Blackest Night #5

             Here we are at issue 5 of 8 in the Blackest Night event. From the beginning I felt that the series was balls to the wall crazy with some of the better writing from Geoff Johns and art from Ivan Reis that is, in most cases, wonderfully hideous. At issue 5, though, it’s starting to feel a bit long. Somewhere near the end of the issue I actually started wondering what they were going to do to stretch the story out in order to get those final three books. Given the last page, I guess I can see where its going but I’m not convinced we need that many issues to wrap this up but given the series so far I have no reason to believe it won’t be good. Future predictions aside, let’s look at the comic itself.

This issue seems to pick up right after the events of Green Lantern #48 (although that issue says it takes place before Blackest Night 6…which I guess it does technically, but still) with what I will, from this point forward, refer to as the “Rainbow Corps” on Ryut in space sector 666 hunting the leader of the black lanterns and their power battery. One of the more clever moments occurs as each of the Rainbow Lanterns recites their individual motto. All except for Larfleeze, the orange lantern, who takes this time to complain about how hungry he is. I also liked that the Indigo Lantern’s recitation was completely unintelligible. One thing I didn’t quite understand was how the green lantern ring only charged to 100%. I was pretty sure that when in the presence of a blue lantern it could go beyond that, but that’s easily forgiven. One of the other aspects of the story I had a qualm with was the appearance of Dove who’s ability to use white light (I’ll admit I’ve never heard of this character before) makes her a great weapon against the black lanterns. I think the discovery of her use against the hordes of the undead happened in the Titans series and I have to say I’m not a big fan of pivotal events occurring outside of the main series that affect its story. It is, however, still to be seen how pivotal of a role her character will play. The biggest problem I had was the buildup we’ve had over the course of the series about Bruce Wayne’s return as a black lantern and the subsequent disappoint it brought. The guy lasted all of about 4 pages! He didn’t say anything, either, just spouted some black rings and created the emotional tethers I assume are necessary to create a black lantern. Other than that the story was solid, with a good amount of strong set pieces, a bit of humorous quips from Barry and Hal, and a little suspense as Necron reveals his intention to uncover a great secret about the Guardians of the Universe.

Ivan Reis is on a roll. I didn’t like him that much when he was working on Green Lantern (although that could be because I’d only known Van Sciven’s vision of that particular universe) but I’ve really grown to love him through this series. I will say that the cover is easily the weakest part of this issue. I didn’t really like the last cover either so I hope this doesn’t become a trend. On the interior everything looked pretty good but one thing that stood out was the use of one or two page spreads. There were probably five in total and it definitely lost some of the epic feel such things are supposed to deliver. The spreads started to seem like more of an artistic showcase than a story telling device. Besides that we get some great artwork with Necron looking particularly menacing, Jean having half of her skull removed, a great zombie Batman, and a very appropriate spread of the undead versions of DC’s finest.

            Blackest Night is shaping up to be one of the better events in comics. The central series has delivered and not relied too heavily on the audience reading auxiliary issues. It’s not perfect, what with Dove’s revelation in the Titan’s books and a good amount of story happening in the Green Lantern series, but it’s hardly to the extent of, say, a Civil War or Final Crisis. If these things stay pretty contained, Blackest Night could turn out to be a truly great series.