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Larfreeze's official Oath is "Mine" but the one stated in the wiki article posted I believe was tweeted or suggested by Geoff earlier in the year. I would agree that "Blackest Night" didn't turn out to be as epic or live up to the hype as one would expect. I would suggest picking up the Green Lantern Blackest Night trades since the nitty, gritty story stuff takes place there while the main story takes place in the main Blackest Night trade. It is meant to be read by it's self by a casual fan.
If the OP is fine with getting the trades (or hardcovers) then I would really recommend doing it using this Amazon Green Lantern List that I keep referring to for my Green Lantern fix. It has Green Lantern (follows Hal Jordan) and Green Lantern Corps (follows Kyle, Guy and Jon ) trades in publishing order along with the "stand-alone" titles that are based on the Green Lantern storylines - (Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night etc.).
I would really recommend going back and following it from the beginning. While I don't think Geoff Johns is very talented in writing *characters* (I find Hal generally very unlikable for some reason), I think he is very innovative in terms of plots and also decompressing things in such a way that you don't lose interest in it (sometimes other events can get too decompressed - which leads to it becoming boring).
Edit - The list isn't mine - but it's kept updated. And I have used it for a year or more in keeping up with what I need to request from my friendly neighborhood library based on the information in that list. I hope you find that list useful too.
All of the "Blackest Night" trades pretty much run at the same time as the main BN mini-series. Though some of the one shots and minis do take place at the end (Wonder Woman, Flash, Hawkman & Atom). Actually come to think of it all those one shots of canceled series took place at a month gap in the series I think between 5 and 6. BN: Green Lantern and BN: Green Lantern Corps are the most important ones and directly impact the main series.
So basically I'd read BN and GL and GLC all at the same time one issue at a time (with BN first), then the rest I would probably hold off on until you finish those for fear of spoilers. I dunno if those tie-in trades will post spoiler warnings don't read this issue before BN#7 or anything like that.
The lead-ins to BN were
GL: Secret Origin > Rage Red Lanterns > Agent Orange > BN
GLC: Ring Quest > Sins Star Sapphires > Emerald Eclipse > BN
Looking at that list makes me realize I am never gonna collect these; good Christ, that must be about $150 there, and I've read a lot about the war of light stuff that's been going on, and so much about it rubs me the wrong way,* that my only desire to read-read it is confirm my prejudices.
Handy spoiler tag so no one has to see me bitch about Geoff Johns like I always do, unless they want to.*
Green Lantern features:
omnipresent Hal Jordan knobslobbery--which I know is there, because it's in Sinestro Corps, and really it's in every comic Geoff Johns has ever written since 2005, even the ones that aren't actually about Hal Jordan;
ridiculous sexism regarding the Star Sapphires;
the goofy, Silver Age-bullshitty arbitariness of an "Emotional Spectrum" that happens to map to specifically Western Human conceptions of visible color--while I know good and well that Geoff Johns has absolutely read Alan Moore's "In Blackest Night," probably five or six hundred times, I'm convinced he somehow managed to completely miss its point; I'm less aware of whether he's ever seen Donnie Darko, although someone should show him the part where Donnie tells Ms. Farmer to shove the Love-Fear Spectrum up her ass, as this might be instructive;
a triumphant, ridiculous human exceptionalism that makes Star Trek look like Hitchhiker's Guide, manifested both in the form of our many, many male American Green Lanterns (and issue in itself), and in quasi-Creationist dookie, in that sapient life originated on Earth... somehow;
a Green Lantern mythos as envisioned by a writer once described as "a comic book writer who has never read anything but comic books" (but, boy, he sure has read a lot of comic books) and also likened, when compared to fellow DC superstar Grant Morrison, to "a Grant Morrison character." I can only assume they meant Ned Slade;
the Black Lantern concept, which as someone upthread mentioned is the same Goddamn thing happening over and over, in increasingly unbelievable ways, and is awful to begin with;
what seems to be generally dour tone, vomiting Red Lantern cats notwithstanding.
