…that over the course of Blackest Night, two things happen.
1.) A whole ton of DC characters are horribly and brutally murdered by zombies.
2.) A whole ton of DC characters who become zombies are miraculously revived so we can return to the status quo.
This is because Blackest Night is, I suspect, the apotheosis of Geoff Johns’ writing career. He gets to kill everybody and then bring them all back in the same miniseries!
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One would be a fool to take such a bet at any odds…
Well we’ve already seen step one take place in the first issue alone. Shit, Diamond Comics are running a pole asking people who they want to see resurrected at the end of Blackest Night. Something tells me you could lay your entire bank account on the line and you’d walk away losing nothing.
It’ll probably be something like:
Anyone killed by the “Black Light” can be returned to life, while those who were dead before they got rings will stay dead.
Then again, maube this is how we get batman and MM back.
The only way I see this not happening pretty much as mcadamw says is if Johns’ pulls a Bendis and changes the ending because it was so obvious that everyone figures it out and he changes it at the last minute.
Personally, I’m kicking myself. Sure, I anticipated the entrails and snuff film ultraviolence, but I really should have expected all the cannibalism.
Then again, maube this is how we get batman and MM back.
Too soon for Bruce to come back, they’ve plotted at least a year with Dick in the cowl. Beyond that I can’t really bring myself to care about Attack of the Zombie Lanterns.
Whatever he does in Blackest Night, you just KNOW Geoff Johns is getting cards like this:
http://fullbodytransplant.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/upper-deck-announces-michael-jackson-tribute-cards/
Even if he has to make them himself.
Dead Martian Manhunter rocks! If you don’t love the idea of a shapechanging zombie you have no soul. Fact!
How is Ralph becoming elongated without his gingold?
Best part of Blackest Night is that we now know why Dwayne MacDuffie couldn’t kill Hawkgirl: Geoff Johns wanted to kill her.
Do you just get to call “Dibbs” on that, or what?
Also, at what point in time can the DC Universe chalk the entire Green Lantern Corps up as a colossal failure? I think they’ve instigated more Universe-Ending mega-death threats than they’ve solved by at least two to one. Those bobble heads on Oa don’t know what the frak they’re doing.
Hi, everyone! I just came to this blog to make a meaningful contribution to the conversation at hand. I don’t usually post here, but I wrote a blog entry on just this topic, and it was still on my mind. I won’t link it, though — MGK did a better job!
if it brings back all the gratuitously killed JLI alums, then I’m not going to complain.
Objectively, the issue was good.
On the other hand: The New DC: There’s no Stopping Us Now.
But Seriously, Please, Someone Stop This Johns Kid. Slowly. Painfully. MAKE HIM SUFFER.
What are the odds that all Green Lanterns that aren’t Hal are killed off?
I’m gonna say about 1-15.
I gave up on Blackest Night the second I heard Black Hand was the main villain. I mean… fuck, now that’s just obviously stretching to make it all tie into Hal Jordon and still involving the whole corps.
Also, at what point in time can the DC Universe chalk the entire Green Lantern Corps up as a colossal failure? I think they’ve instigated more Universe-Ending mega-death threats than they’ve solved by at least two to one. Those bobble heads on Oa don’t know what the frak they’re doing.
LoL, man, good point
when do their fuck-ups start outweighing the good they do/have done
They’ll need a zombie batman eventually
Damn. I got a Bizarro version?
I. Have. Arrived.
“What are the odds that all Green Lanterns that aren’t Hal are killed off?”
After all the work Johns did to bring them back after Hal killed them the first time? I dunno.
There seems to be three typical reactions to Blackest Night 1.
1. The Dead are coming back to life and killing Superheroes! Cool!
2. The Dead are coming back to life and killing Superheroes. Why do we need all this death and gore in comics?
3. The Dead are coming back to life and killing Superheroes. Typical Johns.
4. The Dead are coming back to life and killing… is that guy eating Batman’s skin!?
5. Wait. Wasn’t Batman still alive, but in the past?
I think a better question is how soon Hal gets every ring and saves the universe. Because you know Johns can’t resist showing us how awesome his favorite character is at every possible point.
