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The other new title added to the Green Lantern stable with the new 52, replacing Emerald Knights, is The New Guardians. Providing a spotlight to the other Lantern Corps, and starring Kyle Rayner, this to me made a lot of sense for a new book.

I’ve talked before about how I didn’t really understand the decision to launch the Red Lanterns over the other Corps into their own book. Instead here, we get a member of each of the other Corps getting involved. I really like the idea that this book will allow a spotlight across the different Lanterns. What’s happened with the Blue Lanterns since they lost their Guardians? Likewise the Star Sapphires since their power source went kaboom?  That’s the kind of thing this book will hopefully address. I’ve also talked about how the Corps have slowly become less distinct in their powers since their introduction, and that’s also something Tony Bedard has talked about wanting to address here. There’s already a hint of it in the first issue, as Fatality’s constructs always appear to be made out of crystal rather than just energy.

And, of course, I think its great that Kyle’s the main star and Green Lantern of the title. To be honest, I’ve never particularly felt Kyle was left by the side once Hal came back, as many suggested (he’s never been close to the way Wally’s been airbrushed out of the Flash franchise) and enjoyed the Rann-Thanagar appearances, the Ion series and finally him being in Green Lantern Corps.

Now granted, I wasn’t necessarily a massive fan of how Kyle was used in Tony Bedard’s Green Lantern run. The combination of him and John Stewart was never one I particularly felt Bedard had a handle on, up until the final Aftermath issues, in which I really thought he did a great job on the characters. This series gets off a great start, with a nice recap of Kyle’s origin, showing long term readers how its been tweaked to compensate for the removal of the JSA from continuity. Rather than Alan appearing after Alex’s death to tell Kyle about the Corps, Ganthet is the one who gives Kyle a brief background to the ring and the Corps before he vanishes off.  Its a nice, logical tweak that I imagine will play in later to the run, as it establishes the relationship between Kyle and Ganthet nicely (one thing that I think has been ignored since Hal came back – so nice to see its use here).

The various Lanterns picked to fill out the cast work well too.  Bleez makes a lot of sense, as one of the most prominent Red Lanterns, and likewise Saint Walker is an obvious pick (although personally I prefer the character of Warth for Blue Lanterns).  I did really like in issue 2 how Tony Bedard started building up the relationship between Kyle and Walker, based on their mutual respect for Ganthet.  That was a really nice touch.  Arkillo is again, a good choice as possibly second only to Sinestro in terms of prominence in his Corps, and I loved the trick Tony Bedard uses with Arkillo’s ring having to speak for him.  Its nice to see his tongue being removed wasn’t forgotten or undone in the reboot.  Something I was really pleased to see, was Fatality being the Star Sapphire who turns up.  Characters introduced in Kyle’s run on GL have slowly been wiped out since Hal came back, whereas Fatality managed to hang around thanks to the John Stewart/Xanshi connection (although to be honest, that went kind’ve nowhere).   So the fact that a recurring foe from Kyle’s GL run is being used here is a great back nod to Kyle’s 10 years in the main role.

Tony Bedard’s direction for Kyle seems interesting as well, with him speaking in interviews about how he’s wanting to try and carve out a more unique role for Kyle within the franchise.  Hal is often held up as the best GL ever (as is common for whoever happens to be leading the book at the time – see The Flash and whoever is best with the Speedforce), Guy has his role as the premier troubleshooter in the GLC (and probably the main rival to Hal’s position).  How John fits into things is perhaps less distinct since his more thoughtful, introspective Mosiac-era persona has given way to his new Marine background, but the focus here is on Kyle.   And building on what Tony Bedard tried to do during War of the Green Lanterns, it seems the idea is for Kyle to be more generally adept across the emotional spectrum, rather than being an uber-GL or anything like that.  Its an interesting idea, and I’m keen to see how it works out.  Presumably we’re going to see Kyle using the other Corps rings more throughout the book.