I dunno. I sound like I've made a final judgment on those (okay--on Geoff Johns' penchant for Hallatio, I certainly have, but that's through actual experience--and that's no spoiler), but I'd like to keep an open mind. The contemporary Green Lantern mythos does, I admit, sound like it's a groovy, goofy cosmic epic, but while SCW was okay, it wasn't great, and it only seems like it's gotten worse, those objections keep me wary, and away.
You really just need to read the main Blackest Night mini-series to get the main story. For the immediately important stuff you can get GL:BN and GLC:BN. The rest of them, all the endless tie-ins, are really superfluous. It's basically "random old character comes back from dead attacks hero" and doesn't impact the story directly.
As for the previous GL and GLC trades that introduce the corps, you don't need them, but they're very good reads.
Eternium is located at the "Exact Center of the Universe" although the Hall of Eternity is located ten miles to the west of the exact center of the universe.
You really just need to read the main Blackest Night mini-series to get the main story. For the immediately important stuff you can get GL:BN and GLC:BN. The rest of them, all the endless tie-ins, are really superfluous. It's basically "random old character comes back from dead attacks hero" and doesn't impact the story directly.
As for the previous GL and GLC trades that introduce the corps, you don't need them, but they're very good reads.
I think if you're getting the trades, then at the very least you will need 3 - the Blackest Night trade, the GL: Blackest Night trade and the GLC:Blackest Night. I think solely reading BN will lead a lot of questions open (and several happenings which will be "off-camera").
And Mr. Light's original recommendations of reading the lead-in trades still goes. I can't imagine jumping straight into Blackest Night without having read Agent Orange or Rage of the Red Lanterns or Sins of the Star Sapphires at the very least.
Which is pretty much how I've read everything. In general, if your library doesn't have certain items (happened to me for a few GLC trades), you can try Inter-Library-Loan too (as long as the trade was published at least 6 months back).
And Myasischev - what do you mean by Hal knobslobbery? I don't think I've come across the term... Sounds vaguely um... sexual...
Yeah I read just the BN mini-series first and while you could follow it, it would set up a fight that then happened in GL or a bunch of characters would appear from GL or GLC without much explanation.
Well it turns out that the Orange Oath that I just spoke of, was in fact fake. Whoever wrote that part of the Wiki entry (which has subsequently been removed) nicked it from a different board. Linky
Were Hal Jordan a real person, I think Geoff Johns would like to have sex with him. And I don't think Geoff Johns is even gay.
Also, "Hallatio" has a nice ring to it.
The most overt, unnecessary, and cringeworthy example (that I know of) is from Countdown to Infinite Crisis, which has Johns put in the Blue Beetle's mouth (well, his brain), the following narration:
"Hal Jordan. The Green Lantern. Long story short, he's one of the good guys. Again. Even after everything that's happened, I feel a little bit safer when he shows. Like the shadows around me aren't so dark. And that ring of his...
...Just seeing it makes me try to stand a little bit taller."
Christ. Even ignoring that the characterization of Ted Kord is about as off-model as you can get, it's still horrendous.
He rinses and repeats with Superman a page later. Part of it is just, I concede, that Geoff Johns has difficulty in writing admiration by one person to another without putting it in the most emasculating yet stentorian tones possible. He does this in Booster Gold, too. The other part is an abiding, worrying love for the DC superheroes of the Silver Age, Hal Jordan above all.
But you know, I've been rereading it, and Sinestro Corps War... all right, fine, it was really cool. At least in parts. As an Infinity Gauntlet-style cosmic showdown, it really does succeed quite well. However, SCW sounds good on paper ("Sinestro forms a murderous fascist counter-corps, lots of aliens blast each other, tons of crazy cosmic shit occurs, and Hal and Kyle punch Sinestro till he drops, but really Sin's back-up plan all along was to so traumatize the GLC as to turn them into murderous fascists themselves"--good story) while Blackest Night doesn't ("Marvel Zombies, but DC; and for some reason people manage to feel despair when their departed friends call them jerks, no matter how obvious it is that it's staged"--yuck).
