Experiment Phase 1: Blackest Night #0 & 1

A Review by DJ, a DC aficionado
“I can’t wait! I can’t wait!” I sang to Michelle while dancing around the kitchen on Tuesday night. The anticipation continued to build all day Wednesday as well. There wasn’t a podcast that could distract me. Not even the first three songs on “Master of Puppets” could pull my mind away from the coming of Blackest Night.

Was anybody this excited about Civil War? How many people were dancing the night before Final Crisis? Were people this enthralled with Secret Invasion? Doubt it. Maybe Grant Morrison was dancing around the sacrificial pit where the New Gods were offered up. I wasn’t.

I felt let down by each of those other “events.” Was I destined to be disappointed by Blackest Night as well? I hoped not. I expected something huge from Blackest Night. Something that hadn’t happened in the others. I expected something to happen. (I know, ridiculous right?) I wanted the Green Lantern Universe to be affected. I wanted things to feel different. I wanted the bar raised. As far as this #1 issue goes, I wasn’t let down.

Hal Jordan is my favorite DC character. When Geoff Johns brought him back into comics, he also brought me back into comic shops. And I have yet to leave. I have been on this cosmic ride through the introduction of a new corps. I have witnessed heroes, both old and new, step up and grow. And I have seen many D-list villains rise to the top of the list. All of it leading up to Blackest Night.

Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis do an amazing thing in the first few pages of this comic. Not only do they set up the intentions of Black Hand, but they strongly portray his creepitude with the darkly rendered unearthing of “Bruce’s” skull and the deeply passionate lick.

I am fascinated by Reis’s ability to use dark imagery and deep shadows to show the evilness of Black Hand and the Black Lanterns later on in the issue. He makes it feel like a horror comic, and that is brilliant. Also impressive is the 180° the art takes during the Heroes Memorial parade. The art is bright and majestic.
Johns is masterful in the way he uses on or two sentences to fill the reader in on each of Earth’s Green Lanterns. He tells enough to understand their personalities and roles without bogging down the story with overdone exposition.

I liked the induction of this national day of mourning for fallen heroes (or villains in the Rogue’s case). I think it does a nice job of feeling nostalgic to long-time readers and setting up the potential zombies for all readers.

The Oan crypt scene is something I’ve been waiting for payoff on for quite some time. The two-page spread of the zombie-filled Green Lantern crypt did everything but disappoint. I only have two words to really explain how I felt about that scene . . . Zombie Ch’p!

My favorite moment belongs to the zombified Manhunter from Mars. Reis has made the Black Lantern J’onn J’onzz as intimidating as he should be. In one splash page, Johns and Reis give you the “Oh shit” feeling from the reveal. Martian Manhunter is one of my most highly anticipated Black Lanterns. Handled correctly, J’onn should seem almost unbeatable. Here in this book, that shock and panic is portrayed perfectly in the faces of Hal and Barry when J’onn, their once friend and now evil wrecking machine, appears and cuts short their back-and-forth banter that began in #0.

The futility of the book is advanced even further in the end with yet another Lantern reveal. The shock of the impaling of Hawkgirl and the beating of Hawkman with his own mace is like a wrecking ball of impending doom, only to be furthered by the assailants being Ralph and Sue Dibney. I don’t know if Ralph and Sue out-creep Black Hand in this issue, but they sure given him a run for his creepy, necrophiliac money. It is astoundingly heartbreaking as you read Carter get everything he has been pining for when Kendra says she loves him right before two more heroes are added to the ranks of the undead.

Overall, I found the issue to be fantastic! It was all I had hoped for and more. It was dark and action packed and set a dangerous precedent. Geoff Johns has taken this story to a point where anything can happen. This story can go in a number of crazy directions, all of which will be amazing. I’m on board for the ride. And I don’t think I will be disappointed.

A Review by Michelle, a DC rookie
So Batman is dead. As a Marvel reader, I’m not really sure how Batman died. I mean, I knew he could be killed, but I didn’t really think it was likely to occur. First, he’s like a super genius detective who always manages to be one step ahead of everyone—including his boy-scout best friend, Superman. Second, I’m guessing his books are one of DC’s bestsellers—Batman probably earns enough money that Dan Didio would want to keep him around. This is why, I suppose, I’ve been told (by DJ) that Batman isn’t really dead—he’s stuck in another time or dimension or space-time anomaly or whatever. But, in the ultimate of dramatic ironies, only we readers know this—Superman and the rest of the Justice League are clueless, left to mourn their friend in silence in an attempt to distance Batman’s passing from that of Bruce Wayne.

What does all of this have to do with Green Lantern, you ask? I have no idea. But this is what I learned from Blackest Night #0, which was available for free on Free Comic Book Day. This is also pretty much what I know going into Blackest Night, this summer’s Green Lantern event. (Geoff Johns assures us, however, through a letter in Blackest Night #0, that he did not originally intend this to be an “event”—it began as a mere story, something that, according to Johns, means we won’t be disappointed.)

I did learn a little about Green Lanterns from Blackest Night #0. The supplemental material explained to me what the different ring colors mean and what to expect from each group of heroes/villains. Despite the violet being pinker than I would prefer, I felt pretty good about reading Blackest Night.

I read Blackest Night #1, and I was left with some questions: Who is this man in the winter coat? Who is this Conner person Ma Kent is yelling at? Why does Alfred feel it’s his mistake that some creep dug up Batman’s skull? And what the hell is a “naval cavity”? (After pointing this last one to D.J., it was confirmed that my suspicions were true—it’s a typo. Damage suffered from a crushed “nasal cavity” and was not involved in some terrible military-related accident.)