There’s also the mystery of why all these rings are suddenly targetting Kyle.  And my guess is that this is where his relationship with Ganthet may come into play.   That background is being bigged up again, and the rings have just targetted Kyle, as the Guardians have forceably stripped Ganthet of his emotions and his personality (see my previous complaints about the Guardians being borderline villains in the franchise these days – and this act seems stunningly unforgivable even by their standards).  It would make sense to me that this is some sort of backup plan of Ganthet’s, although as to why, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Overall, despite my burnout on the other Corps towards the end of the last volume, I think having them in their own focused book is the right idea, and I look forward to Tony Bedard hopefully starting to play more with the differences between their powers, and how their rings affect them (I loved the out-of-control Miri stuff towards the end of his GLC run).  The Kyle focus was always going to be a big win for me, and so far Tony Bedard seems to be getting on better, with a singular main character as his focus.

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.

The hunt for the entities continues, as the focus of the book switches to the Star Sapphires and leads them to Las Vegas in search of the Predator.

I’ve made comments in the past that these days Hal seems to be a guest star in his own book, and this issue is very much no exception with Carol taking centre stage.

Which is not to say though, that this was a bad issue. In fact I enjoyed it more than some of the other recent issues and it was nice to see the dangling plot thread of the destroyed Sapphire battery picked up.

The resolution of the Star Sapphires’ power woes also made a lot of sense, neatly using an established bit of the Green Lantern mythology to explain why they don’t need a new power source for the battery to function.

In fact the only downside to this issue was the non-resolution of last month’s cliffhanger. Ophidian/Hector takes off to find Carol in Las Vegas, however the rest of the issue is spent there and Ophidian never shows up, even after Hal and Larfleeze get there. I have to assume there’s a missing page somewhere where the mysterious chained figure grabbed him (in which case, what happened to Hector?). Hopefully we’ll see what happened to them next month.

The main plot for the issue though is Carol, having been sent to Vegas in order to track and capture the Predator as a replacement power source for the Zamaron battery.

And it was nice to see Carol spotlighted like this. Previously I’ve always just seen her as “Hal’s love interest”, however her current role as a Star Sapphire is making her a much stronger character for me, especially since its very much Carol with the powers as opposed to how Star Sapphire always used to be a separate personality possessing her.

The actual threat of the Predator is fairly straightforward, as it joins with a creepy stalker dude, and Carol, Hal and Larfleeze must then try and separate them.  More interesting is the revelation that the Predator is actually affected by its host, rather than the other way around.  It seems like an interesting extension of the emotional spectrum that we’ve seen so far.

We know that the farther you get from the centre of the spectrum, the more influence the power exerts over its wielder, so that by the time you get to the Red Lanterns or the Sapphires, the power can be very corrupting (with only Carol and Atrocitus seeming to maintain proper control over it).  This revelation about the entities would seem to be similar to this.  We know that the yellow and orange entities can overwhelm their hosts (Parallax is well-documented, and Ophidian was speaking through Hector at the beginning of the issue), whereas Ion seems very neutral by comparison, just boosting its host’s power.    I wonder if we’ll see this trend continue with the Red Entity dominating its host, with the Indigo and Blue entities showing traits of being influenced by theirs, making a chain of influence, with it balanced in the middle of the spectrum with Ion.

Maybe that’s not entirely right, but I do wonder if we’ll see something analogous to the spectrum influence with the entities.

Overall, while this book still feels more like its “The Corps” rather than “Green Lantern”, this was still a nice showcase for Carol and the Star Sapphires.  The ending with Carol (once again) being made Queen of the Zamarrons will be interesting, although I suspect next issue will move quickly on to the next entity.  Hopefully we’ll get a similar showcase for the Blue Lanterns in the coming issues, as they feel like they’ve been woefully neglected since their first appearance.

Since the two are closely linked, I’ll start by covering Green Lantern #48 which finishes filling in the story of how the Corps leaders get together, as Atrocitus and Larfleeze are saved from the Black Lanterns on Okaraa by the timely arrival of Hal, Sinestro, Carol, Indigo-1 and Saint Walker (with Ganthet and Sayd along for the ride). There’s some interesting ground covered in this issue, which focuses entirely on the group getting together.  Particularly interesting is the idea that the Guardians are actually responsible for the War of Light.  Of course, we know that Scar pushed them into challenging Larfleeze directly, although it was the Guardians themselves who were willing to sell out Ganthet and his Blue Lanterns.  When Hal hears this he’s none-too-impressed, vowing that once the Blackest Night is over, he’ll never work for the Guardians again.  How Johns plans on tackling this post-Blackest Night will be interesting indeed.

