Join the Corps

Blackest Night #6

Nekron has managed to turn most of the resurrected DC heroes into Black Lanterns, including Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow. Hal Jordan and Barry Allen manage to escape the rings with their names on ’em, but there’s also a gigantic army of Black Lantern zombies on their way to Earth, including the entire planet of Xanshi. The power ring wielders on Earth realize that they’ll need every single one of their corps members to beam light at the Black Lantern power battery to destroy it, but it’s going to take a while to gather them all up. Ganthet rejoins the Green Lanterns — not as a Guardian, but as an actual ring-slinging Corps member. Then he duplicates each of the other ring-bearers’ rings (including Larfleeze’s, much to his greedy displeasure) and sends them out to find new members. No spoilers here, but this leads to a splash page that practically defines “Crowning Moment of Awesome.”

Verdict: Thumbs up. The whole comic is great, but that final splash page is just joyously cool. I hope they give out rings to every single DC character now. And yes, I’m pretty amazed that the core books of this crossover are still so blasted great. Sure, some of the secondary comics aren’t so hot (I’ve got two of ’em listed below), but the main “Blackest Night” is hitting on all cylinders.

Green Lantern #49

Half of this issue focuses on John Stewart running around on the resurrected zombie planet Xanshi. He runs into Driq, an old Green Lantern who was actually a zombie back before the Black Lanterns — he’s now half Black Lantern and half Green Lantern and looks even freakier than normal. He also runs into his late lover Katma Tui. There’s a great deal of military angst before Stewart wisely heads off to find backup. In the second half of the issue, Jean Loring miniaturizes the Atom and Mera and drags them into one of the Black Lantern rings to rant at them and reveal how Nekron was created.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Deadly dull.

Blackest Night: JSA #1

The Justice Society comes under attack from a bunch of Black Lanterns, including Wesley Dodds, Charles McNider (and his zombie owl, Hooty), Terry Sloane, Johnny Quick, the Earth-2 Lois Lane, and the recently-deceased Damage.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s a lot of hitting and yelling and angsting and dismemberment. It’s far too frantic, too chaotic to make any real sense.