Now, what I worry about is that I'm only resentful because "my" Green Lantern was preempted by his; this would make me no better, and subvert my moral high ground, and thus I must resist this explanation. Yet, honestly, I think I would barf if anyone ever genuflected to Kyle Rayner like Johns occasionally has people do with Jordan, so I really don't think it's just that.
^ You're probably not going to like the "Green Lantern" movie then since a lot of the source material was taken from Geoff's run. Without Geoff on GL or Superman I would not be the fan I am of Green Lantern. He made me pick up a Supes book for the first time in years.
See, I actually have some hopes for the film version of Jordan, because it's divorced from the context of the comics; nothing prevents me from taking Jordan seriously in a universe where Emerald Twilight never happened and Geoff Johns didn't need to invent a yellow fear bug to explain why Jordan still makes him "stand a little bit taller." He's still that brave test pilot who found a dying alien.
(But of course, the one true Green Lantern is Alan Scott.)
Likewise, a lot of Johns' ideas have merit to them. A lot of merit! Opposing lantern corps is a great idea. A war of emotions is a great idea (with a very obvious resolution, but capable of being explored in a very interesting way). But then there are just so many objectionable elements in the execution. I suspect that these elements will likely be shaken out by the realities and pressures of film production, pressures which appear to not be present in DC editorial and in the dying direct market they serve. Pressures which may compel Carol Ferris to put on some clothes, for example.
Incidentally, was it explained, and I missed it, how "Parallax" and "Ion" are at all apropos names for the concepts they represent? What's so scary about an apparent difference in position depending on line of sight; how is willpower evoked by negatively or positively charged atoms?
I mean, at least I get "the Predator."
Finally, I do kinda realize that I'm complaining about a set of comics I don't read anymore. You see--maybe it's not evident--I almost want someone to tell me I've got the wrong idea, and all the ancillary material I've read direly misrepresents how sexist, how scientifically illiterate, and how repetitive the Green Lantern saga has shaken out.
And, maybe, that Carol Ferris puts on some clothes, or, at least--here's a long shot--the issues raised by putting her in a body thong are discussed in an articulate, mature, and interesting manner in the text.
Because, it's true--there is something primally, ridiculously appealing about a rainbow beating the shit out of itself.
There was another BN hardcover title that I saw at Borders yesterday: The Black Lantern Corps. I don't know if that should be considered required reading.
Likewise, a lot of Johns' ideas have merit to them. A lot of merit! Opposing lantern corps is a great idea. A war of emotions is a great idea (with a very obvious resolution, but capable of being explored in a very interesting way). But then there are just so many objectionable elements in the execution. I suspect that these elements will likely be shaken out by the realities and pressures of film production, pressures which appear to not be present in DC editorial and in the dying direct market they serve. Pressures which may compel Carol Ferris to put on some clothes, for example.
The way I see it I give Geoff Johns high marks for plotting and making use of obscure past items to revisit them and plot things out. And I think he did a good job of seeding several things in his current GL run and then revisiting them and expanding on them a few issues down the road - like expanding on Alan Moore's story characters (innumerable Mogo doesn't socialize jokes and Bolphunga and so on) or bringing up Superboy-Prime or the Cyborg-Superman. It's a good addition and continuation to the overall mythos, imo.
Where I *think* he fails is that he doesn't make Hal Jordan either likeable or particularly heroic in a successful manner. I mean, the text might be all "Hal Jordan makes me want to stand taller" but as somebody who's been reading most of the GL issues since Rebirth, it doesn't necessarily translate to me as the reader. I have no clue as to what drives Hal to do good, except that he's a GL and that's what he has to do and there's a little bit of the when-he-was-evil affecting his current actions (unlike say Superman or Batman where their motivations are almost NEVER in doubt for me as a reader).
