Blackest Night Author: Visit Amazon's Geoff Johns Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1401226930 | Format: EPUB
Blackest Night Description
Amazon.com Review
A Look Inside Blackest Night
(Click on Thumbnails to Enlarge)
Some Things Are Worse Than Death The Dead Will Rise You Shouldn't Be Back
From Booklist
Death in superhero comics is notoriously impermanent—characters ranging from world-beaters like Superman to minor bit-players are killed off only to be resurrected later—but never more so than in this miniseries, in which dozens of fallen heroes and villains, including Aquaman, the Martian Manhunter, and Elongated Man, are reanimated as evil, zombielike forces under the command of Nekron, the embodiment of death, who wants to kill all living entities. As always, it’s up to the stalwart superheroes—most notably the original Flash and Green Lantern, both recently returned from the grave themselves—to set things right. Like all such companywide crossover events, the story line was integrated into nearly all of DC’s many titles, but the major events occur in the nine issues collected here. Even so, the absence of the supplemental stories makes Johns’ thorny narrative even more abstruse, especially for casual readers. Reis’ art perfectly matches the script: ostentatiously flashy at the expense of coherence. But for die-hard fans, Blackest Night, which sets in motion monumental changes that will be felt throughout the DC Universe, is a must-read. Grades 9-12. --Gordon Flagg
See all Editorial Reviews
- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: DC Comics (July 13, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1401226930
- ISBN-13: 978-1401226930
- Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
gripping story... shocking moments... geoff johns is my fave superhero writer working today, etc. like other reviewers, however, i think that these "blackest night" collections become nearly incomprehensible when read on their own. when the big two comic publishers do their epic events, they have crossover books to flesh out the story (not to mention, sell more comics). for the most part, these tie-ins simply add a bit more detail to the main event and are not mandatory reading. this is true of "blackest night," for the most part. i think that johns set up this mini-series in such a way that you can get the gist of the story without reading the tie-ins, but it's a bit shallow and hollow without them, especially the tie-ins found in his "green lantern" series. "blackest night" without the johns-written "green lantern" issues is a bit repetitive... a series of fight scenes wherein the black lanterns show up, put a hurt on the good guys, rinse, repeat, etc. with the "green lantern" issues added in, it becomes much more epic, not to mention comprehensible. all of the huge, space opera stuff happens in "green lantern" proper, and these issues (collected in "blackest night: green lantern") are absolutely necessary to getting the whole story. most of the other tie-ins, as entertaining as they may be, don't seem to be as essential to the main story and come off as filler, but the stuff written by johns really needs to be collected together in one place (even is it's split into two volumes).
dc seems to have some difficulty with this, and their major story lines make little sense when important chapters are missing.
It would not be far off to say that Geoff Johns basically *is* DC Comics today; of current writers, not even Brian Michael Bendis at Marvel Comics rivals him in terms of sheer personal influence and control over the wider universe. Johns' reign as DC's chief creative force arguably began in earnest with his run on "Green Lantern", which began with "Green Lantern: Rebirth", the return of Hal Jordan as the main Green Lantern (neither the first time nor the last time that Johns would retool a status quo to its Silver/Bronze Age incarnation, albeit with extra violence). "Blackest Night", an eight-issue miniseries published in 2009, represents a climax to several years of Johns Green Lantern stories, while also setting the stage for a passel of new developments in the DCU. At the same time, one cannot help but think it somewhat uninspired when compared against Johns' own "Sinestro Corps War" story, and I think DC has erred somewhat in how they've chosen to package this story. Spoilers follow.
To briefly summarize the plot, the DCU is going to hell, with two major galactic crises, the War of Light and the Blackest Night, being initiatived simultaneously. On the former case, the seven colour Lantern Corps are going to war. This development may arguably be Johns' signature addition to the mythos: he took a single Green Lantern Corps, inducted the preexisting Star Sapphires into the same schema, and created another five to fill out the spectrum, all tied to emotions (and willpower, which, as many have noted, is not an emotion).
Blackest Night Preview
Link
Please Wait...