BLACKEST NIGHT: Concluding Overview, Pt. 4: New Reader Friendliness

Before moving on from Charles Hatfield's excellent review of Blackest Night 1-8, I'd like to address his judgment that the story is not terribly accessible to new readers:

It’s axiomatic by now that DC and Marvel have given up on casual readers. Hell, that was true twenty-odd years ago. The vast narratives of the DC Universe and Marvel Universe not only allow for, they’ve practically come to revolve around line-wide crossovers like these, mega-events that presuppose readers steeped in company lore and conversant with the latest involutions in continuity. . . . [A]ll the emotional cues are dependent on obsessive reader investment in the DCU characters, specifically the ways those characters have been “developed” or ravaged in other recent event series. Attempts at pathos depend on minute knowledge of the Identity Crisis/Infinite Crisis/Final Crisis cycle of crossovers, and, more broadly, on the literal-minded, demythologizing, and reductive treatment of the heroes that recent DC books have trafficked in so heavily, a kind of treatment that has rendered longtime favorites nigh-unrecognizable.

I came to Blackest Night as a new DC reader, for all practical purposes, since I hadn't read any of the crossovers mentioned by Hatfield here, and hadn't regularly followed Green Lantern or really any titles since I dropped New Teen Titans after it transitioned many years ago to Direct Market only. Yeah, I read the Death of Superman graphic novel, and a smattering of various Batman GNs, none of which had much of anything to do with broader DCU continuity, and that's about it. So "new reader friendliness" was a question and concern for me.

Having read my way through the whole event, I'd say Hatfield vastly overestimates how inaccessible the main story would be to new readers, for essentially the same reason he overstates its incoherence and dependence on a diffuse array of tie-ins, and that is--he's only read the limited series. Simply on that basis, he can't ascertain much more than that the limited series doesn't present a complete story by itself; he can only speculate how much or little other material is needed to fill the gaps and tie off the dangling threads, and how satisfyingly the other material accomplishes that. As I argued last post, though, the limited series provides one half of a whole, coherent, self-contained story, and Green Lantern 43-52 provide the other half. Deplore, if you're so inclined, the fact that the limited series doesn't stand entirely on its own, but the fact remains that the Green Lantern issues do complete it. Coming back to the question at hand, since Hatfield only has an incomplete story before him, he's really just making a guess (an educated and reasonable one, to be sure) about what prior knowledge of the DCU is necessary to understand it or find it emotionally engaging.

This question is actually the first one I addressed after reading the first issue, and here's what I had to say about it:

Is it as "new reader friendly" as so many longtime hardcore fans assume? Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that it's not confusing. Partly, that could be because the exposition those fans find so annoying does its work so well, but I suspect it has more to do with the simplicity of the premise--something in the universe is raising all the dead superheroes as evil zombies. Storywise, all the tangled continuity and soap operatics surrounding how these characters died is far less relevant than the simple fact that they're dead and being horrifically reanimated. I'm aware of how sketchy my understanding is on many points, but reading through these issues, I never feel lost, or like I have no idea what's going on.

There is a sense in which this isn't so "new reader friendly," however. While it doesn't presuppose much knowledge of prior continuity, it does sort of presuppose a history of emotional attachment to these characters. The climax of BN #1 is a gruesome murder of two characters by reanimated zombie versions of two other characters. From what I can tell, having read a ton of reviews, this scene was a disturbing gut-punch for many longtime fans, in a way that it simply wasn't for me and probably couldn't be for any new reader. It's not that I didn't grasp what was going on--I didn't need a wikipedia article to help me sort out backstory or anything. And really, I don't even think it would help much if I ran out and bought a relevant graphic novel or two. Much of the emotional whammy in this scene, the horror and tragedy, depends on viewing these characters as old friends. It's funny--I think I can tell pretty exactly what emotional response is being aimed for in each such scene, and I can well imagine how I'd feel it if I were a longtime fan, but I'm not, and so I don't actually feel it. Probably the most solid take on the matter I've seen is in this IGN review:

