BLACKEST NIGHT: The Great Darkness Saga, Pt. 8

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
  
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This is my last post in this series. After this, I'm done. Oh, I'll continue with coverage of Blackest Night (commencing, probably, tomorrow, when two new installments hit the stands), but my comparison of Blackest Night and Great Darkness Saga concludes here.

The main basis for this comparison has been the fact that both are big-event space-operatic superhero horror stories.

Now, I've discussed the horror of BN and how it's achieved (or not) here, here, and here. GDS turns out to be a curious case in this regard. Unlike BN, which so clearly is going for a zombie effect (whatever more Black Lanterns might be, their design and conception is indisputably rooted in the zombie), GDS might very well not have had a horror angle. Neither Darkseid nor his minions bear so much resemblance to any common monster that they had to be presented in that light. In fact, strictly speaking, they aren't presented as monsters at all. Nevertheless, there is a palpable sense of horror pulsing through the Great Darkness Saga. Where does it come from?

Previously, I pointed out how much of GDS's sense of cosmic scale comes down to the startlingly simple device of an occasional generic planetscape establishing shot. Well, for the most part, the horror is rooted in something just as simple: characters occasionally expressing their horror in reaction shots and dialogue. This begins toward the end of Legion of Super-Heroes #290, in an exchange between Shadow Lass and Superboy (!):

The terms they use here--"strange feeling," "goosepimply all over," "thoroughly spooked"--are significant. Neither is saying they were worried they might get beat up or anything like that. Neither is confessing to feeling physically intimidated. What they're saying is that something strikes them as uncanny about the Servants.

This kind of fear, though often coupled with physical intimidation (for example, werewolves are scary both because they're supernatural and because of their huge, toothy maws) is entirely independent of it. The uncanny is so independent of outward characteristics, in fact, that the dread it provokes is often the only way to discern it. In fiction, when characters, especially multiple characters, exhibit or express such feelings toward an object, no matter how harmless it might otherwise seem, that usually suffices to establish the object as uncanny. If I'm watching a movie, and everyone who comes in contact with a table (for example) recoils or acts shivery or complains of an eerie feeling or anything like that, of course I'm going to think, "That table must be cursed or haunted or something."

Because this superstitious dread of the uncanny is so different from fear of getting beat up, it's plausible for Superboy to confess to such a feeling about another superpowered character. Because the uncanny is so occult, and so often discernible only through such feelings, Superboy's (presumably accurate, honest, and reliable) confession goes a long way toward establishing that character as uncanny.

It goes a long way toward making us, the readers, feel that way, too. The power of fearful reaction shots in horror movies and comics is that fear can be contagious. Sometimes, seeing someone else's expression of fear can make us afraid, as well. Sometimes, this can be dominoed, by which I mean, one character's expression of fear can be reinforced by other characters responding to that with their own expressions of fear. At the bottom of the page from which the panels above are taken, Superboy and Shadow Lass notice that Computo, a very powerful villain who'd previously been captured and secured in a kind of suspended animation, reacts to the presence of the Servant with unusual brain activity:

So Computo's fearful reaction of having a nightmare only scares Superboy and Shadow Lass all the more!

Similarly, at one point, Dream Girl has a precognitive vision that's clearly frightening to her. Star Boy, in turn, responds with alarm to her fear, driving it home for us:

There's some variation in the expressions of fear sprinkled throughout GDS. Mon El, one of the most established and most powerful Legionnaires (in a league with Superboy), matter-of-factly admits to being scared:

Invisible Kid, a newer and less powerful member, is shown quaking and gibbering on his knees, almost in a fetal position--with a white streak through his hair:

This reaction, though pretty drastic, doesn't completely undermine Invisible Kid's heroism. He recovers, and acquits himself admirably for the rest of the event. A spear-carrier prison guard, however, needn't have his heroism preserved, and can be shown in a full-on supine screaming panic:

Mordru, like Computo, is an extraordinarily powerful Legion villain, scary in his own right, so showing him all-but-infantilized by fear carries a lot of weight:

Especially noteworthy are Brainiac's somber words just before the Big Reveal:

And that right there is where most of the sense of horror comes from in the Great Darkness Saga. If this seems too simple or crude, most of the horror in Blair Witch Project has essentially the same basis--those piles of rocks and bundles of twigs wouldn't be scary if the characters didn't react to them as such.

Coming back to Blackest Night, I complained about Flash and Hal Jordan's non-horrified reactions to Black Lantern Martian Manhunter in Green Lantern #44 (and no, jadedness is no excuse), but the event is young, and this, from BN: Superman #1 looks like a promising step in the right direction:

Yeah, that's more like it.

And that wraps up my series comparing Blackest Night with the Great Darkness Saga. I hope you've enjoyed it! Tomorrow I hope to review BN: Batman #2, Green Lantern Corps #40, and a few other issues I haven't gotten to yet. Stay tuned, and stay groovy!