Comically Challenged: Blackest Night Mini-Series

It saddens me that although it is my favorite line to read, I haven’t talked about Blackest Night in like 20 weeks. A score of weeks! That’s right. A score. I think I’m due.

I believe, right now, if you only count the books within the event (excluding the preludes) the tally is around 40 books…38 or so. Do you really need to read all those? No, but let it be said that I am efficient. That means I’ve spent probably about $125 in keeping up with Blackest Night. Know what? It’s been worth it.

We’ve got the Blackest Night, Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Tales of the Corps, eight different tie-ins, and the three-part mini series. What’s that? You’d like to hear about how the mini-series are going? Yeah, imaginary reader in my head-I thought you might.

Blackest Night: Superman

Written by James Robinson, Penciled by Eddy Barrows

There’s always been a part of me that wanted to live in a town like Smallville. Seems like a laid back kind of place. Then I remember how much I love Best Buy and hate manual labor and that feeling eventually subsides. Well, that and the fact that the people in that town are so crazy emotional that they could keep the black lanterns happy forever-or at least throughout three comics.

Earth-Two Kal-L joins the dark corp to bug the crap out of everyone. Dead Earth-Two Lois Lane kidnaps Ma and pisses off Krypto. It’s okay though because Ma can hold her own in a corn-field with a torch. But that’s not all! Zor-El of New Krypton (Supergirl’s father) comes back to bring up some unfortunate Daddy issues. All the while Superman and Superboy are trying to fight everyone and then Psycho Pirate comes in to possess Connor and makes old women make out with younger men. Yeah, all right, his emotional manipulations did a little more than that but that really freaked me out. All in all, what did we learn? Our Super-guys feel a lot of different emotions (because, Golly, they are so well rounded!), Supergirl can punch through her dead Dad’s head, and Psycho Pirate’s mask smells bad.

I’ve never liked Krypto so I felt they used him a little much but I guess it was just a nice little story about a boy, his half-clone, his mom, his dead self from another world, and his dog. Practically a Hallmark special. The art was nice, at times the emotional spectrum seemed forced but you got to play along with the storyline somehow; or else it would just be a zombie story.

Blackest Night: Batman

Written by Peter J. Tomasi, Penciled by Ardian Syaf

Did you know that…Bruce Wayne died? Just kidding, OF COURSE you did. So we’re dealing with Dick and Damian in this one. People are rising from the dead; what do you do? Well, you go dig up Bruce that’s what you do! He has no skull, that’s a bummer. But, while you’re in the dirt-let’s do some one-stop shopping and pick up Thomas and Martha Wayne. You know, just in case. Crap. We forgot the Graysons. And the Drakes. And…the Ventrilloquist? Nevermind, call Tim in France and tell him to get his butt back to Gotham. P.S.-Deadman’s having a really tough go of things because, I mean, he is dead but not. The commish and Barbara are being hunted down by assorted Gotham baddies and eventually Deadman takes over Barbara to get them out of trouble. Dick and Tim are confronted with their oh-so-obvious family issues and Deadman goes on to jump into Jason Blood to bring out Etrigan. Sadly, Deadman-not that great at rhyming.

How does Batman and Red Robin get out of that jam? They freeze each other. Evidently there is no color on the emotional spectrum for the feeling of really, really cold. What did we learn? Deadman is awesome and Etrigan isn’t nearly as cool when he doesn’t rhyme, but the black rings can pick up no reading from him.

There definitely was more packed into these three issues than there was in the Superman run. But let’s face it, there really isn’t anyone quite as dragged down with emotional baggage as our Gotham City superheroes. Best part about the series? The background art every time Deadman takes over someone. It’s like a collage of every important event in their life. Pretty sweet I have to say.