I also enjoyed the way Larfleeze was convinced to join up with the group.  Seeing Ganthet and Sayd, he automatically gets jealous about how the other Corps have Guardians and his doesn’t.  This leads to Sayd making a deal whereby she’ll be the Orange Guardian if he helps them out.  Again it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the long term and whether Sayd will have to uphold her side of the deal (I can see her potentially getting out of it, as Larfleeze tends to be easily distracted by anything else new that turns up).

And with the leaders of the various Corps all together, they’re in place for the start of Blackest Night #5…

With last issue being focused on the Flash and co trying to keep their heads above water while Hal assembled the various Corps together, this issue brings all the Lanterns together in a big way.  Starting out straight away with a role call of all the main Lanterns reciting their oathes, the Lanterns are quickly teleported to Coast City having discovered the Black Battery is no longer on Ryut.

And its just in time to help the various assembled heroes.  I have to say, there’s some great dialogue in this issue.  The interactions between Hal and the various Corps (with Hal’s dialogue revelling in the inherent silliness of the multi-coloured Lanterns) and with the Flashes was great.  Line of the issue for me was undoubtedly Barry and Kid Flash’s exchange regarding Bart calling Barry “Grandpa”.  Although the Captain Planet wink to the readers from Carol comes very close.

It was nice to see Wally turn up in this issue having previously only been referred to in the series.  And in his new costume no less.  With the delays to Flash: Rebirth I have to wonder what would’ve happened to Blackest Night had Rebirth #5 had slipped any further.  Would Blackest Night also have slipped, or would DC just have accepted Wally’s new costume premiering in Blackest Night?  Also, I notice than Ivan Reis has also picked up Ethan’s version of Bart’s Kid Flash costume and is drawing the boots as the simplified Flash-style boots as opposed to Bart’s more stylised pair.  I wonder if this is another running change that will stick.  On one hand I hope not as they were part of what made Bart’s outfit distinctive, although realistically they’d probably be a pain to run in.

With all the players in place, Geoff then successfully turns everything on its head, as the Corps combine their rings to create the white light of life, only to find it actually makes Nekron more powerful, not destroying him as they’d thought.  And its here that the plot revelations start hitting, with Black Lantern Batman making a brief appearance, and Nekron’s use of “Bruce Wayne” in quotes adding fire to the theory that the skeleton isn’t actually Bruce’s (although the fact the heroes believe it to be is obviously enough for it to act as the emotional tether for the Black Lanterns).

Nekron then explains exactly why there’s been a revolving door to death in the DCU, as its actually been him preventing the heroes from moving on fully, and setting them up to be resurrected, and further along his preparation for the Blackest Night.

There’s a lot been made of how this series would address death and resurrection in the DCU and lay out the rules going forward, and this is obviously the start of that.  I must admit, I really like the idea that there’s been a wider explanation behind all the DCU resurrections.  Okay, so its being retrofitted in, but it does make all the resurrections easier to swallow.   The only thing I’m not entirely sure about is how this actually works.  For example, Ollie was clearly seen in heaven, having passed into the afterlife in the Quiver storyline.  Although so was Barry and we know he was also in the Speedforce (clearly there must be some overlap between the Speedforce and Heaven in the DCU, both are versions of the afterlife, so I think it kinda works if you squint at it for long enough).  How Ollie being happy in Heaven works alongside Nekron’s revelation that he was preventing the deceased characters being judged I’m not quite sure.  Although I guess there’s always the fact that Quiver was pre-New Earth as well.

That’s fanboy nitpicking though, and ignoring it, this explanation feels right.  With Nekron’s comments about souls being judged and moving on beyond his grasp as well, we’re perhaps seeing the wider hints for how death/resurrection will work post-Blackest Night.

