Blackest Night #1 Review

The Blackest Night is upon us and in celebration, I thought I'd do a special review for it outside of the regular all-in-one post. The other reviews will be up with the Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews tomorrow. In their stead is this image packed (and spoiler filled) review of Blackest Night #1. Once you've got your spoiler caps on, hit the jump for the review!

BLACKEST NIGHT #1
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert

First thing most current Green Lantern readers will notice about Blackest Night #1 is that it starts out farily slow. Those expecting a full blown Sinestro Corps Special repeat to kick off this event will be a tad disappointed with the "here's everyone that's dead and will more than likely be back at some point during this event" bits of exposition that filled out the first dozen or so pages.

"Tastes like chicken."

However, I'm not disappointed with this slow burn the issue starts with as a) it kicks it up to near Sinestro Corps War-levels about halfway through and b) I realize this is no longer just a Green Lantern title/event and that Johns has to clue in newer readers as to what this event is going to be about.

While many of these potential Black Lanterns were already known, I was pleased to see Azrael and Aztek the Ultimate Man included.

This introduction phase of the issue was mostly handled through Hal Jordan's narration of a super-hero veterns day and, later, through Hal's interactions with Barry Allen, who had been out of the loop for a while, what with being dead and all, and asked for an update, which prompted Hal's light show shown above. This also included a nice reference to Peter Tomasi's run on Nightwing and the creation of a super-hero/villain morgue in the JLA's Hall of Justice, which hinted at a whole mess of possible Black Lanterns. One villain's name I found surprising was Alexander Luthor's.

Also tastes like chicken.

The moment of the issue, for me, had to be when the Guardians first make their appearance and Scar's revealing of her true colours (black for those living under a rock). The scene kicked off with the Guardians looking down on their funky cosmic map and seeing flares of multi-coloured light all across the universe, each indicating the various corps fighting it out and signalling the War of Light the Guardians had been trying to avoid all this time. On top of this, the Guardians even admit they've been wrong all along and messed up and, just as they try to rectify their mistakes, Scar, as shown above, takes a bite out of one of her fellow Guardians and then proceeds to rip his heart out. It was at this point I knew Blackest Night was going to deliver the goods and it's easily my moment of the week.

"We are so $%^#ed."

During this time, there was also the followup to Green Lantern Corps, which saw the protective bubble around Oa destroyed by Scar and black rings on their way to Oa. The rings, as everyone had predicted, made their way to the Crypt of the Green Lantern Corps, which holds the remains of all fallen Green Lanterns, giving way to the splashpage above. My favourite has to be a tie between Ch'p and Bzzt. I'm not sure if an evil, zombie squirrel or mosquito is scarier.

There was one problem with this section, though. Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner had been shunted off to Earth at the end of the last Green Lantern Corps due to suspension. No call came back to them to come to Oa to aid the Green Lanterns and they were both shown honouring the dead on Earth earlier in the issue. Soon as the black rings hit Oa, both are back there, front and center. I assumed the suspension to Earth was to keep both safe as the Black Lanterns storm Oa, but that's obviously not the case. Even if they hadn't been suspended, their sudden appearance on Oa was a bit jarring considering their being on Earth prior.

"Shouldn't have prayed for a resurrection."

The attack on Oa is, of course, preface to the return of the big name DC characters, such as J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, pictured above, who confronts Hal and Barry, pointing out both are supposed to be dead. This is a reference to Green Lantern #43, where the mystery voice of the Black Lanterns tells Black Hand it wants all the dead and anyone that was dead at one point, claiming they are all "mine".

"Ghost Detective business didn't work out for Sue and Ralph Dibny."

As I had already known about Martian Manhunter's return for a while, I'm glad it was only given the one splashpage in this issue as Johns went on to introduce two other Black Lanterns - Sue and Ralph Dibny. What was interesting with their introduction was the build up to their reveal, which saw Hawkman and Hawkgirl fighting/declaring their love for each other. During that exchange, the off-panel Black Lanterns saw each Hawk-person coloured differently based on their emotions, both going from red auras for rage to violet for love. The Dibny's attacked when the aura turned to love. Whether that was just the timing of the attack or if they feed on certain emotions was left open ended.

Another noteworthy fact was that Sue didn't have any powers, even with her ring (I touch on ring power levels in a bit), while Ralph had his stretching powers. They also had twisted versions of their personalities and knew the two Hawks.

"Fatality"

However, the introduction of the Dibny's also heralded an increased gore factor for the book. Yes, Scar already bit into a Guardian and tore his heart out, but I was shocked to see how easily the Dibny's took down the two Hawks and more so by the gore involved. Sue started it by stabbing Hawkgirl through the chest with a spear and that was followed up by Ralph easily taking out Hawkman and then ripping out his beating heart. Yes, I know it's a bit odd to complain about that when we're dealing with zombies and what have you, but it was a bit jarring to see in a regular DC Universe title, especially an event book like this, nonetheless.

"2 down, 9998 to go."

Gore aside, the issue ended quite strongly with Black Hand showing up, Bruce Wayne skull in hand, and inducting the two fallen Hawks into the Black Lanterns. For those wondering what Bruce Wayne's skull is for, two black rings came out of its mouth here, similar to how Scar puked up the black ring for Black Hand in GL #43. I'm kind of shocked they killed both Hawks after the big fuss over their death/non-death in Final Crisis, the mess with Dwayne McDuffie having to rewrite scenes dealing with those deaths and so on. As both die and resurrect every second Tuesday, I probably should have seen this coming, though.

Also, it looks like the Black Lanatern rings have no power starting out. After ripping out both hearts, Sue and Ralph absorbed, for lack of a better word, their essence and the rings gave off the messages, "Power Levels 0.01%", and, after the second heart, "Power Levels 0.02%". The fact both rings gave the messages, I'm tempted to say the rings aren't charging and that it looks like they are funnelling this lifeforce/emotional energy to the Black Lantern Central Power Battery. Otherwise, each Black Lantern ring will require about 10,000 kills to fully charge.

Verdict - Must Read. Slow start for anyone following the buildup to this event, but kicks it into high gear about halfway through and never slows down. Lots of new Black Lanterns to mull over and tonnes of new information to speculate on. Not a flawless issue, as it has its faults, but was damn entertaining and a great way to kick off this event.

Related Posts