Posted on: July 15th, 2009 Blackest Night-Absolutely Horrifying
Blackest Night is here. You knew I’d be writing about it. And so, here I am-complete with my complementary bulky plastic black lantern power ring from my comic shop-ready to spread the good word…
I was excited. Everyone knew that. I love the Lantern Corps, I love horror but I especially love stories about zombies. Now put those zombies in space? Well, I think a nerdgasm is pretty much inevitable.
The books leading up to this event were packed with new characters and new storylines that made my head spin. I had to make a flow-chart of the different corps. Do NOT mock me and my appreciation of charts and graphs; I was a business major. Now, if you only read Marvel or have opted to live under a large aggregate of minerals for the past few years in DC comics-let me give you rundown on the state of the universe:
Everyone’s favorite blue-hued senior citizens have decided to go completely crazy. The book of Oa has prophesized about the War of Light and the coming of “Blackest Night”. Well, as is a historically full-proof plan, ignore something and maybe it will go away. If it doesn’t, do all you can to keep it from happening even if that means abandoning all moral guidance and the acceptance of others. Oh wait, that’s essentially what you DON’T want to do, right? That actually makes a crisis worse. Oh well, maybe we’ll get it right next time.
Light (as in the infamous “Green Lantern’s Light”) comes from emotion. As we know, green stems from willpower. Our friend Sinestro branched off into his yellow clan that harnesses fear. Well, in an avalanche of awesomeness from Geoff Johns’s Green Lantern and Peter Tomasi’s Green Lantern Corps we are introduced to the Red Lanterns of rage, the Orange Lantern of greed, the Blue Lanterns of hope, and the Violet Lantern Star Sapphires of love. There’s also the Indigo Lanterns of compassion but right now all we know is that they communicate in tongue clicks. Just say, “Okay”.
The guardians gave it their best shot to eliminate all emotion to prevent all these new lights from coming out but that only made things HORRIBLE. New laws were created that allowed Green Lanterns to use lethal force against Sinestro Corps members, then lethal force against all enemies, then they forbade their corps members to get all frisky with each other, then they labeled the previously forbidden Vega System as free range. You can go anywhere and use lethal force and there’s no sex? How can this possibly end poorly?
Okay, okay. Light’s great. Very pretty. But the clincher to it all was that after all these lights start shining, they would be consumed by darkness. “The Blackest Night” would tear everything apart and the Guardians of the Universe would have done a pretty piss-poor job at guarding the universe. Enter William Hand, or The Black Hand, or guy that likes dead things. No, you don’t understand. He LIKES-LIKES dead things…So Billy, a rogue guardian with a nasty scar on her face, and some unknown power-that-be wants to bring back the dead. Neat, right? It’s neat.
ZOMBIE ROLE CALL!!! Martian Manhunter-J’onn J’onzz, Green Lantern Katma Tui (poor John Stewart), ½ of Firestorm-Ronnie Raymond, Phantom Lady-“Dee” Tyler, Black Condor-Ryan Kendall, The Human Bomb-Ray Lincoln, The Atom-Al Pratt, Jennifer “Jade” Lynn-Hayden (poor Kyle Rayner), The Top-Roscoe Dillon, Golden Glider-Lisa Snart (poor Captain Cold), Captain Boomerang-George “Digger” Harkness, Elongated Man-Ralph Dibny with his wife Sue, and Aquaman-Arthur Curry (poor Everyone). So there’s that! Some old heroes, some Flash rogues and William Hand dug up Bruce Wayne’s remains and licked his skull. Whoa. There’s rings that buzz in the air to sound like flies and black vomit everywhere. I also got to see the extra-crazy guardian bite another guardian’s neck and rip out his heart! Hooray!
All right, I’m sounding a bit gruesome but if you like top quality horror in your books and know a thing or two about the Lanterns, this event is right up your alley. If you don’t know all that much about what’s going on in and around the Corps, you owe it to yourself to catch up a bit. You should read:
Green Lantern Rebirth
Sinestro Corps War
Final Crisis one-shot “Rage of the Red Lanterns”
“Rage of the Red Lanterns” Green Lantern #36-28
“Sins of the Star Sapphire” in Green Lantern Corps #29-32
“Agent Orange” in Green Lantern #39-42
“Emerald Eclipse” in Green Lantern Corps #33-38
This year’s free comic book day feature Blackest Night #0
Last week’s Green Lantern #43 to give us an insight into ol’ Billy Hand
Today’s Blackest Night #1 and Tales of the Corps #1
It’s a lot. I’m aware; but it’s totally worth it. I know this will be Johns’s swan song on the Lanterns and as much as it will hurt me to see him go, I’ll have his Adventure Comics and Superman’s Secret Origin will be probably be awesome. I mean, c’mon; it’s Geoff Johns.