This issue succeeds best in its more intimate character moments. Johns writes a scene between Hal and Barry that more effectively communicated Barry's disconnect from the modern world than all three issues of Flash: Rebirth have managed to do collectively. The dynamic between Hawkman and Hawkgirl, though plenty familiar from Johns' past work, is poignant, and only becomes more so as the issue reaches its climax. In all honesty, my first instinct when reading this issue was to scoff at some of this expository material as a needless stall for time, but that isn't really fair to what Johns is trying to do here. The problem with most event books is that they're all pizazz and no heart. Johns spends time making us care for his heroes now so that we'll feel right there with them when the lights go out. I do worry that new readers won't feel quite the same attachment to some of these characters even by issue's end. Johns heavily references DC continuity of the past five years. All I can say is that I greatly approve of his character work in this issue, and I think the majority of readers will too.

Yeah, these character moments were a bit opaque to me, but I could tell the creative team was doing what it could to minimize that. Also, I think it's entirely reasonable for fans to want the kind of poignant jolts that presuppose and reward a long, committed acquaintance with the characters, so I can't begrudge them that.

In fairness to Hatfield, here's one instance where he was absolutely right--the murder of the Hawks by the Black Lantern Dibneys certainly did presuppose familiarity with Identity Crisis for much of its emotional punch, and in fact the prominence of the Atom as a major player in Blackest Night gives IC a strong and continuing relevance for the event.

On the other hand, about halfway through BN, I decided to check out Final Crisis, and it shed no light whatsoever on anything, as far as I could see. Perhaps it could be argued that one needs to have read FC to know what happened to Bruce Wayne, but I don't think it really helps--even those who saw Batman get zapped by Darkseid's Omega Effect aren't in that much better a position to understand what's up with that "Bruce Wayne" skull Black Hand is running around with, or what the fuck exactly happens when Nekron summons up and then dismisses a Black Lantern "Bruce Wayne" in one of the most spectacular and cryptically dramatic moments in the story.

Even where Identity Crisis is concerned, though familiarity with it certainly would have helped, my lack of familiarity with it didn't by any means prove in the end to be a crippling impediment to my understanding or enjoyment of Blackest Night. In fact, I'd put it this way: precisely because of its ongoing relevance, as a matter of course, through seeing the role it played in context, I was able to absorb or infer what I needed to know about it, including its emotional impact on the characters, to the point that the allusions eventually served as effective cues to my own emotional responses.

And that speaks to the broader point I raised, that many of the character moments and emotional cues in the first issue seemed to depend on "viewing these characters as old friends," which is also pretty much Hatfield's point when he says, "the emotional cues are dependent on obsessive reader investment in the DCU characters." Sean T. Collins agreed with the point at the time I made it, and elaborated:

[H]e articulates a problem with serialized superhero comics that not even Jim Shooter-style "new-reader friendliness" can overcome, namely that even if a superhero comic uses exposition to provide you with all the information you need to make sense it, it still "presuppose[s] a history of emotional attachment to these characters" to connect with it. And frankly there's no more of a way around that than there would be to make latecomers to The Sopranos instantly connect with the plight of Christopher Moltisanti. It's just the nature of long-form serialized storytelling.

Having come out the other end of Blackest Night, however, I would heavily qualify that claim, just shy of retracting it altogether. The fact is, almost all popular narrative, going back centuries and even millenia to oral storytelling traditions, begins in medias res. A crossover event like Blackest Night, as a point of entry into a long-running continuity like the DCU, can be structured and managed in such a way that new readers are able to experience it much as they would any novel or movie. I'm going to have a lot to say that's very critical of Geoff Johns's writing, but in this regard, I think he did a much better job than anyone had a right to expect of making a very continuity-heavy story nevertheless quite emotionally accessible and engaging to new readers like myself.

As I mention above, the simple and familiar (some might say cliche) high concept of a DCU zombie apocalypse that gets the ball rolling goes a long way toward opening the story up to new readers. And then, as I also mention, there's a certain degree to which simply continuing on with any halfway decent story usually helps bring a reader up to speed with what she needs to know, and in the course of that story the reader will tend to grow emotionally involved with the characters as a matter of course.

