Cancelled after 8 issues.
November 29, 2014
Interesting. A shame DC cancelled this one.
March 8, 2015
A rabbit named K'rot. How clever. -
Poor Jaime Reyes. How did he get pulled into this mess?
1/5
Poor Jaime Reyes. How did he get pulled into this mess?
1/5
October 19, 2015
A little too Hunger Game-ish for me! Cool idea about a renegade Lantern, but I guess that's kinda what Hal is now.
January 24, 2025
Going in I don’t have very high hopes for this. This character and the premise appeared in the GL New Guardians annual and it was the worst issue in the entire crossover event (Rise of the Third Army). Awful art, poorly written overdone storyline, and in the scheme of the crossover, completely pointless. I think it was only there to introduce this new series.
First impressions from the cover of issue 1: nothing has changed, the art is awful and the volume name (The Hunted) implies the same tired story. Not holding out much hope here tbh.
#1 meh. It’s like the worst reality to and violent for no reason other than money. And no likeable characters.
#2 & 3 Now they’ve dropped Blue Beetle into the ‘game, at least there’s someone I care about but I still hate the comic.
#6 The disgraced GL has activated his ring but it’s all still meh. Someone dies in #5 and pops out of a cocoon tree in #6.
Solo Larfleeze story ‘Nine Tenths of the Law’: This I enjoyed. And the art is great.
So, the Larfleeze story has gone to the same area as the main story. I hate the smugglers and the stupid way of talking. Curious as to why the ring is playing up and I like Larfleeze and his minion.
The Larfleeze story finished at #5. Weird ending tbh. But it’s going into a solo run so maybe all will be explained.
From #6 onwards it’s Star Hawkins, the PI on Temperance. I’m not enamoured with him or the constant bickering with his dead ex wife (don’t ask).
Finished. Awful. Awful art, terrible story. I think it was supposed to be DCs version of Guardians of the Galaxy but it had none of the charm, a bunch of ultimately unlikeable characters, and it just wasn’t funny. The dialogue was actually exhausting.
Did it end as it did because it got cancelled, I suppose so, but I hated the ending so much that it dropped the rating for the main comic to a minus figure. Absolute tat. Don’t waste your time.
The Star Hawkins comic was crap too and tied in to the main comic. Hated the relationship with the dead ex wife robot.
The Larfleeze comic is 4 stars but that only brings the overall rating to a 1.
I’m quite literally angry I wasted my time reading this
First impressions from the cover of issue 1: nothing has changed, the art is awful and the volume name (The Hunted) implies the same tired story. Not holding out much hope here tbh.
#1 meh. It’s like the worst reality to and violent for no reason other than money. And no likeable characters.
#2 & 3 Now they’ve dropped Blue Beetle into the ‘game, at least there’s someone I care about but I still hate the comic.
#6 The disgraced GL has activated his ring but it’s all still meh. Someone dies in #5 and pops out of a cocoon tree in #6.
Solo Larfleeze story ‘Nine Tenths of the Law’: This I enjoyed. And the art is great.
So, the Larfleeze story has gone to the same area as the main story. I hate the smugglers and the stupid way of talking. Curious as to why the ring is playing up and I like Larfleeze and his minion.
The Larfleeze story finished at #5. Weird ending tbh. But it’s going into a solo run so maybe all will be explained.
From #6 onwards it’s Star Hawkins, the PI on Temperance. I’m not enamoured with him or the constant bickering with his dead ex wife (don’t ask).
Finished. Awful. Awful art, terrible story. I think it was supposed to be DCs version of Guardians of the Galaxy but it had none of the charm, a bunch of ultimately unlikeable characters, and it just wasn’t funny. The dialogue was actually exhausting.
Did it end as it did because it got cancelled, I suppose so, but I hated the ending so much that it dropped the rating for the main comic to a minus figure. Absolute tat. Don’t waste your time.
The Star Hawkins comic was crap too and tied in to the main comic. Hated the relationship with the dead ex wife robot.
The Larfleeze comic is 4 stars but that only brings the overall rating to a 1.
