by doombug » Fri Apr 02, 2010 2:09 am
Okay folks, this may end up Punchy levels of length on this review so bear with me here. (not to mention I may gain the ire of fourthy and Twigg here.)
Blackest Night #8
Story by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis
Resurection, death and nods to the classic stories of the past have been the MO and over all tone for DC editorial for the last decade. Whether it was bringing Olliver Queen back from the dead, raising the Green lanterns corps back up to prominence or restoring Joe Chill as the original killer of Bruce Wayne's parents, we have been inendated with a technique that I like to refer to as "going back two steps backwards in order to add in new things to old stories."
With that being said in my personal opinion, Green lantern and Green Lantern Corps have really become part of the foundation of the current line of DCU books. Sadly Blackest Night had to be pulled out of those books for the most part and dragged into it's own limited series which had the count of almost 80 books in total. (Mind you stuff like Doom patrol, Booster Gold and others just loosely tied in to the main series)
This last issue feels to me similar to House of M and Secret Invasions last issues, where major characters returned to prominence. (Hank Pym, Clint barton Nick Fury and others in that example.)
Here is where the problems start to come in though. If you haven't been following all the tie in books, you wouldn't realize what boston Brand had been up to throughout Blackest Night or just what Guy and the corps had been putting up with elsewhere or what exactly Hawk was so pissed off for.
This is a packed comic and it does give us an ending, an ending that was sadly starting to burn out by the end but still an ending. Sinestro losing his powers was telegraphed from the very beginning. (He's Sinestro, of course the idiot's ego is going to be his downfall)
Problems right off the bat for me involve some of the characters coming back, like the original captain boomerang where in my opinion once again his son was one of the real shining moments of Identity Crisis. Johns seemingly destroyed one Boomerang just so he could have the other back and it might be a whiny fanboy moment, but I still can't wrap my head around why.
Osirus being back excites me though as he had one of the strongest tie in issues during the skip month. I also have to commend the art team for that crazy 4 page spread of all the returning characters. That caught me off guard and was a welcomed surprise.
The original JSA hawkgirl being back is odd though and it will be interesting to see where that paid off and as I rant I guess my main point is that those last few reunion pages could have waited to possibly be payed off in other books as they leave way too many questions for a final issue. (What the hell is going on with Jason? Max and Hawk?)
The art was just beautiful throughout the issue and certainly some of the strongest of Ivan Reis career so far. I have to commend the man for being one of a small list of creators to actually finish an event on his own without fill in artists.
The most memorable stuff in the issue is thanks to Larfleeze though in this fans opinion as that orange greedy furball bastard does something very unexpected and I was honestly sick of Nekron barely doing anything by the end of this. For a big bad he wasn't very opposing. I was more worried about the undead anti-monitor.
Story: 8
Art: 10
Event itself: a solid 8
Overall: 8.5
I am really curious about where Brightest Day will take us and what it means for some of these characters involved.
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