Check It Out – Blackest Night

War of Light

Blackest Night is coming from DC. It’s a big event, yes, but it mosly is focused on the Green Lantern Corps. And as far as I’m concerned it looks to be THE comic book storyline to read in the near future!

Geoff Johns and the good folks at DC have been building up to this for some time, back before the Sinestro War even. It weaved through Infinite Crisis. The new Green Lantern series, with Hal back to life and ring slinging again, almost solely exists for this upcoming storyline.

Right now in the comics we’re at a slow build as all the new color rings are revealed. Green is willpower, the ring we’ve known since the Silver Age. Yellow is fear, as capitalized by Sinestro in creating his own corps. But recently we’ve added blue, powered by hope, red, powered by rage, and violet, the Star Sapphire turned into a violet ring of love. A few more colors are coming – namely orange (greed), indigo (compassion) and black (death – not really an emotion.)

The most recent comics have shown us the orange light, coveted by a group of now very slaughtered Controllers (a race that split off from the Guardians long ago, same as the Zamarons.) And we know that Black Hand, a classic Green Lantern villain, has something to do with the Black Lantern – as well as the Anti-Monitor, for that matter.

At the core of events is a female Guardian, Scar, who was damaged by the Anti-Monitor during Infinite Crisis. She is manipulating events behind the scenes, pushing the Guardians to create more and more oppressive rules for their Green Lantern Corps (the authorization of lethal force and no relationships amongst corps members, to name a couple.)

If you can get your hands on the free comic book day Blackest Night #0 comic, do so! It was an amazing read, and really sets things up. Then start following Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. In fact, go back and pick up those Sinestro War trades.

Some good places to go to learn more:

About the Author

Jim Yoho is the owner of In Genre, Wausau Comics, and JAY Entertainment and he maintains the site as well as adding the occasional article or review of his own. He often goes by Merin online, from way back in the BBS days of dial-up modems even. Having enjoyed writing reviews and postings for other sites he decided to start his own where he combined his creative urges to write and create web comics (such as Episode Fun and Alistair & Arthur) with his long-held desire to bring together and organize talented people for joint projects. The end result is that you get the Wausau Comics site - articles and reviews of genre entertainment at In Genre plus some web comics and links to the works of other Contributors, too!