Blackest Night... SPOILERS!

[cdunn100]

Having read both the "Blackest Night" #1 (of 8) and "Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps" #1 (of 3), I think that Johns is off to a good start with the latest tale in the Lantern Corps saga. My bro pointed out that there was a mistake made with the end with Beserker Ass Hawkman and Hawkgirl biting the dust and becoming Black Lanterns, but for the most part I thought it was an awesome start to this event. Hopefully it will continue and we will have ourselves more of an Identity Crisis-style awesomeness rather than an Infinite Crap and Final Crap-like moment (yay for happy wish power! )

Anyway, I would love to hear your guys' thoughts on the newest event in DC's bag of tricks.

[SithLordLB]

Loved the issue, though since Hawkman and the JSA got me reading DC in the past few years, the last few pages broke my heart, especially since it was all foretold in Geoff Johns' run on Hawkman. (If both Hawks say they love each other, they die.) There seems to be a nice culmination of his work being put together here, so I'm intrigued to see what might happen next. Hal Jordan is clearly the lead here, as his story is the story fueling Blackest Night to date.

I read an article breaking everything down and they pointed out that only one of the Guardians was killed; the others have been incapacitated by Scar's puke-tar.

Why is Black Hand carting around with Batman's skull?

Anyone notice that the Black Lantern power level went up with the deaths of Carter and Kendra? I bet we don't want to know what happens when it gets to 100%.

I hope the hidden master of Scar and Black Hand isn't the Black Racer. That would just be a truckload of Silver Age suck.

And Saint Walker is quickly becoming one of my favorite DC characters. His origin is incredible. "All will be well."

Looking forward to Blackest Night: Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka. Hell Yeah!

[cdunn100]

Issue #2 is out, and more holy crap moments were in store for our beloved heroes on the GL front. The funniest moment to me was when Hal lands on top of the Bat-Signal, then turns around and eyes Barbara Gordon for a moment (what a manwhore!). Then he has the nerve to ask Jim if he can borrow his car, all so he can scare the ever-loving piss out of a dead Martian Manhunter.

Pan to another page, and Spectre is huddled around in a cemetery with Blue Devil, Phantom Stranger, Zatanna, and some other magical heroes, and all of a sudden Black Hand shows up and turns Crispus Allen into a Black Lantern! I said to myself "HOLY SHIT! THE SPECTRE IS A BLACK LANTERN NOW!" Even though it seems hard to understand how the Spectre portion of Crispus Allen becomes a Black Lantern, too, I figure that its because Black Hand turned the embodiment of the Spectre into a lantern, not the Spirit of Vengeance itself, and we do know what happens when the Spirit of Vengeance is left without a human host (just remember Days of Vengeance!)

Then there Aquaman coming back up and Tula and Dolphin killing Garth, making all the aqua-family except Mera Black Lanterns. Favorite part there was when Aquaman said to the Atlantean Warriors, "I am still your king!" then f***s with their head. Mera says screw you buddy to Aquaman and runs off.

All in all, I loved this issue of Blackest Night, and Green Lantern Corps was pretty cool, too, even though they made Jade (who as Dan pointed out was vaporized, so no body) a black lantern. This event is shaping up pretty good to me so far, and its gonna be interesting what undead Hawkman and Hawkgirl are gonna do to Ray Palmer in the next issue.

Lemme know what you guys think.

[SithLordLB]

I was disappointed.

I did like the sequences in Gotham with Hal working with the Gordons. I liked the stuff with the magical characters, like The Spectre.

A big battle with Aquaman and his supporting cast... to quote Spike, "I didn't care." Sure, he calls up sharks to eat people. But the interactions were between a lot of people I don't really know, having never read traditional talk to fish Aquaman. I'll tell you where Aquaman belongs; in Davy Jones' Locker. This was about five pages worth of action, even though it lasted more like twelve.

All the stuff with the Atom was just a waste of space. Pity.

The magical characters were interesting. Could have done more to show The Spectre was there, a lot more. Deadman should be interesting with his mind and body at war with each other.

Black rings failing to access a tombstone. Interesting, but largely empty since no one knows about it except for Black Lantern Hawk.

William Hand's Journal was interesting. That was a fun bit and one of the highlights for me.

I just feel like I got $1.75 worth of enjoyment out of a $4 comic. This was the same shit I had to put up with in Infinite Crisis--great buildup, excellent start, eh execution. I really want to enjoy this, but I've got to have more Green Lantern stuff and less "we need to sell everybody on talk to fish Aquaman." The only guy in an orange shirt I want to see in this story is named Larfleeze!