And then the kicker.  As Nekron was the one who prevented them passing over, he still holds power over all the resurrected heroes, as he proves by sending the Black Rings to convert them fully into Black Lanterns.  Clearly Donna’s infection over in the Titans special was a tease that the resurrected heroes were still bound to Nekron, and the payoff here, with Diana, Donna, Clark etc all instantly turned into Black Lanterns is chilling.  The only two left trying to escape the Black Rings are Barry and Hal.

And that to me is something really nice about this mini series.  Its not about the “Trinity” of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.  This is a Hal and Barry story that everyone else has just happened to get caught up in, and this cliff hanger positions the series to continue building on that partnership the way the first three issues did.  It does make sense, since this is the first big event since both Hal and Barry have been re-established in the DCU to put the focus on them working together again.  Of course it helps that they’re written so well by Geoff Johns, who’s clearly having the time of his life working with them both.

The next issue looks to be a real corker.  With the majority of the DCU’s heavy hitters now Black Lanterns, and Barry and Hal desperately trying to escape the same fate there’s a real “how will they get out of this one” been built up.  Interesting should be the development with Atom and Mera, who’ve been dragged into Black Lantern Damage’s ring by Black Lantern Jean Loring.  With Atom and Mera being the other significant pairing of this series, I can’t help but think that being shrunk down inside one of the rings is going to put them in a key position to help out in the next issue or two.

Alongside Blackest Night #4, it was a big week last week for Blackest Night with the final part of the Titans mini-series as well as the latest parts of the War of Light as Hal and co contend with the Black Lanterns on Korugar.

The highlight of Green Lantern #47 was undoubtedly the War of Light coming back into focus again.  Unlike last issue, which stayed focused on what was happening with Hal, this issue covers the broader story of the war of light, which was a welcome return, with most of the main lanterns getting a look in.

The issue belongs to Atrocitus though, as the fact the red ring replaces the wearer’s blood turns out to be hugely significant when facing down the Black Lanterns.  Its another example of the great way Geoff Johns throws in things earlier in his run that pay off in a big way down the line.

Talking of which, we also get further teases of Sinestro’s past, with a mention of Abin Sur’s sister dying in his arms.  I can’t help but think that Johns is planting little bits and pieces building up to Secret Origin 2 which will focus on Sinestro’s downfall (in much the same way as Emerald Dawn II did, although I imagine this series will make Sinestro a bit more of a sympathetic figure).

It was also nice to see Odym revisited.  I had been wondering what was happening to Saint Walker, Ganthet and all.  However a better payoff is Larfleeze’s appearance.  Its fleeting, his rescuer from the Black Lanterns is unexpected.  The fact that Atrocitus has gone to Okaraa is pretty unexpected, since we know its the green light that is key to the Black Lanterns’ defeat.  However Atrocitus has the ability of prophecy, so I guess whatever he’s up to, its because he has a plan.

And of course, we have the Black Lantern Inversions.   Given their importance to kicking off this whole event with the original Alan Moore story, I had been quite surprised to see them despatched so early on in events, so their appearance in this book was very welcome.

Blackest night Titans, much like the Batman and Superman minis, sees our heroes manage to escape the Black Lanterns. But only for now.

There’s some particularly grim stuff here, as Donna is forced to face down the Black Lantern versions of her husband and child, and takes them down with her own bare hands.   While its nice to see that the DC characters are now wise enough to largely see through the manipulation of the Black Lanterns, it still made for a grim scene and I thought was well handled by both writer and artist.  It is interesting however that the issue of Donna’s infection by the Black Lanterns is left hanging.  Something the Wonder Woman mini will pick up?

As with the other two issues in this miniseries, its the Dove scenes that seem to contribute most to the main event, and that I’ve found most interesting.  Here we see her as the ultimate solution to the Black Lanterns plaguing the Titans, as she unleashes her power, resulting in all the Black Lanterns being disconnected.  Is this a hint that her power is tied to the white light?  We also see the original Dove appearing to her, and hint about things to come.  With the scene at Don Hall’s grave making it into issue 2 of the main mini-series, I really hope this is stuff that is going to be very significant and play out in the later issues of the mini-series.