Of course, DJ seemed rather irritated about my questions. (Supposedly, I’m not this picky about Marvel books, but I beg to differ. Plus, I’m a copyeditor. I’m going to notice typos. It’s what I do.) But I liked the book. I did have to turn back a few times, but it mostly made sense to me even though it was my first real experience with Green Lanterns. A few pages in the back left me confused at first, but I was quickly able to figure it out.

I do have some DC experience. It’s not much, but I have read some DC. I also enjoyed the Super Friends as a child. Laugh if you must, but at least I wasn’t a Wonder Twins fan. However, most of my love for any DC characters comes from the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons, which ran from 2001 to 2006. This probably seems wrong to DC diehards, but these cartoons created a spot in my heart for Martian Manhunter, Hawkgirl, and John Stewart.

Two of three favorite characters of mine were involved in Blackest Night #1. Poor dead Martian Manhunter came back as a zombie, and Hawkgirl was killed and given her very own flesh-craving ring. I have to admit it—I’m hooked. I want to know what happens.

Is this a great jumping on point? It’s too early to tell. But I would guess that superhero fans—DC, Marvel, or otherwise—probably care about at least one DC character. It may not be Green Lantern, whose event this is. It could be another character—Superman because of the great comics, Batman because he’s dark, or Aquaman because he was so cool on Super Friends. (You know you want to laugh.) And because at least half the characters in the DC Universe seem to be dead, there’s the potential for any reader to get hooked like I did. If you don’t think so, keep reading. There’s still a chance that Geoff Johns might kill your favorite character.

Although there’s little doubt in my mind that Dan Didio turned this into an “event” because DC Zombies would have been too obvious, I do not believe Geoff Johns got the idea that way. Geoff Johns is a great writer, the art is beautiful, and this event has great promise, even for me, a Marvel fan. And trust me—I didn’t have that many nice things to say about Civil War.

Blackest Night...The Experiment

So, this Wednesday, July 15, 2009, the eagerly anticipated Green Lantern event "Blackest Night" hits the stores. Blackest Night is gonna be HUGE!!! High hopes are have been infecting the interwebs for months now. Lots of fanboys are pumped and are expecting a huge DCU changing event not seen since the first CRISIS. And I am one of them...

To Clarify for those of you not aware of Blackest Night. It is a comic book event featuring Green Lantern and encompassing the entire DC Universe. It has grown from a story in the core Green Lantern titles and has grown into DC's Summer Event.

In it a low level GL villain named Black Hand has become the a ward of a powerful entity intent on bringing the dead heroes and villains of the DCU back to life to take over the world.
The story has been building in the Green Lantern books for months, years even.

New corps have been introduced over the past months all featuring a different color and different emotion. In Blackest Night all the new corps will somehow be involved in the dealings of Black Hand and the Black Lantern Corps.

For more information on this event check out any of the numerous comic book websites from newsarama to CBR to IGN. All of which have extensive coverage and previews of issues and interviews with creators...

I have found myself almost constantly thinking about Blackest Night(with boobies still edging it out for the top spot in my brain). Just the other day I has standing on my forklift at work and in lieu of working I was thinking about Blackest night... Who will come back? How will it affect the heroes of the DCU? How creepy can Black Hand get?!?

While thinking about it I thought of an experiment I would like to run.

Now, Comics companies like to throw around terms like "Great jumping on point" and "You only need to read the main series to get the whole story." I want to test those claims.

To run my experiment i needed a Guinea Pig, that is where my girlfriend Michelle comes in. If any of you know Michelle you know that she reads comic books also. But,much to my chagrin, she is a Marvel fan(Her all-time favorite books being Fantastic Four and She-Hulk). She is decently knowledgeable about DC comics but doesn't really read a whole lot of DC books. I have, in the past, gotten her to read Geoff Johns' JSA and she has a long standing refusal to read Green Lantern.(she is afraid that if she doesn't like it i will hate her. Which is a reasonable fear...)

Since she trusts me (a mistake as she will soon discover) she has agreed to be a part of my comic book experiment. Which is also a trick to get her to read more DC comics. (Shhhhhhhh, Don't tell her.)

Here is the procedure to my experiment.
I will give Michelle a brief catching up on GL. She will not read any other Lantern books. I'll just tell her briefly about the other corps and some of the main players.
We will both read Blackest Night.
I am reading all the mini-series that surround it. Michelle is just going to read the main 8 issue series.
We will discuss the book together, write our reviews, and then they will be posted on this very blog. Where you, the reader, can compare the difference in reading experience from someone highly involved(me) and someone new to the book and universe(Michelle).

If all goes well at the end of the 8 months, Michelle will be a Green Lantern fan and Geoff Johns will have written an easily accessible, self contained "BIG" event. Which is something not done in a long time. IMHO
The other side of that coin being that Michelle hates GL, I cry, and it proves that comic companies are once again full of shit and only tailor to the established, experienced fan. Which will eventually lead to the slow suffocating death of the industry because of the lack of new readers being brought in.
GOD, I really put a lot of pressure on Geoff Johns and DC ( Unbeknownst to them.)

I think this is a pretty cool idea. I hope you do too. Stay tuned for the results and reviews. Tell your fanboy friends to visit this blog also.

In the Name of SCIENCE !!!

Good Reading,

Dr. DJ Rothenbecker PhD
Scientist Extraordinaire