Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army Reading Order

Overview

Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army (Review) is a DC Comics crossover event that has the DC Universe's various Lantern Corps dealing with the sudden appearance of the evil Third Army. It combines plot points from the Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, and Red Lanterns comics into one climactic narrative.

The Rise of the Third Army event stretches through four separate comic book series. Each one tells its own story but each of these stories end up converging in the final issue of this event. 

Prelude

These issues deal more with individual characters rather than this event's overall narrative. However, they introduce topics and explain information that is very important to this event. Without these prelude issues, most readers will be confused by many of the references in this event and in the next event, Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern (Review).

Before Reading

Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army (Review) is the cumulation of plot threads stretching through the entirety of the New 52 Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, and Red Lanterns comics. This includes: Green Lantern #1-12, collected across Green Lantern: Sinestro (Review) and Green Lantern: The Revenge of Black Hand (Review); Green Lantern Corps #1-12, collected across Green Lantern Corps: Fearsome (Review) and Green Lantern Corps: Alpha War (Review); Green Lantern: New Guardians #1-12, collected across Green Lantern: New Guardians: The Ring Bearer (Review) and Green Lantern: New Guardian: Beyond Hope (Review); and Red Lanterns #1-12, collected across Red Lanterns: Blood and Rage (Review) and Red Lanterns: Death of the Red Lanterns (Review). Though the event primarily centers around what takes place in the Green Lantern series, it still heavily incorporates elements from each other series.

After Reading

The conclusion of Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army (Review) directly leads into the beginning of Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern (Review) (Reading Order). In many ways, these two events are so closely related that they could simply be considered "Part 1" and "Part 2" of the same event.