Incidentally, was it explained, and I missed it, how "Parallax" and "Ion" are at all apropos names for the concepts they represent? What's so scary about an apparent difference in position depending on line of sight; how is willpower evoked by negatively or positively charged atoms?
I don't think I've come across all the entity storylines as yet. Aren't these in the latest Brightest Day track? The whole Sapphire = Love is a bit mysterious to me. I guess cos I don't have enough of a pre-Rebirth background on the GL mythos (except to know the general stuff - Abin Sur, Sinestro, Guardians, Kilowog, the Oath, the doesn't-work-on-yellow bit and that Kyle somehow tookover when Hal acted all evil).
The thing is that while not all of it will be incredibly well-thought out, he has the luxury of coming up with (seemingly) cool plot ideas - like different corps, war of light, entities, white lantern (whatever that is) and so on and wait a bit to come up with an overall explanation for things.
And, maybe, that Carol Ferris puts on some clothes, or, at least--here's a long shot--the issues raised by putting her in a body thong are discussed in an articulate, mature, and interesting manner in the text.
Because, it's true--there is something primally, ridiculously appealing about a rainbow beating the shit out of itself.
Re the first, what can I say, I am partial to ze gurls in revealing costumes. So, I'll just shut up over there.
And he's made some good funnies on the rainbow stuff. Somebody told me about the Lobo one where he comments wearily to himself about the ubiquitousness of people with some kind of rings. (And with 7 corps, the number of people with rings will be 7 times more).
There was another BN hardcover title that I saw at Borders yesterday: The Black Lantern Corps. I don't know if that should be considered required reading.
They're the BN character specific mini-series. Some of them lightly tie into the main series but for the most part they're definitely skippable. So if you're interested in seeing dead characters come back to bother those people, you can leave it. They were alright for the most part but I remember finding the JSA one very forgettable (but I'm not terribly familiar with JSA).
The way I see it I give Geoff Johns high marks for plotting and making use of obscure past items to revisit them and plot things out. And I think he did a good job of seeding several things in his current GL run and then revisiting them and expanding on them a few issues down the road - like expanding on Alan Moore's story characters (innumerable Mogo doesn't socialize jokes and Bolphunga and so on) or bringing up Superboy-Prime or the Cyborg-Superman. It's a good addition and continuation to the overall mythos, imo.
True. Hank Hershaw was possibly the single most compelling character in the Sinestro Corps War. Weird.
Tangential note: was anyone else annoyed by Clark Kent of Earth-Prime calling himself "Superboy(man) Prime"? Who names themselves after their universe of origin? Kal-L didn't call himself Superman-2. I don't call myself Myasishchev A. I get that it's for branding, but it didn't need to be text. I guess it makes some sense, but given he considers himself the true Superman, why not have that be his assumed name? (Others will call him "Asshole Superman" or something similar.) Then again, at this point, he's purely a metatextual joke, which is probably kind of a shame,* so whatevs.
*Before being ruined by post-Infinite Crisis stuff, I sort of liked Superboy Prime. Or at least felt sorry for him: this dude has had his entire universe wiped out, and his reward is sitting inside a dimensional pocket for ten years (or possibly fifteen billion, I was never entirely clear on the timeframe between CoIE and IC), watching an older version of himself make out with Lois Lane while his only companionship is some ginger kid made of antimatter. It's like if you took Peter Pan, blew up Neverland and made him watch, denied him his Wendy, and still never allowed him to grow up. Wouldn't you feel like knocking some dork furry superheroine's block off after all that? Shit, that's reasonable.
Then again, I thought Alex Luthor was the actual hero of Infinite Crisis, or at least not overtly villainous till the last few pages, where the textually-avowed heroes broke his universal mixmaster and pissed him off.
