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After all these months, the identity of the mysterious, cloaked figure that’s been masterminding threats across the Green Lantern books is finally revealed in the new issue of Green Lantern, and it doesn’t disappoint.

Lets get the big revelation out of the way.  Largely because I’m tired of referring to the “mysterious, cloaked figure”.  Its Krona, the rogue Maltusian scientist who attempted to learn the forbidden secrets of the universe and unleashed entropy.  An act that drove the Maltusians to eventually become the Guardians of the Universe.

Krona’s since returned numerous times, being a galactic-level threat in the DCU, when he’s involved, things are bad.  He was last seen in Trinity, although the way that series resolved would raise questions about how he’s come back.  Its possibly just being ignored.  There’s also Krona’s unfortunate shrinking.  Having used “Maltusian Evolution Tapestries” (a horrible line to justify his bandaged appearance) to repair his body, he appears to have shrunk down and taken on the form of a Guardian.   Its a move that sort of makes sense, given his link to them, to have him more directly appear as an evil Guardian, but on the other hand, Krona’s such a strong, established villain that changing him in this way does feel a little odd.  It does seem like Geoff Johns has made the decision to re-establish Krona as an “evil Guardian” and avoid (but perhaps not ignore) his actual history as a Maltusian (if that’s the right term).

There’s no explanations for the manacles either, but I imagine they’ll get to that next month when Krona no doubt fills us in on his dastardly scheme

Of course, regardless of how he looks, the reveal of Krona does work well.  He’s a long-time Green Lantern threat with a solid connection to the Guardians.  Here he claims to have been the original keeper of the entities, and that might tie in with a mystery that’s lingered since the Agent Orange plotline.  We knew that someone other than Larfleeze had created the Orange battery and temple, and at the time many speculated that it might have been Krona.  The reveal of Krona being the one going after the entities makes perfect sense, since its believable he’d have known of their existence while he was on Maltus.  He’s old enough, and was a scientist.

And now using Parallax, he’s lured out Adara and Proselyte meaning he’s now collected more than half of the entities (and may soon have Ophidian as well, since we know he was contacting Hector Hammond previously).  I’m hoping the New Guardians arc isn’t going to now quickly resolve this threat, and I’m assuming Krona and his capture of the entities will be a key threat in War of the Green Lanterns.

The only other main thing that leapt out at me from the issue was the Hal/Flash-Parallax battle.  It rattled along quite quickly, but the only moment that seemed a bit strange was when Hal challenged Parallax to repossess him and free Barry.  There’s an implication in the scene that Parallax may be in some way afraid of Hal, being the host that not only escaped him (ignoring the Spectre’s help), but who also freed Kyle.  I guess it sort of makes sense, but given that Parallax is supposed to be fear manifest, the idea that he’d be scared of one lone Green Lantern would seem to weaken the character to me.  Krona does also point out that Parallax wouldn’t be able to control Hal anyway, as Hal’s resistant to his influence, having been possessed previously, so I have to wonder if the same would be true of Kyle.  Its just a little moment that starts to lean towards “look how awesome Hal is”, that I’m always wary about as it always strikes me as forcing Hal into the position of being the “coolest” of the Earth Green Lanterns.

Regardless, I’m really, really hoping once this is done, we don’t see any of these entities again for a good while.  Parallax in particular, I make no bones about being bored of, and he’s lost a lot of the menace he previously had through his last few appearances.

Moaning aside, much like last issue I was pretty happy with events as this New Guardian story finally moved to a conclusion. And I really loved the little tie in to GLC with Sinestro getting the call about Kyle and the Weaponer. I do like those little connections between the books.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with Krona next month. I’ve maybe not been keen on the drawn out structure of this story (although individual parts have been good) but seeing how its all going to play into War of the Green Lanterns, and next month’s inevitable focus on Krona should be interesting. If nothing else, Geoff usually excels at issues focusing on the villains.

Things have been slowly spiralling out of control in Green Lantern for a couple of months now, with the New Guardians, and more and more of their entities turning up to complicate Hal’s life.  Throw in our mysterious cloaked Guardian to spice things up, and there’s a feeling that this storyline is finally building to something this month, as the Indigo Lanterns appear back on the scene, bringing with them some hints at their backstory.

