Blackest Night has been raging for several months now, and since we are almost at the half-way point, it’s time to reflect on the series so far.
[poll id=”115″]
Stephen Schleicher
Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
13 Comments
I have been liking Blackest Night, but it hasn’t been on the top of my read list. Don’t get me wrong there isn’t anything that I have read that I didn’t like. But the major impact of certain moments haven’t hit me has hard since I don’t know a lot about DC titles or history. The big reveal of Necron as the source of the Black Lanterns didn’t make me go “OH!” b/c I don’t know much (or anything) about Necron. That hasn’t made me not like the series, but it has moved it below some of the things I am more familiar with.
I haven’t bought this, though it does seem well done. I guess I’m just burnt out on all these events. What I really would like to see a whole issue of a character saving a cat from a tree. Go to the beach. Something that doesn’t involve the town/city/planet/universe blowing up and stuff.
On the surface this has all of the elements that should appeal to me (Cosmic epic, zombies), and yet it just isn’t quite clicking for me. I think it might be stretched a bit too thin. The Sinestro Corp War worked better for me when it was featured primarly in the main Green Lantern titles with a handful of one-shot tie-ins.
I read somewhere Geoff Johns likened The Sinestro Corp War to The Empire Strikes Back, which would make Blackest Night the Green Lantern version of Return of the Jedi. Perhaps, I am concerned some Ewoks are going to pop up.
easily the best comic on shelves right now. I know it’s not a hard title to hold considering much of comics today suck but this comic shows us how comics should be done.
I’m inclined to agree with Greg. And I also like “Dark Reign” so you know there’s something wrong with me. To tell the truth I just feel like a lot of nothing is happening to a lot of character I don’t really care about….which can be said about all cross-overs if you happen to ask the right person.
I think Dark Reign vs. Blackest Night is a bit of a false comparison. Dark Reign, even though there have been tie-in minis, is more of a status quo change where Blackest Night is a by the numbers Crossover Event.
To be fair, I’m not feeling the anticipation for the upcoming Siege Crossover Event. Perhaps a good rule of thumb should be, if you need to create a checklist to keep things straight, it might be worth missing.
Generally, I dislike zombie comics. Even with the occassional bits of black humor, they just seem like an excuse to have loads of gorn. But for some reason, I am loving “Blackest Night”. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a DC fan and this has the promise of resurrecting every character I missed, if it’s because I’ve skipped most recent events outside of “Legion of 3 Worlds”, or if it’s because it’s the first zombie story I’ve seen where the zombies are smart & there’s a decent emotional core. It’s the first event I can remember since I started reading 15 years ago that I’m genuinely, totally enjoying.
See, I {hate the gorn + love DC + miss a bunch of the resurrected characters} too (I just used mathemenglish!), and yet find significant pieces of this to be “Oooohh. I’m back from the dead… *TOoorrrmmeennnt… twiiist-the-knife… blame… defile!!*. Rinse. Repeat.” Now that Nekron’s revival seems to have changed the Black Lantern “mission parameters”, hopefully the general “I blame YOUUUU” tone will change as well. ^_^
Somewhere in between it’s good, but not the top of my stack and loving every minute of it.
I had high hopes after the Sinestro Corps War and I’m happy to say the series hasn’t let me down yet, every new issue is better then the last and the fact you don’t have to read all the tie-ins is a big plus. Just read Blackest Night and the Green Lantern books and you’re set, the rest is gravy/vegetables(Batman tie-in was iffy).
It has something that bothered me in Sinestro Corps War: tie-ins, the whole world is at war against an army of fear powered maniacs yet it has no impact on other comics? Not even to stablish a time line? Big events need tie-ins to be, well, big!
This series in interesting enough that I’m reading the tie-ins in the titles I don’t normally read.
I was liking it a lot when it started but slowly I have stopped caring about it and might end up dropping it completely.
Good but not the top of my stack:
Im not a big DC reader, only shallowly familiar with DC continuity. I find Blackest Night fun but it hasn’t hit me emotionally like Sinestro Corps War. Not sure why, but I dont feel very connected to the characters or story. Maybe its because there are so many characters involved? I think the shock and awe of the possibility of multiple lantern corps has worn off from Sinestro Corp Wars and leaves Blackest Night as a zombie tale that feels a little flat to me.