Black Monday

Blackest Night #3

We start out with Jason Rusch, the new Firestorm, and his girlfriend Gen, who is his current co-pilot in the Firestorm fusion matrix. She wants to talk marriage — he doesn’t. From there, we switch to the Flash and Green Lantern fighting against the Black Lantern Justice League — the undead versions of the Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, Sue Dibny, Firestorm, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl. Hal and Barry are soon joined by the Atom, who stowed away inside Hawkman’s Black Lantern ring — they speculate that the rings are channeling energy to somewhere else in the universe, that certain people are being resurrected specifically because their reappearance would elicit strong emotional responses, and that the rings function as organic computers that animate the dead — as the Atom puts it, the dead aren’t wearing the rings, the rings are wearing the dead — though the zombies act somewhat like they did when they were alive, it’s all a put-on by the rings themselves.

Luckily, the Purple Lanterns — or as they call themselves, the Indigo Tribe — finally make their appearance. They are powered by compassion, and their staffs are able, when combined with the energy of any other color of power ring, to disrupt the black rings’ connections to the hosts and dissipate the bodies — in fact, they’re able to put down Ralph and Sue Dibny that way. Hal, Barry, Ray, and the Indigo Tribe meet up with Firestorm and Mera at the Justice League HQ, but they’re surprised by the rest of the Black Lantern Justice Leaguers. Ronnie Raymond manages to separate Jason and Gen, re-fuses with Jason, and uses his knowledge of chemistry to turn Gen into NaCl. After that, another bunch of black rings come in and resurrect the dead supervillains in the JLA’s basement.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Probably the most fun about this series so far is seeing who else gets turned into a zombie — in this issue alone, we get treated to walking-dead versions of Dr. Light, Copperhead, Alexander Luthor, Madame Rouge, Maxwell Lord, the Psycho-Pirate, the Unknown Soldier, Rocket Red, and Osiris. Not a bad turnout this time.

Secret Six #13

The Six are still stuck on Smyth’s slaver island — Scandal, Bane, Jeannette, and Artemis trying to free the Amazons, and Catman, Deadshot, and Ragdoll left guarding Wonder Woman on behalf of Smyth and staring down the crucified demonic horror called Grendel. Ragdoll tries on Wondy’s boots, Scandal confronts a bunch of guards and gives them 30 seconds to call their loved ones — and the guards DO, and it’s kinda heartbreaking, ’cause she kills ’em all anyway. Catman goes rogue and frees the captive Amazons, and Grendel gets loose.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was kind of a weird issue — it seems that pretty much everyone was having visions of one type or another. Jeannette sees everyone wearing old period clothing, Scandal relives her childhood, Deadshot imagines himself killing everyone, Bane is having happy, weepy memories of his life in prison, Ragdoll is unusually spacey, even Wonder Woman is making cryptic pronouncements. Something even stranger than normal is going on here…