For me, the Indigos were probably the strongest thing about this story.  While we still don’t have all the answers we’d like about them, we do get some tantalising hints as to their true nature via Black Hand, who is virtually a different person, now that his indigo ring has provided him with compassion.  This leads Hal to realise that most of the Indigo Lanterns must surely have a similar dark past, and wonder what would happen if they lost their rings.

The idea of the rings affecting their hosts has been looked at before, mainly with the Red Lanterns and Larfleeze, and with hints as to the effects of the Star Sapphire and how only Carol can resist them, and the idea that the Indigo Lanterns are some kind of ticking time bomb is an interesting twist.

We also have Barry turn up to talk to Hal about how the rest of the New Guardians are getting out of control.  This all culminates in our mysterious cloaked Guardian turning up and having Parallax posses the Flash.  Now, this is interesting in a couple of ways.  It shows that this Guardian appears to have some level of control over Parallax.  In previous appearances we’ve seen Parallax despises the Guardians, so what’s going on here.  Is Parallax working with the cloaked Guardian, or somehow under his/her control?  In which case, just how powerful are they?  Also, it marks the first time the figure has appeared openly to any of the main Green Lanterns, so hopefully we’re seeing this storyline pushing forwards, with Hal hopefully noticing the green energy chains.  This story has been moving a bit slowly for me, so I’m really hoping this is a sign that its now moving into high gear.

Less effective for me though, was Parallax possessing Barry.  Hal becoming Parallax was a massive deal.  Kyle becoming Parallax was a big shock.  In both cases it was something that could only happen following some major trauma that weakened the characters and made them susceptible to the possession.  However Parallax is easily able to take over Barry.  To me, this just devalues Parallax entirely, and again shows Geoff playing around with the nature of Parallax in order to suit the story.  We only recently had Hal once again being possessed by Parallax in order to battle the Spectre.  I would imagine it’ll be resolved pretty quickly in the next issue, but for me, Parallax is quickly losing any shock value it had back in Rebirth.

I did enjoy this issue, and the twists regarding the Indigo Lanterns really made them interesting.  However, as a whole the New Guardians storyline hasn’t really worked for me, but fortunately we should soon be heading into War of the Green Lanterns, and with most of the Entities now having turned up, I’m hoping this storyline is building to its climax, especially with the cloaked Guardian figure attacking Hal and company in public.

The race to find the entities continues in Green Lantern, as Atrocitus and Sinestro track down the Butcher and Adara finds a host.

There’s a lot still being juggled in Green Lantern, and this issue is no exception, with about 3 separate plot lines being focused on throughout the issues.

It starts out with Atrocitus hunting down the Butcher with Sinestro.  Its a nice scene that underlines that as bad as Atrocitus can be, there’s still a sense of justice (albeit an extreme one) underneath what he does, as they discover the prison attacked by the Butcher, and he vapourises a bus-load of convicted murderers.  Its a nice character scene that helps underline the depth to Atrocitus, as well as the power of the Butcher from the devastation at the prison.

The action then picks up where last issue left off, with Hal, Larfleeze and Carol on Zamarron.  We see rebuilding is already underway, and I thought the Zamarrons building a statue to their fallen Queen in their central battery was actually quite a nice touch.  Hal and Carol’s confrontation nicely touched on a couple of beats I’ve mentioned before, with Carol challenging Hal over his relationship with Cowgirl which he seemed to have forgotten about (surely she’s dumped him by now?).   Its a nice scene mainly because it allows Carol to grow up a bit.  Throughout Green Lantern, she’s often been defined as “Hal Jordan’s love interest”, and even in her latest role as a Star Sapphire this has been a factor, as she took the ring to help protect Hal and has been following him around since.  Its nice to see Carol stand up and be her own person, accepting that sorting out the Star Sapphires and getting them back on their feet is something she has to do.

That being said, I don’t expect her to be gone for too long.  The Predator being on Zamarron is probably not nearly as safe as she thinks, regardless of how many Star Sapphires are there.

With the Red Lanterns and Sapphires having been spotlighted, the action then goes to its third phase, with Adara, the entity of the Blue Lanterns finally selecting a host.   The missing girl from last month we discover was kidnapped and is rescued when she forgives her captor and Adara recognises the hope in her and bonds with her.

Most interesting in this scene is the reaction of Saint Walker.  He is in awe of Adara (she’s like Jesus to him I guess), and cannot see to the fact that she’s bonded with the girl, Nicole,  immediately talking about how Adara must come back to Odym with him.  To be honest, its a scene that really doesn’t do Walker any favours at all.  Unlike Warth’s amusing calm in Emerald Warriors, Walker is verging on coming across quite creepy, and Hal rightly calls him on it, pointing out that Nicole had only just escaped one kidnapping and he’s not going to let Walker do the same to her.

