Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1 Review

BLACKEST NIGHT: TALES OF THE CORPS #1
Written by Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Rags Morales, Chris Sprouse, Ivan Reis, Doug Mahnke and others

Remember a couple years ago when the Sinestro Corps War was something barely anyone knew about and the Green Lantern titles were featuring some buildup to it with backups dedicated to introducing the sick and twisted origins of the various Sinestro Corpsmen? How some of those backups were better than the main stories at the time?

Tales of the Corps is like that, except shunted off into its own book and you have to pay $3.99 for three forgettable tales that did little to introduce you to anyone. The first tale dealt with Saint Walker's origin and while mildly interesting, from the point of view of someone that has already been introduced to the character and interested in his past more so than an enthralling origin story on its own strengths, while the second tale was a fun, albeit inconsequential, story about Mongul's early days as a child growing up idolizing his father.

The third tale was the one I was buying the book for and it was our first introduction to the mysterious Indigo Tribe. At 8 pages, the story was far too short and told me nothing of the compassion using corps other than that they can absorb other ring's energy and channel it back at their users. The Indigo Tribe speak a primitive language made up of short syllables, but the advanced rings of the Green Lanterns could not translate it, despite having knowledge of every language in the universe, so we were forced to endure a series of grunts and various monosyllabic replies from the Indigo's.

The muddied art, combined with the lack of translated text, made it difficult to even understand what the story was about or what the Indigo Tribe's goals were. I believe the Indigo leader, in an act of compassion, killed the wounded Green Lantern, preventing him from suffering any further, but could not make a clear distinction either way.

Verdict - Check It. I enjoyed these stories for what they are and will continue to pick up the series due to wanting to know everything Blackest Night related, but I'm pretty confident in saying that, at $3.99, you can easily skip this and not miss a beat when the Indigo Tribe finally shows up in Blackest Night. Nothing here is required reading and only the most diehard fans need apply.

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