Reilly2040's Blog

IGN has previews of the Blackest Night titles due in December, and there’s some big plot points revealed.

The solicit of Blackest Night #6 is being kept pretty quiet beyond seeing that we’ll be learning some of Nekron’s secrets (presumably relating to the white light we learned about this month and how he’s returned?), however the real meat is in some of the other solicits.

The two that really lept out at me are Green Lantern Corps and Blackest Night: Flash.  In Green Lantern Corps we see things get just that bit worse for the Lanterns on Oa as Guy falls to his rage and becomes the latest recruit of the Red Lanterns. Its something that was hinted to in one of the last two issues where we saw Black Lanterns approaching Guy and a few other GLs, and they saw willpower eminating from the other GLs, but rage from Guy.  I must admit, I wasn’t really expecting any of the four “musketeers” to switch to another side during this event, but it looks like I was wrong.

But what does this mean?  Well, we know its an event related to the Corps that pushes him over, so that to me discounts the obvious cause of Ice being killed.  I’m personally wondering if its related to Salaak and the Alpha Lanterns.  We’ve seen the Alphas getting slowly out of control over the last while, and after Salaak shot down their attempt to take control of the Corps in the last issue there was the undercurrent of threat from them.  It wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve made a move against Salaak, attempted a coup, either killing or injuring Salaak and that’s pushed Guy over the edge.  And if Salaak’s out of the picture, and Guy’s a Red Lantern, then that leaves only Kyle in their way.

I also wonder if Guy will necessarily be out of action due to this?  He’s always been portrayed as an angry character, and he’s got a heck of a lot of willpower.  Hal’s willpower was still manifesting in the form of constructs when he had a red ring, and Atrocitous has shown the red rings can be mastered, so I wonder if it infact means that Guy will still be able to fight alongside the GLs.  If so, then his red ring combined with any of the green rings on Oa will make short work of the Black Lanterns.

The other solicit that really caught my eye was Blackest Night: Flash.  Firstly due to its brilliant Scott Kolins cover, mimicking the Ethan Van Sciver cover to Flash: Rebirth #1.  And the solicit itself shows us that this isn’t just a bit of fun by the artist as there’s a very strong tie-in between the few.

In Rebirth #4, Thawne mentioned to Barry that he had a rebirth of his own in the coming days.  This indicated that the Thawne currently terrorising Barry had actually come back in time, from a point after his resurrection, and that was a separate story waiting to be told.   Many had speculated that it would tie in with Blackest Night, and its now looking like that is indeed the case, as the solicit specifically mentions the Reverse Flash as one of the Black Lantern Rogues returning.

How this works should prove very interesting.  And is it our first hint that some of the Black Lanterns will indeed be fully restored to life by the end of Blackest Night?  It would certainly make sense for DC to use this event to bring back popular characters like Aquaman and Firestorm (as mentioned in my Blackest Night #3 review, Geoff’s already given us strong hints of what a post-BN Firestorm could be like).

Finally the solicit mentions that “The Flashes of Two Cities – Barry Allen and Wally West – battle the undead Rogues”.  I’m taking this as a solid sign that while he may be getting a new costume, Wally will still be keeping the title of “Flash”, which makes me very happy.  After all, Jay’s been using the name during Wally’s run so that idea of multiple Flashes is long established now.  Presumably Wally will still be protecting Keystone as he has been, just in a new costume, with the main series following Barry’s adventures in Central City.  Now we just need a hint as to what titles we can expect Wally to feature in.

After a quiet couple of weeks, Blackest Night is back in a big way this week, with not only the previewed GLC and Batman issues, but also Blackest Night #2 itself.

Blackest Night #2 itself moves the story forward away from the main GL action, this time focusing on Aquaman and his immediate cast.  I must admit, most of these characters aren’t really known to me, so probably didn’t pull me in as much as the previous issue, which was GL-heavy, but there was still a good amount of horror in the way Aquaman brutally took down his fellow Atlanteans, culminating in Garth dying and rising as a Black Lantern, while Mera gets away.

A recurring theme with Johns books also hits here for me, with the Hal/Barry pages providing the strongest of the issue.  Ok, so I’m mainly a GL/Flash guy, so obviously these are the pages that’ll hook me the most, but again Johns writes these characters so well, with the logical extension of Barry’s scientific background being coupled with the familiarity Hal and Barry have for each other in setting up their (temporary) take down of J’onn.  Its a fun scene, but then gives way to some more horror, when its revealed to have failed and now the Black Lantern Dibneys and Hawks have joined the fight.

The spookiest scene though was probably right at the beginning, with Ray Palmer still trying to contact Hawkman to discuss Jean.  Ray ends up talking to who he thinks is Hawkman, but we get the shot of the Black Lantern Carter on the other end of the phone inviting Ray to come over.  Its a freaky shot of Carter at the phone, and Ray’s fate is left nicely ambiguous.

As in issue one, Ivan Reis is bringing his best art to this series.  He’s capturing the horror of what’s going on brilliantly, such as the Hawkman phonecall,  and the cover is just incredibly striking, with Hal as the sole light standing against the Black.

The fact the Spectre is taken down was a shocking scene, and reminded me very much of Rebirth.  Of course, the Spectre being taken down is somewhat of a cliche now.  We know he’s taken out of things because he’s so powerful, but honestly, he’s been taken out so much recently he doesn’t actually seem like that much of a threat anymore.

There was a nice Rebirth callback though, with Crispus becoming a Black Lantern, and so the Spectre being bound via his host.  Reminded me very much of Parallax using the Spectre’s power and infecting him via Hal.

This issue very much took the story out of the familiar GL territory into the wider DCU than issue 1 did, but it also kept up the quality.  Some recent events have peaked with their first issues, but it looks promising that Blackest Night will keep us on the edge of our seats for the next  6 issues.