I have to be honest and say, that since their initial introduction, I’ve really not been a fan of the Blue Lanterns when Geoff writes them.  They haven’t exactly featured much in other books, but I still like the concept of a more spiritual group of Lanterns, but in Geoff’s hands they never seem to come across that well.  Walker especially I find a more worrying character than the likes of Atrocitus.   At least you can see why Atrocitus thinks what he does, and that there’s a kind of logic to his actions (not that I agree with them).  Saint Walker however, is a guy who was responsible for the deaths of his family through his blind faith, got rewarded with a blue ring for it, and now wants to drag a little girl back to Odym without even talking to her about it (in fairness, Nicole herself points out Saint Walker that she’s not just Adara, so I suspect he wouldn’t have been able to go through with it, but just that lack of thought makes the character quite worrying to me).

Of course, at this point, the Flash shows up, setting the stage for a showdown with Hal next issue over how the “new Guardians” have been running amok on Earth.

Aside from these big moments, there’s a couple of interesting asides going on in the issue.  When Predator’s host from last issue is alone with Larfleeze (who now appears to be sticking around with Hal in true “buddy cop movie” style ), he says he remembers that Larfleeze has a history, and that Larfleeze isn’t even his real name, prompting a very violent reaction.  Later, Adara tells him that his parents are still alive.  There were quite a few unanswered questions about Larfleeze and the Orange Lantern even before this issue, so I can only assume Geoff is building up to a very Larfleeze-focused issue where we’ll find out his backstory, and what drove him to be who he became.  Which given Geoff’s love of the character should be pretty interesting and I’m looking forward to it.

The other side scene, which I guess also dovetails nicely with Barry’s appearace, is Salaak on Oa, realising that since Blackest Night, Hal’s basically gone quiet, with no arrests or confrontations (I guess he’s set his ring to keep quiet on all the fights he’s gotten into).  With Hal’s (sensible) distrust of the Guardians, it makes sense that he’s been trying to keep quite what’s been going on on Earth, so with Salaak figuring out something’s wrong, it’ll be interesting to see what he does next.  I wonder if we’ll be seeing Salaak heading to Earth himself to investigate?

All in all, another good issue.  I still worry that there’s perhaps a bit too much going on, but I look forward to seeing how this all unfolds over the next couple of months.

Oops.  I never did get round to posting about GL #55.  The short version being, that I’m not much of a Lobo fan, so most of the issue didn’t do anything for me.  That said, I have been enjoying the Red Lantern stuff, and the reveal that Atrocitus had manipulated Hal and co was a good one.

So anyway, on to GL #56.  The story with the entities rumbles on as the mysterious figure frees Hector Hammond and Hal heads out to find Larfleeze to ask him how he managed to contain Ophidian (who is trapped in the Orange Lantern).

To be honest, the reveal that Larfleeze had captured Ophidian was a bit of a surprise, as I’d taken it from the previous Agent Orange story that Larfleeze had just inherited everything.  However thinking about it, while Larfleeze found the Orange Lantern and its temple, its possible Larfleeze later trapped Ophidian.  However there’s still backstory to the Orange Lantern that we’re waiting on being revealed.

Another thing I enjoyed about this issue was breaking up the Hal, Carol, Sinestro team.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been greatly enjoying the characters.  However for me Hal was starting to feel a bit like a guest star in his own book.  As a result, the Hal/Larfleeze scenes felt more paired down to me, in a good way.

It is also interesting to note that Larfleeze is right back to being a mostly comic relief character as well.  Any hint of menace from his initial appearance now is lost in his writing letters to Santa and the like.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as it does help make him distinct amongst the raft of new characters.  If you want menace, then Atrocitus and the Red Lanterns have that in spades.

However it will be interesting to see where Sayd’s been sent…

The hunt for the entities remains at centre stage despite the shift in cast for this issue, and I must say it was very nice to see Saint Walker again.  The Blue Lanterns were a big hit for me when they first appeared, but since then, they haven’t really been explored much at all, unlike most of the other Lanterns (barring probably the Indigos).  Especially now they’ve lost both their Guardians, I remain keen to see more of the Blue Lanterns.  However, I’m not entirely convinced its going to happen outside of Saint Walker and the Blue Entity.