I’m quite literally angry I wasted my time reading this
July 22, 2026
Threshold can best be described as a fun time. Very in line with Guardians of the Galaxy in the sense that we get a lot of largely unknowns who have fun chemistry and loads of quips. Was this a extensive story yes? Did it have a lot to say? Not anything profound. Was it a good time? Heck yeah! The characters were all fun and you could tell Giffen was building up to another story... however it ended prematurely. Which sucks, because that was right when things got interesting.
It is also weird how the Hunt spins out of New Guardians AND Blue Beetle, but neither storyline affects this one much. Blue Beetle literally shows up for a fight and then is aimlessly wandering for the rest of the story. So if you want a fun story that is grand, but not too serious, this might be worth your read.
Oh, and there is a random Larfleeze story at the end that fit in the same boat (humorous and lots of characters). Except, this might actually have an impact on the cosmic side of DC.
It is also weird how the Hunt spins out of New Guardians AND Blue Beetle, but neither storyline affects this one much. Blue Beetle literally shows up for a fight and then is aimlessly wandering for the rest of the story. So if you want a fun story that is grand, but not too serious, this might be worth your read.
Oh, and there is a random Larfleeze story at the end that fit in the same boat (humorous and lots of characters). Except, this might actually have an impact on the cosmic side of DC.
September 7, 2023
Put me in the 5% (of people who gave this 5 stars) because this was awesome! The first half wasn't as exciting as the second, it was more setup and I'm not sure at all why Blue Beetle was included or that "god" guy. But the Star Hawkins/Ilda stuff was amazing, their banter was hilarious and the Larfleeze stuff had me laughing the whole time too. The art totally rocked with random aliens walking around in the background all the time.
The serious stuff was cool too. The "Hunted" plot seemed like something you would see as a movie plot, the twist ending was amazing, and I LOVED K-Rot. More please. You can leave out the Lanterns if you want, except Larfleeze
The serious stuff was cool too. The "Hunted" plot seemed like something you would see as a movie plot, the twist ending was amazing, and I LOVED K-Rot. More please. You can leave out the Lanterns if you want, except Larfleeze
November 20, 2022
Life is short, don't waste time reading books that you don't like. Threshold is that book. Keith Giffen gets to play in DC space and rips off tons of different characters to create a book no one will care about in 20 minutes. He has a reputation of being able to write humor into book swell and he completely misses the mark here. The art seemed phoned in most the time. This was a disaster.
August 6, 2023
On one hand, lots of Easter eggs for obscure DC characters. On the other hand, it was kind of a shittier version of Mojoworld from the X-Men and the plug got pulled on the book before it had the chance to actually BE anything. Also, Giffen's spacer dialogue is wearing thin for me and Larfleeze is straight up annoying.
August 4, 2019
The only comic i will ever rate a one star in the new 52 worst series in the new 52 blue beetle is only in a couple pages blue beetle left off with a great ending of you I've blue beetle don't taint your memory with this novel
January 5, 2026
The series shaping up to be something interesting by Giffen, but it took a right turn at Albuquerque when it was prematurely cancelled by DC and the creative team had to change gears to make an ending, and the one they came up with was silly and completely unsatisfying.
August 31, 2018
The Annual at the beginning isn't very good, but the rest of it is just as bat$hit amuzing as you would expect from that creative team...
December 24, 2018
Nice art in places, but the story really wasn't all that!
September 22, 2023
A cosmic adventure in a new corner of the DC Universe sadly truncated. Definitely trying to do something new.
March 5, 2024
See Jeff’s review at the top. It’s spot on and funny.
As for myself I enjoyed certain things done with the art, the colors and panels. Everything else left something to be desired.
As for myself I enjoyed certain things done with the art, the colors and panels. Everything else left something to be desired.
September 25, 2020
I only came to this for Blue Beetle and there wasn't nearly enough of that story. As a whole I was not a fan. If you told me this was written in 1993 and then shelved for a couple decades, I'd believe you.
For more on this oddball, may I suggest Comic Book Coffee Break: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6BjS...
For more on this oddball, may I suggest Comic Book Coffee Break: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6BjS...
