Blackest Night Disussion Thread (Spoilers)

[Admiral_Young]

I was expecting a bang to start things off (after all this is a eight issue mini series) and boy did we get one. More Lanterns were revealed, a couple were created and the Oans were attacked on Oa already as Scar began her assault of the Guardians. I only flipped through the issue with the intention of buying it but once the owner stated that Diamond screwed them on the Black Lantern rings I decided it wasn't worth dropping the five bucks canadian. I will be following the series but will be getting it in Hardcover next summer when it comes out. This should make up for the debacle that was Final Crisis last year.

[C.E. Evans]

Got my Black Lantern ring on right now...

I was a Green Lantern fan during the Kyle Rayner era--Hal was actually my least favorite GL to be honest--but I dabbled here and there with the Green Lantern Corps after the Sinestro War. Blackest Night may signal my return full fold into the GL Universe though.

This is going to be a horror story to be remembered, but I couldn't help but think more than anything that this will ultimately end with the return of a fully restored J'Onn to the Justice League and Bruce Wayne as Batman...

[Admiral_Young]

The thing is I wonder how they'll explain Bruce as a Black Lantern or if he will return from the past or died in the past? What is the ring like C.E? Is is plasic lol?

[C.E. Evans]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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The thing is I wonder how they'll explain Bruce as a Black Lantern or if he will return from the past or died in the past?

It'll probably end up being something swept under the rug and never discussed at length in future Batman stories. Sort of like how Hal was the Spectre for awhile.

What is the ring like C.E? Is is plasic lol?

Well, it is free promotional item, but it's not that bad for a giveaway. It's all black--including the Black Lantern symbol itself--but it fits nicely and is about the right size for a Lantern ring...

[Admiral_Young]

Yeah well I hope my other comic store has some left over when I go in next week, other wise I'm going to be pissed. I wonder if the Batman thing isn't going to be dealt with right away because Morrison is trying to establish Dick as Batman which I'm loving right now.

[CaptainCanada]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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The thing is I wonder how they'll explain Bruce as a Black Lantern or if he will return from the past or died in the past? What is the ring like C.E? Is is plasic lol?

Batman isn't dead; he's trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth (which presumably is what makes him so special to the Black Hand, since he's basically escaped death, and is doing so ad infinitum).

[Mr Light]

Anybody know exactly how long the hardcover will take to come out? I seriously do not want to spend the money to buy the individual issues... but I don't want to wait a year either... grr...

[ElScoob]

Just finished reading it.

Wow. Disturbing.

I don't know why, but it never occurred to me that Ralph and Sue would be raised up as Black Lanterns. And their appearance really rattled me--to say nothing of what they did to Carter and Kendra.

Somehow J'onn didn't bother me as much--perhaps because his resurrection as a BL was pretty well-publicized.

(As is the as-yet unrevealed rise of Kal-L... which has enraged a friend of mine so much that he apparently has sworn off DC for good. I don't agree with him passing judgment without having actually read any of the series yet, but then, he's kind of an odd sort.)

An interesting thought occurs--of the canonical eight founders of the JLA (Superman, Batman/Bruce, Wonder Woman, GL/Hal, Flash/Barry, Aquaman/Arthur, J'onn, and Black Canary) Dinah's the only one who is either not currently dead or has not been dead and then come back to life.

(That's if you want to truly count Dinah--she was shoehorned in to take WW's place after Crisis on Infinite Earths removed the Trinity from the JLA's founding, and left in after Infinite Crisis put them back.)

Meanwhile, I read Tales of the Corps as well. Interesting to get our first real look at the Indigo Tribe. Unless I'm missing the point, it looks as though their rings and battery/staffs can absorb and control the energies of the other corps' rings. An interesting thought... in my mind, I'm drawing some kind of analogy to compassion being the ability to feel for others--or, perhaps more correctly in this instance, to feel what others feel. Since the Indigos have no dialogue in a language we can understand, it's a bit fuzzy yet. It seems like they could have a big part to play in the resolution of the War of Light... the ability to absorb and reproduce the powers of the other corps is a pretty heavy one. The drawback would seem to be that they're close to one end of the spectrum, and thus more susceptible to being controlled by their power than the more 'centered' colors.

All in all, I'm looking forward to this in a big way. I know Geoff Johns has his critics--though I'm not one of them--but I'm also a GL fan from way back, and with the first two chapters of this 'trilogy' (Rebirth and The Sinestro Corps War) I think John's is two for two. So my hopes are high for the third chapter.

--g

[Admiral_Young]

The Hardcover I'm guessing won't be out until at least late March or April if Blackest Night is on schedule and there are no delays. It's eight issues and the first came out today so doing a quick count the final issue should be out sometime Feburary 2010 and it is normally a couple months before DC releases their major Hardcovers. Final Crisis didn't come out until last month and it ended I think in a few months ago. We'll have a good ten months I'd guess before it comes out which sucks.

[Mr Light]

Ugh, I really cannot afford to throw away 40 bucks getting this right now...

[StarTrek1701]

I'll wait till I can read it for free in my local Borders LOL!

[Bad Bishop]

In order to understand Blackest Night, what should we have read? For example, understanding Final Crisis required knowledge of 52 and Countdown.

[Mr Light]

Blackest Night is part three of a trilogy. Part one was Green Lantern Rebirth. Part two was the Sinestro Corps War. And then basically every issue of GL and GLC since then has been introducing the various Corps. I understand the most recent arcs on both titles were the most relevant (GL Agent Orange, GLC Emerald Eclipse). As for the larger DCU, you just need to know who's died in the past five years I guess.

[Bad Bishop]

Mr Light wrote:

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Blackest Night is part three of a trilogy. Part one was Green Lantern Rebirth. Part two was the Sinestro Corps War. And then basically every issue of GL and GLC since then has been introducing the various Corps. I understand the most recent arcs on both titles were the most relevant (GL Agent Orange, GLC Emerald Eclipse). As for the larger DCU, you just need to know who's died in the past five years I guess.

Thanks. I guess I have a homework assignment now--at least a year's worth of Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps stories. I have most of the Green Lantern issues, but few of the Green Lantern Corps issues. I don't follow the latter title.

DC must believe there's no such thing as "event fatigue."

[Admiral_Young]

Geoff has also said as recently as a couple of weeks ago that you don't need to read the Blackest Night tie-ins to read and undersand Blackest Night. Yes its part of a larger story, being the trilogy that Mr. Light wrote about but it's not like Final Crisis where you have to gobble up half a dozen other books to get what's going on. The Blackest Night prelude is pretty much what was posted above as well. They're all coming out in Hardcover by the end of the fall/year.