It was also good to see Hector Hammond’s previous appearances pay off in this issue.  He’s been a nice lingering threat throughout most of Johns’ run, with red herrings early on that he’d be linked to the Orange Lanterns (of course he wasn’t, that turned out to be Larfleeze).  So here we get to see that pay off, as he frees and joins with Ophidian.  Hammond’s been a successful character in this run, well done as a creepy threat and its nice to see him take centre stage for next issue.

Overall, this issue grabbed me a lot more than last month.  I still feel a little close to burn out with the various new Lanterns and Entities, but Hal felt less overshadowed this month to me and the mysterious figure (who appears to be hot on the trail of the Predator in Las Vegas) continues to be intriguing.

I’ve got to admit, I really loved the opening scene to this issue. Dex-star and Atrocitus in the subway attacking the muggers was a great scene straight out of a horror movie, and its nice to see the Red Lanterns get a bit of focus. They’re a great, creepy variation on the other Corps and remain one of my favourite additions to the GL mythos in recent years.

Strangely then, we cut back to events seen in Brightest Day. Personally, I found these pages a bit annoying as they completely retreaded events from that book, not really adding anything, and the use of big splash pages to retell something that happened last week felt a bit like a waste. I appreciate that there’ll be people reading Green Lantern who are not reading Brightest Day, but I can’t help but think this could’ve been tackled differently so as to try and give the Brightest Day readers something as well. It’ll be interesting to see if this becomes a common issue as the story of the white lantern develops in both books, or if the storylines will diverge.

However, with that done, the larger GL-centric mystery from last issue of the mysterious figure collecting entities is brought back to the fore, nicely picking up on a major plot strand from Green Lantern Corps.  In that book, Sodam Yat had been forced to use the Ion power to transform Daxam’s red sun to yellow in order to allow his people to defeat the Sinestro Corps.   I’ve been waiting to see how this plot would play out (and had assumed it would form part of Blackest Night) so its nice to see it picked up.  Like the Mongul plot though, it also feels a bit of a shame that its resolved in a different book, and quite quickly.  For those reading Green Lantern and not Corps, Sodam’s situation with Daxam must’ve been quite puzzling.

There is though, the nice feeling of comeuppance.  The Daxamites have been portrayed as hugely xenophobic.  Murderously so, so to have them stripped quite brutally of their powers, as Ion is removed from Sodam and the sun turned red once again at least gives some resolution to that storyline.  There’s the niggling feeling that the super-powered Daxamites would’ve allowed for an interesting storyarc over in GLC, however I guess that’d be treading a lot of ground that the Superman books have recently covered with their big New Krypton storyline.

Very interesting is the insight we get into this mysterious figure.  We now know that despite the chains, they are not bound to Ysmault so may not be a prisoner in the strict sense I would’ve imagined based on last issue.  We can also now definitely see that they’re small of stature, which immediately suggests its a rogue Guardian.   Appa Ali Apsa leaps immediately to mind.  Of course, he appeared dead at the end of The Road Back, but that could be changed quite easily (and probably less dramatically than some of the retcons we’ve seen over the last few years).   The figure also displays a sense of justice in regards to the xenophobic Daxamites being stripped of their powers, and seems to almost care for Sodam and his sacrifice.  This could certainly point to it being a Guardian.  Why exactly they’re collecting the entities remains a mystery, but I would assume this is going to allow Sodam Yat to return in Peter Tomasi’s new Emerald Warriors book (since that’s the title featuring Arisia).

Overall though another good issue.  There’s still a strong feeling of a shared universe  and storyline between the GL books, with the GLC crossovers lately (Daxamites here, and the reprise of the Guy, Ganthet and Atrocitus scene in GLC) but both books are doing this while still building their own distinct storylines.    The white Lantern stuff I wasn’t sure about, and may be better left to Brightest Day, but the central mystery of the entities on Earth is strong, and it’ll be interesting to see how the team up with Atrocitus goes next month.

Representing the first issues for both main Green Lantern books after Blackest Night, both of these came out this week in the UK (thanks to last week’s volcano issues).   This led to me reading them back-to-back and they provide an interesting comparison.

To me Green Lantern Corps felt like much more of an epilogue which was needed to Blackest Night, while the main Green Lantern book was, as is Geoff Johns’ style, more focused in setting up future plots and mysteries.