I have to admit, for a mini that was originally hovering on my “skip” list, I’m really glad I picked this up.  Its been an excellent read, and I’m definitely going to be interested to pick up any Hawk and Dove stuff that spins out from this.

Overall, I have to say I’ve been very, very happy with these first three tie-in mini-series.  They’ve worked well to compliment the main Blackest Night series and have all featured great art and writing.  I really hope the next three series are as good, and from what we know about JSA and Flash at least, I can’t see any reason why they won’t.

Continuing on from the events of last month, the Blackest Night has erupted across Oa, with the Lanterns in the Crypts being raised as Black Lanterns, and Black Lantern Jade having arrived to target Kyle.

This was a brilliant issue.  Possibly my favourite Blackest Night issue so far.   Unlike a lot of the other issues though, it probably feels more like a superhero comic with less of the outright horror elements that the others have had.  But, this really reminded me of some of the best action-packed moments of the Sinestro Corps War.

A highlight had to really be the scene with Salaak and the Alpha Lanterns.  Again, Gleason’s interpreation of the Alphas is spooky as heck, and much like saw with Boodikka over in this month’s GL title, the Alpha Lanterns are getting out of control.  Only this time, rather than a programming glitch, they just straight out try and take control of Oa and the Green Lanterns.  This leads into Salaak revealing a message from the Guardians actually stating that he is in charge in their absence, followed by Kyle and Guy.  Its a great scene, with Salaak laying down the law, and also the nice nod as to how important in the heirarchy of the Corps Kyle and Guy actually are.  Still though, you can’t help but get the feeling that the Alpha Lanterns haven’t been completely dissuaded from taking over.   There’s going to be big problems with them in the near future.

Talking of Guy and Kyle, they both get their moments to shine as well.  The Kyle/Jade confrontation I found to be pretty effective, with Kyle quickly seeing through Black Lantern Jade and blowing her apart.  Of course she reforms, taunting Kyle with images of all the women he’s lost.   Its a keystone to Kyle’s character that he’s pretty much cursed when it comes to women, and its been brought up quite a few times lately, so it’ll be interesting to see how Peter Tomasi approaches it.  He seems to be keen to move Kyle on as a character so I suspect “Jade” isn’t going to get the reaction she’s expecting from him.

It was also nice to see the execution from a couple of months back revisited so quickly as again, one of the Guardians’ poor decisions comes back on them as the executed prisoners all rise as Black Lanterns.

While this book was filled with great moments, there was also a very intriguing moment, as we revisit Kryb who escaped from Zamarron in the latest issue of Green Lantern.  Here we find her arrive at her planet, closely pursued by Star Sapphire Miri, only to find the children missing.  Its an intriguing scene as we see Miri willing to play off of Kryb’s (twisted) love for the children and agree to help her find them.  Obviously here we’re seeing a more dubious side to the Sapphires as Miri seems to view Kryb’s love for the children above all other factors.

This was just a great issue.   I can’t wait to see what happens next month, but its safe to say things look pretty bleak on Oa.  The Guardians appear to be dead (or at least missing after their imprisonment by Scar), and with the sheer number of Black Lanterns they’re facing, its hard to see how things are going to get better for the Green Lanterns.

Green Lantern #45 is a heckuva busy issue.  With last month’s Green Lantern #44 Geoff Johns was busy kick-starting Blackest Night by focusing on the Hal/Barry fight with the Black Lantern J’onn.   With Blackest Night now in full swing, he turns his attention back to the war of light, revisiting the various plot threads sparked during the earlier Rage of the Red Lanterns and Agent Orange arcs.

The John Stewart/Xanshi stuff was covered in the preview in its entirity.  Sadly we don’t get any other teases as to what the story is here.  We do know that this plot is due for some focus in the upcoming issues, however another page at least would’ve been nice here.  Its always a slight disappointment when a preview shows you an entire subplot.  Again though, this is largely due to the number of plot threads Geoff’s revisiting in this issue so its understandable.

