Event comics are something of a strange beast. Long time comic book fans often berate the "blockbuster" books for impeding character development and the done-in-one story format, yet month after month, the books taking the top spot on the sales chart are nearly always event books and their related tie-ins.
Unfortunately, despite strong sales, event comics usually lead to disappointment. Whether that's because of the lack of impacting results (House of M), over-hyping (Secret Invasion), or just plain and simple poor storytelling (Amazons Attack!), most of the time, it's quite simply impossible to satisfy every reader across the board. Every so often, an event will come along that has been built up incredibly slowly and promise to change everything. Twenty-odd years ago, that event was Crisis on Infinite Earths, streamlining pieces of DC continuity that had built up over the course of half a century. And although events have become the pendulum of modern superhero comics, the evolution of the concept has been gaining steam, particularly at DC. Whether you enjoy their events or not, you can't deny that they've condensed their blockbusters to be as self contained as possible, without having to infect every single title with a tie-in of some kind (cough, Marvel).
The next up on the DC schedule after all of the Final Crisis and Batman madness stems from seeds planted as far back as Geoff Johns' and Ethan Van Sciver's 2005 Green Lantern: Rebirth - Blackest Night. If you want to get technical, it's possible to trace the first inklings of this upcoming story all the way back to 1994's Zero Hour and, as cited as inspiration multiple times by Geoff Johns, the 1986 Alan Moore Green Lantern story, "Tygers". Perhaps, even, back to the debut of the famous Green Lantern oath debuting in the 40's:
In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power... Green Lantern's light!
However, for readers not hip to the Green Lantern scene, the focus of this article is to get you on board for the next big thing. In late 2004, the Green Lantern: Rebirth mini-series began, which sought to restore the Silver Age Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, as Earth's primary emerald avenger. In this mini-series, Johns did what he does best: takes dozens of different ideas and conflicting continuities and somehow makes them work as one cohesive unit. Essentially, Johns has a superpower of his own; he is able to retcon bulks of information at a time, and not make the reader roll his eyes.
In Rebirth, Hal Jordan is the latest incarnation of the vengeful spirit the Spectre, doing God's bidding, as a result of Hal's attempt to redeem himself after the terroristic acts he committed as the evil villain Parallax (namely, Zero Hour) in the 90's. One of his old enemies, Black Hand, discovers a spare power ring under the care of Green Arrow, given to him in case of an emergency. Of course, he was caught trying to steal it by Green Arrow and the Spectre/Hal Jordan, who then delivered some vengeance by way of turning Hand's hand to coal. Knowing that Black Hand plays a pivotal role in Blackest Night shows just how early Johns began building towards this story, stating more than once that he considers his Green Lantern stories a trilogy: starting with Rebirth, then Sinestro Corps War, and concluding with Blackest Night.
There are several key story beats in Rebirth directly related to Blackest Night, though at the time they were mere mentions, as a bulk of the mini-series already had it's work cut out for it trying to re-establish Hal Jordan as the hero he once was. Other important notes coming out of Rebirth leading to Blackest Night include the explanation of the "yellow impurity" - that had long plagued Green Lanterns - as the being Parallax, once trapped inside the Green Power Battery and the manifestation of fear, the being eventually was able to achieve it's escape and bond itself with Hal Jordan, which retroactively led to the events in Zero Hour. The death of Sinestro was also retconned in the mini-series, who of course has gone on to be a significant part of the ongoing saga in Green Lantern. Perhaps even more important of a revelation in Rebirth, though, is Johns' introduction to the emotional spectrum, colors of the rainbow that correspond to certain emotions, similarly to how the Green of the Green Lanterns is representative of willpower. Though not fully explained in Rebirth, the introduction of the concept laid the groundwork for what was to come in Sinestro Corps War.
The main Sinestro Corps story took place in the Sinestro Corps Special #1, Green Lantern #21-#25, and Green Lantern Corps #14-#18. There were four one-shot specials released as well, focusing on key players from the story arc. The Sinestro Corps War essentially acts like the The Empire Strikes Back of Johns' Green Lantern saga, throwing the characters deeper into a hole and altogether uprooting everything they thought to be the status quo. The key story beat to come out of Sinestro is the titular character's creation of his own yellow rings, power battery, and subsequently, an entire corps based on fear, of which fear incarnate Parallax and Crisis of Infinite Earths villain the Anti-Monitor are a part. Out of this, the nature of the aforementioned emotional spectrum is revealed by way of the Guardians of the Universe and their mystical Book of Oa, to which there is a forbidden chapter that prophecizes the "Blackest Night", the formation of new corps, a "War of Light" and subsequent destruction of all. The new corps would be based on the colors of the rainbow and corresponding emotion: red is rage, orange is avarice, yellow (Sinestro Corps) is fear, green is willpower, blue is hope, indigo is compassion, and violet is love. And, much like the Green Lanterns, the powers of their rings would be derived from channeling the respective emotion attached to their color.