So when will we see Marvel Zombies vs DC Zombies?
I think most characters were alive in the past, Bret
I’m calling shenanigans on MGK. Wouldn’t those two things basically be guaranteed to happen no matter who was writing Blackest Night?
Hell, you could call it the apotheosis of Dan Didio’s editing career just as accurately.
Lessee. We used to have grand epic miniseries where certain heroes would die nobly for the cause of generating geek money for the comic book publishers’ coffers. Then there would be follow-up miniseries where the heroes come back while other heroes give up the ghost. Now we’ll get miniseries where they ALL die and come back in the same series.
Why can’t we have a miniseries where no one dies, they just eat cookie-dough ice cream?
PaulW: Wasn’t that “Strangers in Paradise?” 🙂
The question isn’t who is going to be revived at the end of this, but why would anyone story-wise and reality-wise want them brought back in this fashion. “Oh hey, Ted Kord is alive! Awesome! And all it took was a brief period where he became a zombie, gored a bunch of people and ate their sweetbreads! Can’t wait to have him ‘Bwa-ha-ha’ over that little escapade! God this mercury tastes delicous.”
ps238principal: Strangers in Paradise? The body count in the first trade alone is pretty high.
I have one stray, flickering flame of hope that everyone killed in this event will still be dead at the end. I’m fully expecting some bullshit circumstance to revive most of them after it ends, but I’d like to see the last page Blackest Night 8 with a lot of dead dudes staying dead, just a bit less animate than right now.
Illuyankas: I know how you feel. I was hoping that Secret Invasion would end with it being revealed that everyone on Earth was a Skrull. No such luck.
I can only hope that the ending of the whole demented saga is Rainbow Raider getting one of every power ring (and all the Ring Mojo Entities that fuel the ring corps, like Parallax and Ion) and becoming the single most dangerous entity in the history of the Universe.
I think the dumbest thing about Blackest Night is that these power rings for the undead seem to exist for no other reason than to give these super-zombies a secondary reason to go out and kill people.
I don’t think zombies ever actually needed additional motivation before, and of the few zombies that did (Evil Ernie, Bad Ash, Dirge of Xombie), bad ass though they may be, they were most certainly in the minority.
“And in the end, Hal wore every single ring in the universe, saved the world, brought back all the dead and even erased that part of time where he was a super villian (EVEN THOUGH THAT WAS TOTALLY NOT HIS FAULT), and everybody loved him. The end”.
I’d like to thank Blackest Night #1 for not only saving me the bother of reading the rest of the mini, but also for convincing me that it’s time to drop GL as well. It’s been getting worse for a while but this is definite shark-jumping territory.
I was actually a really big fan of the idea of Hal Jordan as a super villain, corrupted by the enormous amount of power the writers imbued him with. The execution was a little shaky, but as for meta-plot, I thought Zero Hour was a good idea.
I was also a huge fan of Kyl Rayner. Comic book artist turned superhero? I would have had a great time on that series.
And his power-climax as Ion added an appropriate counterpoint to his character as – upon reaching God-like status – he turns around and gives it all back.
Hal Jordan and Kyl Rayner made great foils for each other, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing Jordan come back as a Rayner nemesis rather than a washed up mentor. The Parallax stuff was all crap.
One of the things that made Kingdom Come so good was watching the JLA suffer its own flaws. I would have loved to see Jordan complement or even eclipse Sinestro as the new Lantern-traitor go-to guy.
So, do the Zombies have their own powers plus a Black Lantern Ring? ‘Cause then Zombie Manhunter and Zombie Firestorm are gonna be awesome. And Aquaman can resurrect all the Atlantians who died!
And we get Zombie Ch’p, too…..
Sofa King: As far as I can tell: yes.
