Blackest Night#1 Review

Blackest Night #1

Spoilers galore. You have been warned.

If you aren’t familiar with the DC universe and haven’t been reading Green Lantern (or at least keeping up with it) then you’ll be pretty lost as to what is going on here. I never read Blackest Night #0 so maybe that helps out, maybe not.

For instance, I know who that weirdo Guardian is that attacks the others. That’s Scar. But there’s nothing in this issue to tell you who that is or what her (that’s a female??) issue is. But man is she vicious, biting out the throat of another Guardian.

The whole thing is kind of creepy. Ralph and Sue Dibny are especially creepy. Geoff Johns does a great job of keeping their personalities somewhat intact (considering they’re zombies and evil now) but making them incredibly creepy and scary.

They do take down the Hawks too easily though, especially Hawkgirl. Spear in the back? That was too good a character for such a crappy death. I did like Hawkman getting his skull bashed in.

What’s the deal with Bruce Wayne’s skull? And licking it? Really didn’t need to see that in such detail.

Ivan Reis’ pencils are great, but nothing spectacular. Seems like a “house” style, like what I’m used to seeing in a big DC event. The work is nice and he does an amazing job on the pages where Hal shows Barry all the heros that have died since Barry “left”.

I won’t mention how I wish they had left Barry Allen alone. The guy had probably the greatest and most heroic death of any hero ever and they bring him back. /sigh

Martian Manhunter makes his “dramatic” return. The surprise is gone because I’d already seen some of the toys and that ruined the surprise of some of the Black Lanterns (Martian Manhunter, Superman-2 and Aquaman). I’ve always liked the Manhunter. But he’s always been too powerful. Sucks that you have to read about the fight in Green Lantern’s comic.
I hate being forced to buy other comics to get the story that starts off in event comic.
I’m a little worried that they’re making too many Black Lanterns. I know the heroes are supposed to face overwhelming odds, but the pace the Black Lanterns are being made, the heroes won’t be facing just overwhelming odds they’ll be facing catasphoric odds.

Not bad for a 1st issue, sets up the greater conflict. I didn’t like that you had to know who all the players were before hand, it relies too much on us either getting other titles of Blackest Night #0. That’s not always a good thing to relay on the reader having all the pertinent information before hand.

TPF Rating: 7 out of 10

Good enough to buy the next issue. Not good enough to make me sit on the edge of my seat waiting.