But Johns deserves credit for a few other canny choices that make a dramatic difference. First, he pairs Hal Jordan with Barry Allen as the main heroes of the event. As a long-absent and recently-returned character who hasn't fully caught up yet with what's been going on in the DCU, Barry Allen makes a great in-story proxy for new readers. Complementing that casting choice, Johns fills one key supporting role with Mera, who I'm given to understand came into the event as a fairly undeveloped lower-tier character--which puts old and new readers alike on a somewhat similar footing as we get to know her and watch her develop and grow in stature and significance. The way she blossomed over her arc was as fresh and exciting for a longtime, hardcore DC fan like Rokk as it was for me:

However, what has impressed me the most about Johns' character work in Blackest Night has been the surprisingly good handling of Mera's character. I strongly questioned Johns' heavy use of Mera at the beginning of Blackest Night. I have always viewed Mera as a rather lame character. Johns has pulled off the impossible and actually made me a big fan of Mera's character. I am thrilled that Johns has used Blackest Night as an opportunity to breathe life into a lower tier character like Mera.

I dig the edge that Johns has given Mera's character. However, Johns has not made Mera just a stereotypical and one-dimensional angry brawler. Instead, Johns has made Mera rather fascinating by giving her character some depth by showing the reader the personal sorrow and conflict that resides beneath the more overt rage and anger. Personally, I thought letting Mera go toe-to-toe with Wonder Woman was a brilliant idea. It immediately elevated Mera's character into a force to be reckoned with.

If I understand correctly, the principal villains of Black Hand and Nekron, too, are elevated by Johns here out of relative obscurity. With these two, he employs another technique at which he seems quite adept--recontextualizing a character's backstory in a way that delivers all the information new readers need, yet tweaks it and expands upon it enough to make it of fresh interest for old readers. Green Lantern #43 is essentially a reintroduction/rebooting of Black Hand, which not only entertained and satisfied me as a new reader, but garnered tremendous acclaim from longtime fans, as I noted at the time:

All I can say is, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that the exposition in this exposition-heavy issue comes as news to fans as well as newbies, because it's nice to hear such a helpful and enjoyable (if disturbing) issue receive plaudits rather than excoriations:

• CBR
• Bureau 42
• Comics and . . .
• ComicList
• Major Spoilers

I wouldn't say much of anything different from the reviews above; it just so happens that the new twists on the Black Hand character detailed in this issue put me on the same footing (or at least in the same Space Sector) as longtime fans. That should go in the Event-Crossover Writer's Handbook: "When bringing new readers up to speed, twist the info in a way that adds something for longtime fans." The upshot is, I get fully introduced to the event's truly creepy major villain, and I don't have to listen to fans complain about me (the "new reader") when I read their reviews to see if I missed anything important.

At first glance, Johns's whole "emotional spectrum" thing might seem tacky and simplistic, but he uses it to very good characterizing effect as members of different lantern corps are able to see through each other and lay bare lost or repressed emotions in each other that interestingly inflect their memories and backstories--the love that Carol Ferris discovers in Sinestro, the hope that Saint Walker rekindles in Atrocitus, the bitterness Larfleeze confesses at having been misled and manipulated by the Guardians. Every such revelation conveys, in a relatively natural, organic manner, a blending of new and old information that ideally clues new readers in on what they need to know while also surprising old readers, or at least not boring them.

In the end, I'd have to say Johns sets the stage for new readers as well as anyone could realistically hope for, then does a truly terrific job of making it possible for them to catch up through his dramatization, recontextualization, and occasionally just exposition of necessary backstory. As a new reader, I did feel at first that I was missing out on some of the emotional experience enjoyed by more longtime readers, but that sense faded as I kept reading, until I felt as emotionally engaged by Blackest Night as I would from the midpoint on in any standalone novel or movie. That's not necessarily to say I would recommend Blackest Night to new readers (or anyone), but I certainly wouldn't recommend they stay away from it because it's not "new reader friendly."