Where I *think* he fails is that he doesn't make Hal Jordan either likeable or particularly heroic in a successful manner. I mean, the text might be all "Hal Jordan makes me want to stand taller" but as somebody who's been reading most of the GL issues since Rebirth, it doesn't necessarily translate to me as the reader. I have no clue as to what drives Hal to do good, except that he's a GL and that's what he has to do and there's a little bit of the when-he-was-evil affecting his current actions (unlike say Superman or Batman where their motivations are almost NEVER in doubt for me as a reader).
I managed to catch up a little bit over the past week, and while this is generally true, I'll give Johns credit where it's due: Secret Origin is really very good, and manages to make Hal likeable (even when it shouldn't--he's still a dickhead, wantonly destroying property worth more than his life, with facile justifications, and being the Cool Guy Who Doesn't Look At Explosions). I'm guessing that this is what's forming the basis of the plot of the GL film, and this is not a bad thing.
It also makes Sinestro an extremely likeable son of a bitch, too. Sinestro wound up shaking out to be about my favorite GL character, but it's weird--it's like there are two Sinestros, the dictator who is nevertheless interpersonally decent, who loves his daughter, who feels at least faintly bad about losing his friends, and who is not over-the-top sadistic, and the Evil Capital-E Sinestro, who authorizes shit like Kryb* stealing children and possessing people with giant yellow fear bugs. And I don't think they've really reconciled those two Sinestros.
*Does Peter Tomasi like Pink Floyd's The Wall? I'm guessing yes he does indeed!
I don't think I've come across all the entity storylines as yet. Aren't these in the latest Brightest Day track? The whole Sapphire = Love is a bit mysterious to me. I guess cos I don't have enough of a pre-Rebirth background on the GL mythos (except to know the general stuff - Abin Sur, Sinestro, Guardians, Kilowog, the Oath, the doesn't-work-on-yellow bit and that Kyle somehow tookover when Hal acted all evil).
Well, the yellow impurity was apparently Parallax. This is profound retconning, but I don't begrudge Johns the effort, because, yeah, yellow was always a really stupid weakness.
I mean, I see why the Guardians wanted the Lanterns to have a weakness--so they could easily kill them if they went rogue, like the Manhunters. But from a security standpoint, the Guardians should have randomly shifted the wavelength of the weakness every week. Because, honestly, I don't see how the GLC lasted thousands of years when all a villain had to do was be yellow. I mean, imagine the Sinestro Corps emerging in 1969.
The thing is that while not all of it will be incredibly well-thought out, he has the luxury of coming up with (seemingly) cool plot ideas - like different corps, war of light, entities, white lantern (whatever that is) and so on and wait a bit to come up with an overall explanation for things.
Often yes, but the ending to Blackest Night is bizarre and dumb and chauvinist and borderline offensive.
Not the Sinestro = White Lantern part. I liked that. Screw you, Jordan!
Also, now that I've read it, I can also say that Blackest Night is, in itself, a little bit badly written--not panel by panel, but scene by scene. It is very obviously a companion piece to the Green Lantern books. It's like Geoff Johns never read, say, Infinity Gauntlet, War, or Crusade, and has no idea how to structure his cosmic crossover miniseries so that all the tie-ins enrich by their presence, but do not detract by their absence.
I mention Starlin's Infinity War because that's the gold standard for how to do this: the Adam Warlock and Infinity Watch issues which tied-in with the main miniseries were brilliant expansions of scenes already in the books, and did not, by their existence, throw off the pacing of the main mini. Whereas in Blackest Night the seven Lantern Corps' representatives just... show up. Indigo-1 and Hal went to go find them and, suddenly, in like issue 5, they're just there. I'm sure that happened somewhere, but not in the BN miniseries.
Infinite Crisis suffered from this to a lesser extent as well, but seemed much more self-contained.
So, I'll just shut up over there.
), and I think Nibbler would fit that perfectly. 
