Blackest Night Quick Hits – A quick look into the Blackest Night tie-ins and cross overs.

Blackest Night has begun…

Green Lantern Corps #39

It all gets pretty real for the GL Corps in this issue as the black rings find their way to Oa and the crypt of the fallen Lanterns.

We see the same thing we have been seeing in every issue of Blackest Night so far… The Green Lanterns are nowhere near strong enough to fight the Black Lanterns.  The black rings rip through the shields and constructs as if they were melting butter.  It all comes to a head when the fallen Corps rise and we realize that there is an army forming that is more powerful than anything we have seen before in the DCU and it’s made up of some of the best soldiers to ever enter the field of battle.

Oh, and Kyle Rayners dead ex fiancé comes back from the dead.  I would say things are looking up but that would be a lie.

Green Lantern #44 & #45

It begins with the rise of the Martian Manhunter.  I know what you’re thinking… “Thank God… we are saved!”  You would be wrong.  Don’t forget… a person coming back from the dead, at this time, is not a good thing.

It’s the beginning of the fight between Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, and J’onn J’onzz and let me tell ya… it’s a humdinger.

Like all the other battles with a Black Lantern, this one doesn’t go well.  With all their power the two heroes can’t even slow down the Zombie Manhunter.

While the fight continues we get to see Black Ring swarms closing in on some very important places in the DCU… the home worlds of the other Corps.

The issue ends with John Stewart sitting on a chunk of rock in space.  There are lots of chucks of rocks where he’s at as this is the location of a planet that he is responsible for it’s destruction.  What’s left of the planet Xanshi is hit with a swarm of black rings and the call for it to rise is a powerful image that had me saying, “oh, crap…”

Issue #45 opens with the resurrected planet.  Let me tell you, I dig that so much it hurts.

The rest of the issue is a battle between the Star Sapphires and the Sinestro Corps.  Sinestro and Carol Ferris yell at each other and punch each other in the face and that’s all well and good.  It’s when, in the middle of the fight, Abin Sur arrives with a group of Black Lanterns shows up that it finally comes to a head.

We then get shown two really cool things.  A swarm of black rings hovers above the home of the Blue Lanterns awaiting death so that they may claim more flesh and the really cool moment when the rings raise the corpses of the victims of Agent Orange.

Once again, “Oh, crap…”

Blackest Night: Titans #1

It’s Heroes Day and the Titans have gathered to mourn the loss of the fallen team members.  Garth and Cyborg have a few words about the statue dedicated to Terra.  There is a little bad blood there as she did almost help murder the whole team.  Garth thinks she could have been helped and that there was a hero’s heart somewhere inside her.

Talk of other fallen loved ones continues through out the book and soon the dead begin to rise and we are greeted with a risen Terra and a very ghostly image of Donna Tory’s dead baby… creepy.

In the other story of the book the newer versions of Hawk and Dove must face the risen Hank Hall in a fight to the death.  It doesn’t look like the new Hawk is making it out of this one…

I still love the image of the black ring hovering over the grave of the original Dove and not being able to claim him.  Don Hall of Earth is at peace…

Blackest Night: Batman #1

I bet you thought the rings would bring back the fallen Bruce Wayne in this story.  It’s not going to happen here, folks.  There ate other people crawling from the grave in this book.

Our new Batman and Robin discover that the Grayson’s and Drake’s have returned to see how their sons have grown up… and to make sure they stop growing all together.

Deadman helps our heroes figure out what exactly is going on but they don’t have time to do anything about it because a big group of dead villains have also been given a second chance and they are now on the hunt for the Caped Crusader.

The scary part about this story is that we have seen some of the most powerful heroes of the DCU stand up to the power of the Black Lanterns and have absolutely no luck at all.  Now we have mere humans heading into the battle.

They are so dead.

Blackest Night: Superman #1

Kal-L of Earth 2 is commanded to rise and he is all too happy to comply.  I know for a fact that this isn’t going to end well.

Kal-L heads to Smallville and begins to kill lots of people in a way that doesn’t alert the visiting Superman.

Eventually Superman and Connor meet up with Kal-L and the sucky part of this meeting is that it’s over the grave of Jonathan Kent.  A fight ensues and, as you can guess, Superman and Connor have no luck at all at stopping the Earth 2 Superman.

A risen Earth 2 Lois Lane kidnaps Martha Kent and the book ends with a stand off on Smallville’s main street between Earth 2 Superman and Lois Lane and our Superman and Connor Kent.  What’s at stake?  The future of Jonathan and Martha Kent.

The really cool thing about this issue is that we see a lot of the POV of the Black Lanterns.  Now, we’ve seen this shown in other Blackest Night books but not in this way.  Every time we see a shot from the BL POV we see the emotion of the person they are up against.  If they are facing off against a Green Lantern, they glow green with will power, a Sinestro Corps member glows yellow with fear, and so on and so forth.  When Earth 2 Superman looks at our Superman he sees the entire spectrum in one person.  It goes back and forth depending on the situation but it’s still the first time we have seen all in one and I think that’s pretty awesome.

Also in this book, as if we didn’t have enough to deal with, we get the rise of Zor-El… Supergirl’s recently murdered father.

ALL IN ALL –

So far the first group of tie-ins and crossovers are a success and it keeps the Blackest Night books at the top of my reading list each and every week.