Blackest Night part 1

Blackest Night part 1

Blackest Night #0-3, Green Lantern #43-45

Originally released in 2009

Written by Geoff Johns

Art by Ivan Reis (Blackest Night) and Doug Mahnke (Green Lantern)

As it's October, and I was nearing this point in my reading of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern run, I'm reading Blackest Night today.  There's over 70 issues connected to it, though I'm just sticking with the main series and the Green Lantern issues, as both of them are written by Geoff Johns. (I might have to read other tie-ins if they turn out to be important)

To sum up this storyline in two words: zombie apocalypse.  The Black Hand, an old-school Green Lantern foe who's been around since the sixties, becomes the leader of the Black Lantern Corps., which seeks to raise the dead and feed on intense emotions.

Unfortunately, anyone who's died is theoretically vulnerable to being possessed by a Black Lantern Ring, including those who came back from the dead.  With Martian Manhunter having died during Final Crisis, and Superman and Wonder Woman having died at some point previously, that's not a good thing, and they aren't even the worst possible scenario for possession.

The Black Lantern Rings even possess the Spectre, which is an incredibly bad sign.  Admittedly, I have some concerns about reading this event because it's inevitably going to spoil deaths in comics that I haven't read.  I had figured that Aquagirl was going to die in one of the Wolfman/Perez issues of Teen Titans that I'd read; she didn't die in that, but I found out that she does die eventually.

The Black Hand is unsettling, both when he was alive and when he is brought back as one of the living dead.  He's a sociopath, through and through, to the point where he murdered his family pet when he was a child just because his siblings liked their dog.

Many characters are haunted by deaths - the death of Hal Jordan's father has stuck with him since he was a young boy, and John Stewart is traumatized by the destruction of the planet Xanshi and the death of its inhabitants.  Hal's father doesn't come back from the dead yet, but Xanshi comes back in a big way.

The only weaknesses that the Black Lantern Rings have is that they can't seem to bring back someone who was at peace when they died, and they're vulnerable to the mysterious Indigo Lanterns who represent compassion.  So far, the first of these is limited to Dove, of the superhero duo Hawk and Dove, though I feel like there will be others.

On a side note, Hawkman and Hawkgirl (the Kendra Saunders version) have a major appearance in the early issues of the storyline, and I have to say that so far, basically every appearance of Hawkman that I've read has him as a grouchy ultra-conservative when it comes to the JLA ("the REAL Justice League wouldn't put up with these shenanigans!") or being creepily possessive of Hawkgirl, insisting that she has to love him regardless of her lack of attraction to him.  Maybe he's cast in a better light in his own stories, but very little of what I've read reflects well on him.

As the dead are rising throughout the universe, the various Lantern Corps. are in conflict with each other, such as Sinestro's forces attacking the world of the Star Sapphires.  This is undoubtedly adding to the death toll, and helping the Black Lanterns in the long run.

The Guardians of the Universe are unable to help (not much of a surprise there), as one of their member, who's known as Scar, has been possessed by the Black Lantern and is targeting his fellow Guardians while claiming that he intends to carry out their mission.  The Guardians' goal is to wipe out all emotion from the universe, and there won't be any emotion left if everyone is dead.

Some of the Corps. are hit harder than others.  Sinestro's forces have already devolved into a civil war between Sinestro and Mongul, and now a third undead faction is thrown into the mix.  Meanwhile, the Orange Lantern Corps. consists of Larfleeze and the souls of the various beings who he killed over the centuries/millennia - beings whose corpses are still on Larfleeze's planet, and who have a very good reason to hate Larfleeze.

The dead still have some of their original personality, but twisted - just enough to know how to twist the knife.  When the undead Elongated Man encounters the Atom, he makes sure to remind him of how the Atom's ex-wife went insane and started killing unpowered relatives of other heroes.

The first few issues of the main storyline primarily focus on Barry Allen as the Flash and Hal Jordan as Green Lantern.  Given that Geoff Johns went out of his way to bring both of them back from the dead and completely redeem Hal for what he did as Parallax, he clearly has a soft spot for the characters, and the bond between the two of them is a nice one.

A bond that isn't so nice is the one involving Firestorm.  Firestorm is a character that I don't know much about, but he's a nuclear man created by a fusion of two individuals - in this case, Jason Rusch and Gehenna/Gen, his girlfriend.  The two of them want to get married, but when Ronnie Raymond (half of the original Firestorm) comes back from the dead, he puts an abrupt stop to that, forcefully fusing himself with Jason, forcing Gehanna out of the fusion, and making Jason watch as a spirit while Ronnie murders Jason's girlfriend.

There's a lot going on, though it doesn't feel as chaotic as the Sinestro Corps. War did; it likely helps that it feels like this is still in the set-up phase, with the controlling force behind the Black Lantern Corps. being unknown as of now.  The main series doesn't seem like it requires any tie-ins so far, though I'll keep reading the Green Lantern series regardless.