Reilly2040's Blog

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.

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.

So the latest solicits have gone up at IGN, and give us a tantalising look at the future of Blackest Night.

Firstly, I’ve got to say how much I love that cover for Blackest Night #4.  While I’m still a little unsure about the raised GL badge on Hal’s uniform, the rest of the cover is a cracking image.  It needs to be at least a desktop wallpaper onDC’s site, if not get a release as a poster.

The Blackest Night Superman solicit introduces us to an idea I hadn’t even thought about, but makes so much sense, when the Psycho Pirate’s Medusa Mask is hinted as a weapon against the Black Lanterns.  As something that controls emotions, it would make a lot of sense that it could be used against them.

Also interesting is the appearance of John Stewart on the variant cover for not Green Lantern, but Green Lantern Corps.  I’m guessing his Xanshi subplot may turn out to be a big thread in Blackest Night then, and perhaps this hints that there’ll be a lot more crossover in the plots of GL and GLC than there was in Sinestro Corps War.

The preview for Green Lantern #44 is also up, expanding on Hal and Barry’s conversation at Bruce’s grave as the Black Lantern J’onn turns up.  Again Geoff Johns writing Hal and Barry’s friendship continues to be a real highlight of the DCU at the moment.  I love their conversation regarding secret identities, and Barry commenting on how much better Kyle’s crab mask is than Hal’s

Again we’re seeing that the Black Lanterns seem to possess their personalities rather than the usual “Brainzzzzzz” zombies, so it’ll be interesting to see what exactly their nature is.  Do they have the actual souls bound to them, or are they just copies of the original personalities within the body?  Are Ralph and Sue still out there doing their ghost detective bit, while their physical remains were off killing the Hawks?  Of course, if so then it suggests the possibility of a resurrected Carter and Shiera Hall versus Black Lantern Hawkman and Hawkgirl/woman.

After two years of buildup, Blackest Night has finally arrived.

As Ganthet predicted during the Sinestro Corps War, the other Corps have risen and the War of Light is now in full swing, with the Alpha Lanterns attacking the Red Lanterns on Ysmault, Ganthet’s own Blue Lanterns under seige from Larfleeze and the Orange Lanterns, and the Green Lanterns and Star Saphires fighting the Sinestro Corps on various fronts.  But now, the Black Lanterns are rising.

This is an exceptional first issue.  After two years of hype, and a PR blitz by DC over the last few months with previews, action figures and interviews, it would’ve been so easy for this issue to disappoint even if it had been good.  But it doesn’t.  Not by a long shot.  This is Geoff Johns finally being able to tell the story he’s been building to.   Unlike Final Crisis there’s no slow buildup here.  We’ve had the buildup, and now its straight into the main event as the black rings seek out various prominent characters from across the DCU.

There’s real horror in the reveal of the Black Lanterns who are rising, especially on Oa where the entire crypt of deceased Green Lanterns is brought back to confront the GLs.  Line of the issue has to be Guy’s “What the #@$%?”.

Ivan Reis is at the top of his game here as well.  He’s always been my favourite Green Lantern artist, but here he takes things to another level.  He’s dealing with some fairly horrific visuals which are apart from the space opera stuff we’ve usually seen him do, and he handles it beautifully.  There’s various splash pages throughout that just caused me to stop and actually look at the detail, and appreciate them fully, be it Hal showing Barry images of all the heroes who’ve died while he was gone, the Black Lantern reveal on Oa, or the reveal of Ralph and Sue as Black Lanterns.  Its astounding work.

And having mentioned Barry, here Ivan reinforces something I felt while reading the Blackest Night #0 preview, that Ivan draws one of the best interpretations of Barry I’ve seen.  He really captures the feel of speed in the character in a way I don’t think any other artist has done for me.  I just love it.

One of my big worries was when Blackest Night got moved from being a Green Lantern event to a DCU-wide event.  With it being the third part in Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern trilogy, and with all the build up to the War of Light being very Green Lantern-centric, I was really worried that this would prove to be a poor pay off to the dangling Green Lantern plot threads.  I needn’t have worried though, as Geoff manages to do a sterling job of making this feel like the natural continuation of the Green Lantern storylines while interweaving the larger DC universe.  He features the Green Lanterns, while also paying attention to other characters throughout the DCU, and it all gells together wonderfully.   My only worry would really be that anyone not following Green Lantern for a while may get a bit lost by some of what’s going on.

This was a cracking start to DC’s big summer event.  This felt like it had all the impact of Secret Invasion #1 and there promises to be a lot of good stuff to come.  Roll on the next issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps.

Rann-Thanagar Holy War isn’t even an “event” mini-series. So how come its managed to spawn a tie-in one-shot?

Well, according to an interview with writer Jim Starlin, DC had decided that Hawkman as a character is broken and needed fixed. Now, I’m not a big Hawkman fan. He’s not a character I’m bothered about, but I’ve enjoyed his use in the Rann-Thanagar stuff as someone with ties to Thanagar who can see the bigger picture.

I know the basics of his origin as well. I know how Zero Hour had completely muddled his character and left him a confused mess until Geoff Johns sorted it all out in the JSA series, explaining that he’s the reincarnation of an Egyptian Pharaoh, with the memories of Katar Hol, a Thanagarian and the Silver Age Hawkman, due to the properties of the Nth metal used in Thanagarian technology (at least, I think that’s right). My perception of the character had been that Geoff Johns had pretty much managed to make the character usable again, so the announcement that he was again needing “fixed” struck me as odd.

Curiousity got the better of me. I’m not a big fan of tie-ins to non-event series. If I’m picking up an 8 issue mini, I expect to pick up 8 issues. But still, it was a quiet week, and I’ve enjoyed what Starlin’s been doing with Mystery in Space, and Rann-Thanagar Holy War.

Thank God I’m not a Hawkman fan. As I said above, I’m no expert, but it seems to me that this special has accomplished the exact opposite of “fixing” the character. All the Egyptian stuff was fake? The Nameless is calling him Katar Hol? Going by the reference to the multiverse, I can’t help but presume that this current Hawkman is going to be revealed as Katar Hol, with the Golden Age Carter Hall being worked back in as a separate character. However I can’t help but wonder that if they are planning on separating the two, then perhaps doing it the other way round would’ve made more sense. Leave this Carter Hall as the reincarnated Pharaoh, and bring back in Katar Hol through another route.

Needless to say, going from some of the online reaction I’ve read, Hawkman fans are up in arms. For myself, I enjoyed the story on its own merits, but even I could see that it was going to damage the character rather than help him.

The only hope I can take out of the story for Hawkman fans is that the Nameless is a guy with skulls for knee-pads. A sure-fire sign of evilness. Maybe its going to be revealed as him messing with Hawkman to try and take him out of the fight?