I think Chris Sims was right, this all might turn out worthwhile if we get zombie Jonah Hex.
I don’t think I could handle Jonah Hex in a black and white supervillain costume.
So, uh, I’m holding out this vague hope that, at the end of all this, dead people stay dead, and the ‘revolving door of death’ gets shut down. I mean, why not? DC doesn’t have a lot to lose.
Versaso, Craig… I doubt Jonah Hex (or ANY western character for that matter) will show up, because it serves no dramatic purpose- They are as likely to end up playing a part in this series as Darkseid does.
Zifnab – But Hal Jordan is “the greatest Green Lantern”. It HAS to be true, they’ve said it at least every second issue since the 60s.
my expectations of Blackest night # 8:
“Rage!”
“Greed!”
“Fear!”
“Willpower!”
“Hope!”
“Heart!”
“By your powers combined, I am… CAPTAIN LANTERN!”
o/~ Ohhhhh, Captain Lantern! He’s our hero! Gonna take the Black Lanterns down to zero! o/~
I think I’ll probably be skipping this and maybe just glancing at the inevitable hardcover release in the bookstore.
I think a better question is how soon Hal gets every ring and saves the universe. Because you know Johns can’t resist showing us how awesome his favorite character is at every possible point.
Does anyone doubt that is where the series is heading? I figure some other Green Lanterns will survive, so that they can be Lesser and demonstrate how awesome Hal is in comparison.
Though there’s a good chance Kyle is doomed, having dared to supplant Johns’ idol, even if temporarily.
[i]my expectations of Blackest night # 8:
“Rage!”
“Greed!”
“Fear!”
“Willpower!”
“Hope!”
“Heart!”
“By your powers combined, I am… CAPTAIN LANTERN!”
o/~ Ohhhhh, Captain Lantern! He’s our hero! Gonna take the Black Lanterns down to zero! o/~[/i]
I wet myself laughing
Maybe Hal will end up with one of every ring and suddenly turn into The Mandarin Doctor Spectrum?
As much as I want to not care about this, part of me still wants to write the saga of the Harmonic Wars, between F-Sharp, G-Flat, A-Augmented, and of course, the dreaded Corps of Silence.
Other than that, yeah fucking yeah, characters die and come back and die and come back and I should keep caring…why? Oh, because this time you swear it’s really really really going to be the last time you keep doing this and this time whatever you finish with is going to be the permanent status quo. Yeah, fuck off, major comics companies.
That Captain Lantern stuff pretty much wins the Internet for today.
As far as Ralph and Sue, I’m just glad Johns didn’t take a page from Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead/Dead Alive* and give us the zombie version of the baby she was expecting.
They’ve both suffered enough.
(* Never been a zombie fan, but that movie was one of the few I’ve enjoyed, because it was so disgusting and hilarious at the same time.)
@MDF: You’re going to be enjoying the Titans tiein a lot then. Keep an eye out for Donna.
Uhm. The Captain Lantern would win… if it wasn’t what’s happening with Hal. He’s going to have _every ring_ by the end. Possibly including Black.
I’m just curious about the status of Ghost!Ralph and Ghost!Sue… and Ghost!Deadman. On the other hand, we had Ollie walking around without his soul for a bit.
am I the only one who liked this? A guardian bit another one in the face.
Also, what are the odds we’ll get an evil zombie lincoln? because I would enjoy that greatly.
“Also, what are the odds we’ll get an evil zombie lincoln?”
Nonexistant. Only Zombie superheroes/supervillains/space monsters/dead supporting cast members.
Zombie Haunted Tank Black Lantern? How ’bout it?
@Sage – No, I loved it. And if Hal saves the universe, so what? What are you reading comics for if that’s a problem?
If Hal gets every ring, then the obvious name for him is “White Lantern.”
He could carebearstare the Black Lanterns into seeing just how ill-behaved they are.
@Corby Lincoln is pretty established as a villain in the Dc universe. although odds are those are out of continuity after 4 crises.