While Green Lantern played with the Hal/Carol relationship a bit more, I still can’t help but dislike the way Cowgirl has all but completely vanished from the book.  Granted she gets a name-check here, but a return of Hal’s civilian identity would be welcome.  I can only assume Cowgirl will be dumping him the next time he bothers to go see her, and Lord knows what his status is with the Air Force.

It is a tricky situation for Johns.  He spent much of the first part of his run re-establishing Hal on Earth, and building his relationship with Cowgirl.  The minute the Sinestro Corps kicked off the larger storyline, the cosmic stuff has taken on much more importance to the franchise.  I guess I’d just like to see Geoff address Hal’s civilian life, even if its just to draw a line under it, to allow Hal to move completely onto the cosmic side of the story, rather than leave it dangling.

For now though, we’re still in full cosmic flow, with the New Guardians, as Sinestro (presumably appearing after Blackest Night #0) interrupts Hal and Carol (nicely pointing out that Carol had said she’d give up the Star Sapphire powers but hasn’t) to tell them he’s found the white Lantern and its asking for Hal.

However for me, the best part of the book was the tease on Ryut at the beginning, which brought to the fore various dangling plot strands again.  Hector Hammond is revisited, and we find him conversing with a mysterious cloaked figure who is on Ryut and is wearing green energy chains.  This is the character that captured Parallax during Blackest Night.  I assume this will also dovetail to the real reason there was a massacre in Sector 666.  Was the Manhunter attack ordered by the Guardians to capture/stop this individual?  Did the Guardians decide the lives of the entire planet were acceptable losses, and then cover it up with a “malfunction”?

There’s also a real left-field element at the end of the book, where we find Guy, Ganthet and Atrocitous conspiring against the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps.  Now, in fairness, Peter Tomasi established that Guy still has a partial red Lantern infection, but Ganthet’s dialogue about wanting to bring down the Green Lantern Corps has really come out of nowhere and threw me.  I really don’t know what to make of this scene.  I assume it’s going to be followed up in the other books, since Ganthet is moving to the Green Lantern Corps book (and I guess we can now assume he’s got his own motives for becoming a Green Lantern, and part of the draw of the book will be Kyle and John slowly figuring this out).

I’m really unsure about this idea of Ganthet having a big goal to take down the Green Lantern Corps as it seems to be at odds with the character’s other appearances.  Although I wonder if its more about dismantling the Corps as it is, specifically under the Guardians’ leadership (which we know from recent events is deeply flawed).

The other element of the issue I did like was the Luthor/Larfleeze scene.  I’d assumed Luthor’s connection to things would have ended with Blackest Night, although there’s an Action Comics solicit that suggests otherwise.  But the main thing I liked about this scene was again Larfleeze being portrayed in a scarier way, rather than as comedy relief.  The way he’s going around with Sayd, holding her with his feet is quite creepy, and I hope that Geoff has some plans for Sayd and the way she’s bound herself to Larfleeze like this.

As a setup issue, this issue worked well.  The opening pages gave us an interesting mystery, and while I wasn’t bothered about the Carol/Hal scene, it tied things into Brightest Day nicely with the Sinestro appearance.  However there’s a side of me that would’ve liked more of an epilogue to the previous story before moving straight onto the next big thing, similar as to what was done in GLC.  It is nice though to see the dangling plot threads being picked up and I’m definitely intrigued by this figure on Ryut.

*edit* the cloaked figure was, of course, on Ryut and not Ysmault as I’d originally said.

Alongside Brightest Day, this week also saw the release of the much-awaited Flash #1 from Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul.

Its safe to say, that much like many of DC relaunches over the last few years, this hasn’t been a smooth one.  Flash Rebirth came under heavy criticism for its slow plot, wide-sweeping retcons to Barry’s history and character and, of course, all the delays.   Put that on top of the controversy of bringing back a character who’s been dead for 20 years to replace the current, popular incumbent and there’s a bit of a hard sell to make sure people will accept Barry being not only back, but the Flash of the DCU.

This first issue however, was great and definitely a step in the right direction.  With Rebirth having handled all the muddy transition and setup for Barry’s series, this first issue is able to start fresh.  Its stripped down, featuring only Barry, allowing us to get to know him and Iris properly (as I’m pretty much expecting for the first year or so to be honest).  Of course, Johns is known for his treatment of the Flash Rogues gallery, and so its no surprise to see them front and centre of this first story arc, but with a twist, as these are Rogues from the 25th century, and appear to be lawmen.