Blackest Night: Titans

Written by J.T. Krul, Penciled by Ed Benes

I actually knew very little about the Titans going into this book. I didn’t even know Donna Troy had a kid. Let alone one that died. Oh, yeah-that’s important. Guess what? This ENTIRE mini-series is important. More than Batman or Superman. Who would have guessed? Let’s start with the lovely ladies that are Hawk and Dove. The former, much more manly, Hawk and Dove are dead. Hank Hall (Hawk) rises but wait! What’s this? Don Hall can’t rise because “Don Hall of Earth [is] at Peace”. Wow. Plot twist. Also, Terra comes back and we get a little necrophilia action between her and Beast Boy. Very little. Like first-base. (Since, evidently I can only think in terms of a thirteen year-old). AND as previously stated, Donna’s baby rises up along with the baby-daddy. Baby bites Donna’s neck and it looks pretty gross, old Hawk kills new Hawk and in the same issue she rises from the dead. Like Etrigan, Dove has no reading on the emotional spectrum (it shows up white, as if you couldn’t guess). Black Lantern Omen is keeping Cyborg and Starfire occupied with their greatest desires while Donna’s neck bite is somehow connecting her to the blackness. Some old Titans rise from the dead and it turns out Dove can destroy the Black Lanterns through um…peace? I don’t know. She emits a light, she doesn’t know how but it hurts them severely. Good to know.

Without knowing half the people that rose from the dead, it was pretty easy for me to follow. A lot of important stuff went down and I got to see a talking green bear rip a person in half. That’s what we learned in this issue. Talking green bears kick ass. Also, Ravager delivered the greatest post-coitus line ever, “We’re done. You got three minutes to get out of here before I cut it off.” I may get a sword and an eye-patch so I can deliver that line.

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman

Written by Greg Rucka, Penciled by Nicola Scott

Oh, I’m sorry? Did you want to hear about a book that actually came out this week? Okay, let’s do that. The first issue dropped this week and it obviously had a lot to do with Maxwell Lord. The man whose death ruined Wonder Woman’s reputation and actually got me to read her in the first place. Where does the meeting happen? In Washington over the graves of all the fallen veterans. Guess what? They rise from the dead. Guess who didn’t like that one bit. Me. So, Diana and Maxwell banter for the entire issue over love and um…more love. How does she defeat the undead soldiers? Via lasso of truth. What. The. Hell. Her lasso makes all of them burst into flames because love is light. What? After all that, Maxwell Lord didn’t die.

I really didn’t like this. I’ll keep reading with the hope that it will be better but honestly, it sucked. Did ANY of that make sense to you? Let me know if it did because I’m still trying to figure out the whole light, love, truth and fire thing. Ugh. Nicola Scott’s work was stunning though. That’s really all I can say in favor of this book.

Blackest Night: The Flash

Written by Geoff Johns, Penciled by Scott Kolins

This issue really just covers everything you already know if you’ve been reading Flash Rebirth. However, to make a super long story just kind of long: Flash “died” and came back because he was actually just stuck in the speed force. Reverse Flash has been going back in time to seek his revenge on The Flash by hurting Barry before he was struck by lightning while holding chemicals. He killed Barry’s mom and he pushed a young Barry down the stairs. That last one doesn’t seem so sinister to me but the man seemed pretty proud of it. Anyway, Reverse Flash was dead and then he wasn’t. Up until now it wasn’t really revealed that he did that via the Black Lanterns. It seems after becoming a Black Lantern, Reverse Flash somehow was resurrected to his former state (aka not a corpse) and so Barry’s been dealing with the Reverse Flash from the future. Did that make sense? Probably not. Oh well, I gave it my best shot.

Barry needs help so he runs to Gorilla City to talk to his buddy Solovar. Evidently Barry didn’t know Solovar died a few years back. So guess who became a zombie! Once the black rings reach 100% power levels he hears “Your death was the first. Your rebirth is the last.” Seems like a plot development to me, Gang. What else did we learn? Captain Cold is a badass. He’s like Clint Eastwood if Clint Eastwood looked like an Eskimo. Part two deals more with the rogues and I am pretty excited for that! I’ve been reading Rebirth, so the recap was a little unfortunate for me. We all know how I feel about Geoff Johns so I won’t go into much detail on how I loved the writing. I hate the art though. Scott Kolins does nothing for me. The full page panel of Black Lantern Reverse Flash? C’mon now. It’s like something he scribbled on a napkin during lunch. All of his characters just look dopey, except the gorillas. The guy can draw a decent gorilla.

I like the fact that I get to see how a problem that is rooted in the Lantern Corps affects the rest of the DCU. It’s awfully impressive that everyone is keeping to an overall storyline. Even Morrison is getting in on the action with his Batman and Robin run. Yeah, sure-the books are a little hit or miss but I think it’s all for the greater good. Hopefully after this event is all said and done, death will mean something in comic books. Hopefully.

Now, go get back to your life. You’ve spent far too long reading this post.