January 30, 2023
too much going on (in a bad way) and then just kills off the main character 2/3s of the way into the story and then just cuts so a completely unrelated story about larfleeze and doesn’t cut back at all to the main story. The Brainiac part was cool but the story should’ve been that or the hunted game not both and definitely not the larfleeze story which ended incredibly incredibly stupidly
2.1/5
2.1/5
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 26, 2015
It looks as if I'm nearly alone in my appreciation of this book, but I'm a sucker for DC's silver age space heroes. Threshold manages to cram most, if not all of them, into the story. We get the Star Rovers, Star Hawkins, the Space Ranger, Tommy Tomorrow, a reference to Space Cabby, a bunch of others, and even a gritty-ish reboot of frickin' Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew. This mash-up alone is enough to make me happy, and cause me to rate it higher than I ought. For my money, Howard Chaykin's Twilight is still the best book based on these characters, but I appreciate the attempt to bring them back in the New 52.
The plot is a pretty thin, World's Most Dangerous Game riff, but there are enough entertaining characters that Threshold could have become something interesting. Unfortunately, it was canceled early. Giffen did his best to hurriedly provide some resolution to the series, but this only turned a potential rip-roaring yarn into a barely coherent satire of the current media culture.
Also included in this volume is a story about Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern. Larfleeze is the physical embodiment of pure avarice. This short story is pretty funny, even though it relies on a one-note joke for most of its humor.
The plot is a pretty thin, World's Most Dangerous Game riff, but there are enough entertaining characters that Threshold could have become something interesting. Unfortunately, it was canceled early. Giffen did his best to hurriedly provide some resolution to the series, but this only turned a potential rip-roaring yarn into a barely coherent satire of the current media culture.
Also included in this volume is a story about Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern. Larfleeze is the physical embodiment of pure avarice. This short story is pretty funny, even though it relies on a one-note joke for most of its humor.
April 20, 2014
Matt...don't read it! Just pass man!
Basically I feel like this is an attempt to help build DC cosmic, as GOTG gains steam for Marvel, while also jumping on the Hunger Games.
The action does not always make sense and the ending feels more like an attempt at commentary on the title's cancellation instead of a satisfying ending.
Somebody buy Jediah Caul a shirt. Everyone knows who he is because of the Lantern ring stuck in his chest. Yet instead of buying a shirt to cover it he uses complicated stealth technology.
I have no idea why Blue Beetle was brought in since he is literally stuck to the side with little to do that makes any sense after his big fight.
And the Larfleeze backup is confusing, with characters excessively cuddling for no reason.
I like what was attempting with bringing back some DC cosmic figures like Star Hawkins and Ilda, but in the end it just did not work from me.
Basically I feel like this is an attempt to help build DC cosmic, as GOTG gains steam for Marvel, while also jumping on the Hunger Games.
The action does not always make sense and the ending feels more like an attempt at commentary on the title's cancellation instead of a satisfying ending.
Somebody buy Jediah Caul a shirt. Everyone knows who he is because of the Lantern ring stuck in his chest. Yet instead of buying a shirt to cover it he uses complicated stealth technology.
I have no idea why Blue Beetle was brought in since he is literally stuck to the side with little to do that makes any sense after his big fight.
And the Larfleeze backup is confusing, with characters excessively cuddling for no reason.
I like what was attempting with bringing back some DC cosmic figures like Star Hawkins and Ilda, but in the end it just did not work from me.
March 20, 2015
I tried to give this compilation a chance, I really did, but the bewildering array of new and mostly uninteresting characters getting shoehorned in page after page, as well as a Running Man rip-off premise that seemed to get conveniently forgotten whenever the protagonists wanted to chill out in a bar together...Well, I'm sad to say I only made in 3/4 of the way through. PS there is a fairly entertaining Larfleeze vignette at the end, but if the Orange Lantern is more your thing he's got his own series now, you don't need to check this out.
April 10, 2016
I see a lot of reviews comparing this to The Hunger Games, but I see those parts as more The Running Man in a populated area. I like the way it starts out. I like the art. I like the world. The end was a huge let down. I hope that the Dominion of Lady Stryx is revisited in some future story.
The cover says it features Larfleeze. This isn't true. The Larfleeze story tacked on to the end is the same story that is collected in Larfleeze volume 1. He doesn't show up in the Threshold story at all.
The cover says it features Larfleeze. This isn't true. The Larfleeze story tacked on to the end is the same story that is collected in Larfleeze volume 1. He doesn't show up in the Threshold story at all.
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