Following on from their run on Adventure Comics, Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul are on top form.  While I’d loved his art on Adventure Comics, thinking it suited the Smallville setting well, I hadn’t been too sure about Francis Manapul moving to the Flash, but how wrong I was.  His characters are filled with expression, but he also does a brilliant job of conveying Barry’s speed, as he chases the Trickster, before disassembling his car in mid-air in a brilliant sequence.

With this new future versions of the Rogues turning up, its interesting to note that time travel is once again playing an integral part in Geoff Johns’ Flash.  Rebirth obviously had a time travel plot at its core, and the Secret Files and Origins book also highlighted various time travel aspects of the Flash mythos, namely the mysterious origins of the Cosmic Treadmill, Max Mercury’s time jumps, and the time travelling future Flash, John Fox (both of whom found their origins strangely retconned.  Although in John Fox’s case its possible he’ll be turning up prior to his appearance in DC 1,000,000).  With the constant references to Flashes being unable to change the past like Zoom, I think its obvious that this is going to form a major part of whatever big story Geoff is planning.

Overall, after a lackluster relaunch, this first issue is definitely what I’d been hoping for.  Accessible, fun and intriguing.  I like the setup playing on Barry’s real job as a forensic investigator, and Johns has quickly put in place an interesting work environment for Barry, with the cold cases and politics in Central City PD.   I just hope he doesn’t let it fall to the wayside as has happened in Green Lantern as I think Barry’s civilian identity holds as much interest as his secret identity as its been setup here.

With Blackest Night over, DC’s next spinoff series, Brightest Day begins this week with issue 0.

Intended very much as a teaser, this issue covers all the returned heroes and villains, setting up their plots for the coming year, starting with Deadman, who is now returned to life, and possesses a white ring, which appears to be allowing him to channel the power of the white entity to bring things back to life.  He’s also hearing a mysterious voice, which we can only assume is the entity itself, as he is teleported around by the ring, checking in on each of the returnees.  Much like when Sinestro joined with the white entity, I get the impression that the white light is a power that tends to affect its wielder rather than something that can be controlled like the other lights in the spectrum.

The other characters visited looked interesting for the most part.  I was surprised to see the Kyle/Jade/Soranik thing dealt with so quickly (although as I mentioned before, Jade is heading off to JLA, so this was probably the only real chance to address it).   I still think Peter Tomasi is over playing the Kyle/Soranik romance a little though.  I like that they’re together, and I think they go well together.  I just don’t think we’ve really seen that they’re as close as everyone keeps telling us they are.  Although that’s possibly an issue with the fact they’re both part of a large ensemble cast over in GLC, so their relationship doesn’t really have the breathing room that the likes of Kyle and Jade had.  Hopefully its something Tony Bedard will address in his run.   Kyle’s death gave Peter Tomasi a chance to explore their relationship a bit, but I still think there’s quite a bit of work to be done to really establish Soranik as Kyle’s big love.

Talking of Peter Tomasi, his writing was felt keenly here, with Miri being namechecked as having given Hawkwoman a piece of the Star Sapphire, and Hal and Guy visiting J’onn in his tomb on Mars (which had been established in the Final Crisis tie-in).  These were little touches, but really helped add to the “one universe” feel of events.

For the other characters there’s some interesting things going on.  Both Aquaman and Jade still show signs of Black Lantern infection, although Aquaman’s could possibly be more psychological.  We see the plot thread from Blackest Night of the original Hawks being in the Star Sapphire battery being picked up, with a mysterious group having located their remains, which seems to affect their current incarnations.  We also see Maxwell Lord’s mindwipe which we know will be played out in the new JLI fortnightly.  It all looks suitably intriguing and I think its safe to say I’m onboard with this series for now.

The only story that didn’t really work for me was the Hawk and Dove one.  I know Dove’s the avatar of peace, but still the fact Hawk killed her sister I’d have thought was worth mentioning.  Granted, its a plot strand that could’ve ended up being too similar to the Ronnie/Jason Firestorm one, but it could also have been an opportunity to play out a similar story from two different angles.   Regardless, the fact its completely ignored bothered me, something only made worse by the shot of Hawk and Dove kissing in the final page teaser.  We know that both of these characters will be appearing in the new Birds of Prey series though, so I’m hopeful that Gail Simone will be able to use them in an interesting way, where hopefully it’ll be addressed.   One thing that was name-checked was Dove’s connection to the white light, so I’m guessing that means that particular plot thread will be a part of Brightest Day.