The rest of the issue is filled full of the various Lanterns.  We get a bit more of the conflict on Zamaron, with Carol and Sinestro providing for quite an interesting battle of wills (if that’s the right word), as Sinestro plays on her character and mocks her for taking up the Star Sapphire purely to try and help Hal.  In reponse we get Carol briefly trapping Sinestro in one of the Sapphire’s conversion booths where we get an intriguing look at Sinestro and Abin Sur’s relationship, specifically in terms of Sinestro seeming interested in Abin’s sister.   Since we know the Abin is one of the Black Lanterns to rise, I’m guessing this is a plot we’ll be seeing sooner rather than later.  And even more interestingly, they’re interrupted by the arrival of the Black Lantern Sinestro Corps led by Black Lantern Amon Sur.  Its interesting that both Abin and his son have been risen as Black Lanterns, and surely that’s something Geoff is going to play with.

On Ysmault the Alpha and Lost Lanterns have retrieved Laira’s body but find themselves under attack from the Red Lanterns, but are also having problems with the Alpha Lanterns.  Boodikka is refusing to leave as her programming to terminate all enemies of the Corps is conflicting with the need to evacuate the planet.  Once again, we’re seeing the Guardian’s mistakes start to come back on them.   The Lost Lanterns say they’re going to have to force her to leave, but you can’t help but think she’ll react badly to that.  And then the Black Rings show up.  Laira is of course one of the first to rise as a Black Lantern, but given Ysmault’s population was nearly entirely wiped out by the Manhunters, you can’t help but think the Red, Alpha and Lost Lanterns are about to find themselves badly outnumbered.

The scenes with the Blue and Orange Lanterns though probably provided the biggest payoff.  Given the nature of the Orange Lanterns (they’re killed and Orange Lantern copies created), it always seemed like Larfleeze was going to be in a lot of trouble come Blackest Night, and here we see that come to pass as the Black Rings arrive on Okaara.

We’ve also got the continuing assault on Odym.  A nice touch, playing on how full of life the planet is, is the fact that the Black Rings sent there are just hovering in orbit.  There’s nothing on the planet for them currently, so they’re just waiting for something to die.  It gave us the really nice visual of the rings circling Odym like vultures.

I also liked the visual of the Orange Lanterns, with Larfleeze’s greed knowing no limits, having moved on from the idea of just grabbing a blue ring, to grabbing the whole central battery.  It was interesting that Ganthet wasn’t too concerned about the Battery though.  Granted, the Blackest Night has arrived, but you think his Corps being left powerless would concern him just a little, unless he’s betting on the Black Rings disrupting the Orange Lanterns as we saw in the final pages as he’s aware the Black Lanterns are the larger threat.

All in all, it was very nice, to see the War of Light return center stage, and going by solicits, it looks like this is the aspect of the story that the main GL title will be focusing on from the duration of Blackest night.    You’ve got to admire the sheer number of subplots Geoff is managing in this issue, its just perhaps a shame that we don’t get a bit more of them due to the restriction in number of pages.  But then, they do say you should always leave people wanting more

Very much looking forward to the next issue, hopefully with a lot more of the John Stewart/Xanshi stuff, and it’ll be nice to see Ganthet’s Blue Lanterns get more involved.  Although Ganthet will need to try and get a Green Lantern in range of Odym unless the Black Lanterns on Okaraa can cause Larfleeze to retrieve his “Corps” and leave behind the Blue battery.

The previews for this week’s Green Lantern #45 and Blackest Night: Titans #1 have hit the web at IGN as usual.

The Green Lantern preview in particular contains some very interesting stuff.  The reveal of Xanshi (following on from the cliffhanger in GL #44) is huge.   Is the whole world a Black Lantern equivalent to Mogo?  And if so, does this presumably mean Xanshi was a sentient world like Mogo, or is the resurrection more symbolic than that?  Hopefully we’ll find out on Thursday.

