DC Comics Review: Blackest Night #1 - Dave’s Take

Rating: *** 1/2*

I’m not a huge Green Lantern fan.  As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I was a Marvel Zombie for a long time.  Even when I started reading DC Comics it was just Batman and nothing else.  It wasn’t until the early 90s with the Death of Superman that I started reading other DC books.  For the majority of the time I’ve been reading DC, Kyle Rayner was the Green Lantern, not Hal Jordan.  I liked Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern: Reborn, but I wasn’t crazy about his regular ongoing work on the new GL title.  I can appreciate why many people like it and the art has been amazing, but I preferred other titles. 

I liked the Sinestro Corps storyline and I’ve been reading the lead up to this month’s big event: Blackest Night.  This first issue was very good.  The GL issues have been a bit hard for me to follow because I know very little about GL history and its been hard to connect with these characters.  I also don’t really understand all of the multicolor lantern corps that are popping up and what is the purpose of the Black Lantern Corps which at the center of this storyline the Blackest Night.  All I know and understand is whoever or whatever is behind all this is recruiting the bodies of deceased super-heroes and super-villains.  The Black Hand who is a long standing GL villain, killed himself only to be resurrected as a Black Lantern and he’s become the unofficial squad leader of the corps.

Our story begins on the anniversary of Superman’s “death”.  When it was believed that Superman was dead, the government declared it a day of national mourning.  When he was resurrected, the day became a day to honor the deceased super-heroes who’ve fallen in the line of duty.  In Coast City, the day takes a special meaning as they honor the dead civilians who died at the hands of Mongul and the Cyborg Superman. 

In the beginning of the issue we see Black Hand unearthing Bruce Wayne’s body and talking to his skull.  In a perverse homage to Hamlet, Black Hand speaks and then licks Bruce’s skull and says that he is connected to them all.  Does Black Hand know that Bruce is really alive? 

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