Overall, this was a really strong start.  Despite none of the returned characters being ones I’m particularly invested in, I was still suitably interested in what was going on, and I’m intrigued to see where some of the plot strands go.  Johns and Tomasi remain two of my favourite writers in DC with their Green Lantern output, so the fact they’re writing this series was always going to make it a big draw to me, regardless of its prominent place in the DCU.  It also looks interesting as it looks like they’re trying to combine 52 and Countdown, to provide a distinct story that also serves as the backbone to various events and books throughout the DCU.  It’ll be interesting to see how that works out, but with two of the top writers working on it, I’ve got high hopes for this series.

I can’t help but think there’s something I’ve forgotten to blog about.  Oh yeah, Blackest Night #8

Over the last few years, big comic book event mini-series have been a bit of a mixed bag.  Infinite Crisis flagged towards the end, and parts didn’t really make sense without the tie ins.  Civil War basically turned Tony Stark into Marvel’s most successful supervillain, and had some big inconsistencies in how the registration act was portrayed.  Final Crisis flopped badly having a slow pace and delays, and again really needed one of its tie-ins to make sense at the end (even though I enjoyed it), Secret Invasion suffered from a lot of padding as most of the heroes mucked about in the Savage Land for about 5 issues doing very little.

Blackest Night has bucked the trend though.   There was some definite padding around the middle (after Nekron appeared he didn’t really do much, and I remain unconvinced by the Deputies and suspect they could’ve been removed without changing things), however despite this it still maintained its pace well throughout the run.  Johns crafted an exciting story, and Ivan Reis art shone in every issue.

The final issue didn’t really provide much in the way of surprises, save for maybe a couple of the resurrections.    I’d speculated that the white entity wasn’t quite the solution to everything, and that turned out to be the case.  Instead harnessing its power to form a White Lantern Corps (with Hal at the lead obviously) formed from the (alive) heroes that had been turned into Black Lanterns.  Deadman turns out to be pivotal, identifying Black Hand as key to Nekron’s plans (and explaining why previous attempts to destroy the battery or Nekron failed).  The White Lanterns turn their power on Black Hand restoring him to life.  Black Hand then starts generating white rings, which firstly defeat Nekron and return the Anti-Monitor to life (severing Nekron’s power source).   Further white rings follow, resurrecting some of the surrounding Black Lanterns, giving us the characters we knew would be coming back.

Of course, Aquaman, the Hawks, Firestorm and J’onn weren’t much of a surprise.  Likewise Professor Zoom, who was guaranteed as coming back after Rebirth.  However a few twists were thrown in with Jade, Maxwell Lord and Deadman being brought back.  Maxwell Lord will be the focus of the upcoming JLI fortnightly series, and it’ll be interesting to see how Jade/Kyle/Soranik is addressed (although given we know she’s joining Robinson’s JLA I imagine that’ll quickly be done and dusted).

Deadman remains more interesting though.  He’s the only resurrected character shown wearing a white ring at the end, and with a white lantern turning up on Earth, its a safe bet he’s going to remain a pivotal character.

Of course, this is the nature of events these days, with quite a few things in the conclusion in fact setting up future storylines, be it Green Lantern or Brightest Day (which promises to follow the resurrected characters and explore the reason they were brought back and no one else).  However whereas in Flash: Rebirth this felt quite jarring in the final issue, here it still felt like we were getting a strong finale to the Blackest Night storyline.

I especially liked the comments from Hal that Nekron’s claims to be behind their resurrections weren’t entirely the truth.  It tied events in better with what we’d seen in the likes of Green Lantern: Rebirth and Green Arrow: Quiver (given that in both we see Hal and Ollie respectively have to decide to return to the land of the living).

Overall, this was a great conclusion to what was undoubtedly the strongest event from DC in some time.  The impact this will have on the DCU remains to be seen (dead being dead I don’t expect to last, as with the white power battery out there, I suspect that aspect of the story is still being played out), however as a mini-series it maintained a strong pace throughout, and kept up a high level of quality with the same creative team all the way through.  DC are obviously proud of the success of this series, and rightly so.

The last Blackest Night issue of Green Lantern picks up straight after the reveals in Blackest Night #7, with Hal and co standing with the new White Lantern: Sinestro.

