i’m super stoked, mostly because unlike secret invasion, there is almost no chance of it being a huge fucking letdown. this will be more like final crisis, where it may not make a lot of sense, but it’s going to be awesome.
for those who have no idea what i’m talking about, let me sum up. geoff johns is writing a story where somehow all the important dead characters in the dcu get ‘black lantern’ rings, come back to life (more or less?) and use their new black lantern powers to try to destroy the universe, or something.
it’s the worst idea ever, and that’s why it’s going to be great, because this is what geoff johns does; take awful ideas and play them completely straight. and he makes it work. i’m half convinced he pitched blackest night on a dare.
and the modern superhero comics industry basically runs on events like this. for fucks sake, final crisis took an extra six months to finish up, and there are still four or five ‘final crisis: aftermath’ books coming out. half of them probably aren’t actually related, but what the hell, slap the label on there, that’ll boost sales a bit.
secret invasion ended and dark reign started the next month. there wasn’t even a buffer, there was actually overlap of tie-in books for the two big events.
it’s all gigantically awful, and ultimately very bad for the industry because it’s catering to the hardest of the hardcore, such as me, and not the average person, such as you, who’s terrified to walk into a comic shop. but if you had today, and had bought blackest night 1, you’d have a black lantern ring too.
i haven’t even read it yet. it almost doesn’t matter. this kind of thing you get a whole different kind of joy out of just reading the fandom’s reactions to it. i stopped reading secret invasion after the third issue, but i enjoyed the commentary for the rest of the run.
the brilliance of blackest night is that they could kill half the justice league in the first issue, and bring them back as black lanterns in the next issue. marvel zombies can kiss geoff johns’ emerald ass.
