BLACKEST NIGHT: Die!

After Blackest Night's frustratingly repetitive and narratively static first half, the second half is shaping up to be something else entirely--earlier this month with the spectacular and dynamic Green Lantern Corps #42, and now this week with Green Lantern #48 and Blackest Night #5.

Green Lantern 48 is basically dedicated to resolving one crucial plot point--the consolidation of the leaders of the various colored lantern corps into a united front against the Black Lanterns. Really, it's not like there's any serious question whether that'll happen. Of course it will. But in showing how that happens, Johns does a decent job of illustrating all the personalities through their clashes and negotiations. I came into this crossover unfamiliar with any of these characters except Hal Jordan, and came away from this issue feeling that a little life had been breathed into them for me. I have to admit, considering that there was supposed to be a WAR of Light on, some of the turnarounds and compromises that made the coalition possible seemed rushed and not entirely convincing, but at this point, I'll roll with anything that gets the story moving. And the issue does end with a check-mark in the box. Whatever developments depend on the forming of this coalition may now proceed.

And that leads straight into Blackest Night 5. Since I was actually able to pick this up and squeeze a reading in first thing Wednesday morning, I was hoping to get one of the earliest reviews up on the internets. Aside from the general busyness with other stuff that nixed that plan, one reason I didn't rush online to post my first impression was that I honestly didn't trust it. More seemed to happen in this issue than in the first four put together, but I wanted to test that with a closer reading. Something can seem startling and intense in the moment, but turn out not to be so game-changing or significant when considered more in context. By the last page, I was so stunned that I didn't feel ready to distinguish sound and fury from genuine plot development.

All right, then . . . it turns out that, yes, a whole hell of a fuckload of stuff really does happen in this issue.

Way back in early September, I complained,

The heroes are still on the defensive, still trying to cope in an ad hoc fashion that's starting to make the story feel not so much sweeping as scattershot. . . . I'm ready for some new development, and specifically I'd like to see this start to move in a more cohesive direction, where all these pocket skirmishes coalesce into a war.

Amazingly, it's taken this long for that to happen, but finally in this issue, it happens in a huge way, all at once. We've got all the major Black Lantern players in Coast City--Nekron, Scar, Black Hand, and the Black Lantern itself. The heavy-hitters of the DCU show up united to attack them in one splash page, and then the Lantern all-star team assembled in GL 48 swoops in on a double-page spread. The combined effect of all this is, by itself, a seismic sea-change in the story's direction and momentum, but it's only the beginning.

Scar's obliteration quite surprised me. She has been such a central and powerful figure in the rise of the Black Lanterns, I never would have imagined she'd go out on an opening salvo like that. Frankly, I have mixed feelings about this development. On the one hand, it helps mark the shift to a new phase of the story where stuff that actually matters starts to happen, and Lord knows we've all been waiting for that for months on end, so in that sense it's welcome. On the other hand, with her creepy visage, disgusting black vomitus, and general air of being supernaturally Evil, she functioned as one of the most effective figures of horror in the whole event, and did much of the heavy lifting in that regard. In that sense, I find her early departure extremely unwelcome.

It's unclear how successful the Flashes were in freeing the Guardians from their weird imprisonment, or what effect Scar's death would have on that, since she seemed to be the one maintaining it, but obviously that would be a huge development. Hopefully we'll learn more on this point next issue.

Another massive development: the Lanterns don't fuck around, but get right down to business, aiming all their rings at the Black Lantern to destroy it. This moment has been predicted--and mercilessly derided--almost since the crossover began. Here's a representative rant on a DC message board thread about BL #3:

Gawd. I KNEW this crap was going end up with a Care Bear stare. They all do...every event.

I'm tired of it and held out hope for otherwise. I still do, but this is the last time for me if it ends up "by your powers combined." No more event crossovers for me if this happens. Two-page spread, as many characters as you can force into them pretending to be art all pointing their weapons or whatever blasting towards some giant bad guy with his arms up shouting "Ahhhh!" That is like every event crossover now. Same story over and over. Sinestro War was great with the Hal-Kyle vs. Sinestro all powerless...even though the aforementioned scene was happening with SBP and the Anti-Monitor. FC couldn't avoid it with LO3W. Same with Crisis, ZH and IC. GL: Rebirth had it and you KNOW Flash: Rebirth will but speedster-style. Friggin Bloodlines, Armageddon, OWAW, Terror of Trigon, Genesis. All the same story.

In Carol's offhand line about a "Saturday morning cartoon," Johns acknowledges the snark with a grace and good humor that really won me over. He also gently rebukes it here, saying in effect, "Screw you guys--this shit's fun and awesome, and if you're too 'cool' to enjoy it, well, I'm sorry for ya." I think he actually went a little overboard with the self-deprecation on this point, throwing around terms like "Rainbow Rodeo" and the like more than was necessary to establish that he understands how silly this might look to non-fans, but loves it anyway and doesn't care what haters think.

Then, when the "Care Bear Stare" not only doesn't work, but apparently has the opposite effect the Lanterns intended and expected, Johns says, in effect, "Guess what, bitches?--it's not gonna be that easy or predictable." Good for him.

If that sounds like a lot for one issue already, it is. But then we get the detonation of a whole series of shocks centered around Batman. Everyone's been wondering what's up with Bruce Wayne and that skull Black Hand has been carrying around. Well, the bad guys conjure a Black Lantern Batman, whom Nekron refers to as "Bruce Wayne", complete with scare quotes! WTF?!? The conjuration is only temporary, which is yet another shock; after "Bruce Wayne" has served his purpose, Nekron dismisses him, and he returns to skull form in a burst of black goo. But the purpose he serves is the real standout gut-punch of the issue.

In an extraordinary two-page spread, across the top, Nekron tersely delivers what sounds like it may well be some of the most consequential exposition in the history of the DCU (longtime DC readers can correct me if I'm wrong about that), and hints at even bigger, more explosive secrets. Spectacularly in the center, Black Lantern Batman vomits out a series of black rings. Across the bottom of the pages, those rings attach themselves to the heroes who have "escaped" death, including such notables as Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Arrow. This last sequence reproduces a rhythm all the preceding issues and tie-ins have absolutely drummed into our heads, in which characters are named and commanded to "Rise!" That conditioned expectation makes it all the sicker when Nekron puts a nasty twist on the formula, reclaiming these heroes with a single word: "Die!"

Yeah. Ho. Lee. Shit. I think we have an event, here.

It's hard not to react to this issue that way, and that does indeed seem to be most reviewers' reaction, but the very awesomeness of this issue raises problematic questions about the pacing of the whole thing up to now. Is it really that great to spend the whole first half spinning wheels, and then launch from zero to a thousand in the first installment past the midway point? A lot of these developments do seem to need to happen all together in a relatively narrow window of time, but did we really need to wait this long for them? I have a hunch that collection in a trade is going to smooth that out somewhat. It's one thing to savor a slow buildup in one sitting, and another thing entirely to wait for something to happen while seasons change from summer to autumn to winter.