Backstory is the name of the game in this issue. With the white entity revealed in Blackest Night, this issue takes the opportunity to tie it into what we’ve been finding out about the emotional spectrum.

We discover that the entity emerged into the darkness of the universe, and created all the galaxies and stars (life effectively), creating Earth around the spot where it entered into our universe.   As life evolved on Earth, eventually one creature willed itself to move, becoming Ion.  From that point on, as various emotions were first felt, those creatures become the various entities of the emotional spectrum we’ve met, explaining their similarity in appearance to creatures found on Earth.

I’m still unsure how I feel about all this though.   Earth being the originator of all life doesn’t feel to me like it gells with some of the established facts of the DCU (like Maltus being the oldest planet, the Guardians the oldest beings etc).  Granted I guess life on Earth could be continually reinvented, with humanity only the most recent and successful dominant species, whereas other planets settled on a dominant species earlier.  Maltus has always been stated as being much older than Earth as a planet, but we could assume that DCU Earth is much, much older than the real life Earth.  Did the Guardians somehow cover up Earth’s true age along with everything else?

The other interesting thing, is the religous allegories Johns uses when giving us the origins of the other entities.  The avarice entity is revealed as a snake, pictured next to an apple, a clear reference to the Garden of Eden.  This has led to speculation that the blood shown for the rage entity is linked to Cain and Abel.  This is interesting, as we know that God exists in the DCU (the Spectre being proof enough, but we also saw Heaven during Kevin Smith’s Quiver storyline in Green Arrow).  That being said however, I’m not sure how well I think that links in with the previously cosmic stuff being used with this storyline.  It just feels like a bit of a jump in direction (sort of the reverse of Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull I guess).  Its an interesting idea though, to try and tie together the cosmic and religous sides of the DCU.  I’m just not sure how well it works (if that is indeed Geoff’s intent – I daresay this topic will turn up during the next round of convention panels).

However, with the entities being kidnapped by some unknown force, I’m assuming their nature is definitely something Geoff will be coming back to and expanding on soon.  I’m willing to keep an open mind as to what he’s doing here, but for now it seemed a little jarring.

That being said, it was nice to see the reveal of the various entities.   We’ve been teased by them for a while, and again I’ll be intrigued to see how they get dealt with in future issues.  That we now know they’re closely linked to Earth (and being captured by someone/thing) makes me assume that they’re the reason the New Guardians remain on Earth after Blackest Night, to try and track them down.

Nekron also steps up a bit more, in a shock move splitting Sinestro in two early into the issue.  It was a really effective shock moment.  Of course by the end of the issue, Sinestro’s back to normal, having been healed via his new powers, but it made for an effective moment.   And talking of Sinestro, its interesting to see the effect the White Entity has over him.  Previously we’ve only really seen possessions by Ion and Parallax.  Parallax, of course, capable to completely take over its host, while Ion merely compliments the host’s willpower, leaving them in control.  We also know the Zamarrons were afraid of the Predator getting loose, so I’m guessing if it joins with someone it could be bad news for them, although the Zamarrons seemed to have hope that Carol might be able to control it.

Sinestro meanwhile seems to be definitely affected by the White Entity.  At times it feels more like it speaking than him, as his whole attitude has changed, and it completely overwhelms his perspective of events, as he finds himself oblivious to the chaos going on around him as he gets sucked into the entity’s story of its existence and the creation of the other entities (resulting in Nekron getting the drop on him mentioned above).  Sinestro’s usually so much in control of things that its interesting to see him overwhelmed like this.

The stage is definitely set, not just for the conclusion to Blackest Night, but also for events to come afterwards.  With the Green Lantern portion of the story concluded, its a safe bet that further reveals about the entities, and longer-standing mysteries, like the backstory to the Indigo Tribe are being kept for future story arcs in Blackest Night.  Geoff Johns has said that this is just the conclusion to the first of the trilogy of trilogies he has planned, and I can believe that.  The emotional spectrum is well established now, allowing Geoff to explore it more fully over the next few years.  We’ve seen brief looks at some of the Corps, and glimpses at their powers via the Deputies in the spin-offs, but I’m really hoping we get a proper Blue Lantern focused storyline, in addition to finding out about the Indigos.  And what will the Star Sapphires do with their central battery destroyed and the Predator on the loose?  I think at this point, its clear Blackest Night is just the beginning of the story.