Meanwhile there’s some interesting tidbits on Zamaron, with Carol leading the defense of the world against the Sinestro Corps, who’ve arrived to free their captured bretheren.  We learn that Carol is more resistant to the controling influence of the violet light than the other Star Sapphires due to her experience with them in the past, and there’s also the hint that the Zamarons will need her help with the Predator, which makes me wonder if they’re as in control of the violet light as they’d like others to believe.

There’s also the fact that the two skeletons that originally formed the Star Sapphire are human.   Who are they, and how did they end up on Zamaron?

All very intriguing stuff.  Can’t wait until Thursday to find out.

I must admit, Blackest Night: Titans was the only mini-series tie-in I’d really thought I’d skip from Blackest Night, but reading the preview has started to sway me.   I’ve never really followed Hawk and Dove as characters, but the way this series is picking up on the Don Hall moment from Blackest Night #2 has me intrigued.

I do like how this event is working so far, with some significant moments in the main series that are picked up on in the tie-ins and expanded on.  So far, its working very well, with those moments in the main series feeling very natural, as opposed to forced in order to support a tie-in.  Presumably these are events that will be picked up on later on (such as the Deadman stuff) however also lend themselves to further examination (e.g. Deadman going to Batman for help in the tie-in, while the spirit versus body resurrection element it introduced can be a plot point in the main series).

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.

Its another cracking finale to a Green Lantern arc, this time offering a little more closure than the Rage of the Red Lanterns arc, which followed much more directly into Agent Orange.

The resolution to last issue’s cliffhanger caught me by surprise, but made complete sense given what we’d previously seen of the blue rings.  However, it was also a slight disappointment, probably in part due to having seen the exact same trick pulled off by Paul Cornell’s Captain Britain and MI13 last week.

Talking of Hal’s Blue ring, we finally got the reveal of his hope which activated the ring, and it was a great moment.  Whereas most had been speculating about his Dad’s final words or something, instead it turned out to be something fairly inconsequential that activated the ring.  A throwaway thought.   Again, its something that rang very true.  However, we also see that the ring shows Hal a glimpse of the future (suggesting that’s his true hope), and aside from the glimpse of Sinestro we saw, I have to wonder what else might be revealled that he’s seen later down the line.

Hal specifically glimpsing Sinestro saying they need to work together may also provide some insight into Hal’s hopes.   We know from Secret Origin that prior to his fall, Sinestro and Hal were friends as well as mentor and student, so perhaps this also hints that Hal still secretly hopes Sinestro can be redeemed one day and he can have his friend back (although granted this flies in the face of his “KILLKILLKILL” Red Lantern moment).

There are various other nice moments as well.  We get a good character piece with Fatality and John Stewart where she tells him he must forgive himself for Xanshi, but also interestingly hints that Xanshi wasn’t as innocent as he might’ve believed when it comes to the war of light.  Intriguing, and obviously Geoff must have a plan in this direction.

The ending of the issue also gives us two big moments.  The Guardians sell out the Blue Lanterns by telling Larfleeze where Odym is and we see the Blue Lanterns about to come under attack.  Of course, this is very bad, as despite the blue light’s effectiveness over the orange, we know that beyond basic life support and flight, blue rings are inactive unless there’s a GL in range.  Wonder if we’ll see Hal or Kyle get an SOS from Ganthet.   Of course, we also know that Atrocious was last seen leading his Red Lanterns to Odym as well.  Since Larfleeze has a love of new, shiney things, I imagine he’ll be wanting a red ring as well as a blue, so that may buy the Blue Lanterns a chance.

You do wonder what’s going to happen with the Guardians after Blackest Night.  Really their actions in recent issues have been unforgivable.  Kyle’s going to be regretting resurrecting them after the damage they’re doing.

And the final pages of the book give us a great lead-in to Blackest Night.  I loved how they picked up directly from events in GLC with Ash and Saarek.  Sadly it looks like these are another two classic GL casualties, but the giant arms reaching out to grab them was a great scene.  Again, we’re also given a tantalising hint, as the ring identifies the planet with the Black Lantern as “Classified”.  So its definitely charted by the Guardians.  Do they already know of the planet’s significance and are hushing it up from the Corps?  Or has Scar quietly classified it without the other Guardians knowing?