A major turning point in Sinestro Corps War comes when the Guardians fight amongst themselves in response to the attack of Sinestro, and ultimately splinter. The majority resolve to rewrite the Book of Oa, removing the portion with the prophecy, and institute 10 new laws to guide the Green Lantern Corps to victory, including instating the use of lethal force against Sinestro's Lanterns, ironically bringing them one step closer to the "War of Light", despite their efforts to avoid it. The splintered Guardians, Ganthet and Sayd, retreat to begin the formation of the Blue Lanterns in order to inspire hope. During battle, another Guardian is severely injured by the Anti-Monitor, and as a result is given a new purpose. Though it is unclear as of now, she, re-named Scar, seems to be embracing what is called "The Book of the Black" in the recent "Origins & Omens" back up features in DC books the past couple of months. The Book of the Black appears to be the removed portion of the Book of Oa containing the prophecy of the Blackest Night that the Guardians had fought to destroy. After Sinestro's defeat, the Anti-Monitor was sent hurling through space, where it was transformed in an unknown fashion into what seemed to be the Black Power Battery. The conclusion of Green Lantern #25, the final part of Sinestro Corps War, gave readers their first peek at Blackest Night, a one page teaser that said ""...the armies of fear and willpower must come together, because across the Universe, the dead will rise." pictured with a hand punching out of a grave with a black power ring on it's hand.
The Sinestro Corps War is unique in a way, because while the outcome of the plot threads in this story will surely have an effect everyone in the DCU, this was NOT promoted as the "big event" of the summer. In fact, the story took place within the regular Green Lantern monthlies, aside from the one over-sized issue that kicked the story off. There were the four optional one-shots, but the main story was available in a very contained format, and was not spread to the other lines of books. There was one tie-in issue in Blue Beetle, and it made sense. Aside from all of the above mentioned story beats, the publishing format of Sinestro is perhaps it's greatest contribution to Blackest Night and Final Crisis before that. DC has gone as far to say as this is how it would be publishing it's events from now on: a main through line with optional tie-in series that stand on their own merits, and aren't necessary one way or the other. We've already seen this with the phenomenal Final Crisis: Revelations, Final Crisis: Rogue's Revenge, and the still-in-progress Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, all of which are perfectly enjoyable on their own, and not necessary reading to enjoy Final Crisis. Yet, the quality of all the books is so high, the reader wants to read them all for the complete experience. It remains yet to be seen how the rest of DCU will react in response to Blackest Night, but you can be sure that it will follow this pattern - beginning with Blackest Night #0 releasing for FREE on Free Comic Book Day, May 2nd. You know what that means? Anyone reading this article that is even remotely interested as no excuse not to try it out. It's free, after all.
Around the conclusion of Sinestro, the build up to Final Crisis was in full swing, as well as the big events to be taking place in Grant Morrison's Batman. As such, DC released DC Universe #0, hitting shelves for only $.50, and kick-started all the major story lines in the major books. DCU #0 gave the first hints at Batman RIP, the return of Barry Allen, Final Crisis, and, most importantly, showed Rebirth's Black Hand's discovery of the Black Power Battery that was created in Sinestro Corps. In the next big storyline in the regular Green Lantern book, entitled "Secret Origin", Johns strove to unveil a new layer to the Hal/Sinestro relationship, as well as revealing some new details about the coming Blackest Night. In "Secret Origin", the Black Hand's origin was updated a bit, making him a child with some serious issues; most notably, he was a borderline necropheliac. How convenient that this character who was primed to become a "Dead" Lantern would actually be a psychotic necro? During this storyline, it was also revealed that Atrocitus, future leader of the Red Lantern Corps (we're getting to that!) had come to Earth in search of Black Hand, because it was told in the prophecy that he would be the one to instigate the Blackest Night. In an arc that was supposed to underline the nature of Hal Jordan and his archenemy's relationship, it actually did a great amount to build up the big event down the road, including reintroducing readers to the nature of Hal and Carol Ferris' relationship, which we would see have reprocusions later in "Rage of the Red Lanterns".
In 2008's Final Crisis, we saw the preview held within DC Universe #0 of Black Hand discovering the Black Power Battery come to fruition, as well as some story beats that will for sure have effects on Blackest Night, but none that we have heard much about. The two obvious ones, being dead and all, would be Martian Manhunter and Batman. We know that Batman isn't technically dead - more like, time displaced - but Manhunter definintely kicked it. And of course, the heavily promoted return of DC's Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, who had been dead since 1985. Johns is also tackling Flash: Rebirth, a similar-in-concept mini-series to what he did with Green Lantern: Rebirth that will surely play into Blackest Night, one way or the other.
Spinning out of Final Crisis, was the tie-in one-shot Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns, which led into the "Rage of the Red Lanterns" story arc in Green Lantern #36-38. The Red Lantern's plot follows Atrocitus, who blames the Guardians of the Universe for the destruction of his home world, and Sinestro for his capture back when Sinestro was still a Green Lantern. The Red Lanterns channel the emotion of rage, and as a result are depicted as the most violent and sadistic of the new corps introduced thus far, and seemingly are reverted to a barbaric, feral state when wearing their rings. With Sinestro captured by Atrocitus and his Lanterns, Hal and the newly introduced Blue Lanterns, led by Sayd and Ganthet, see no choice but to rescue Sinestro from the clutches of the Red Lanterns, due to his prophetic involvement with The Blackest Night. And again, seemingly out of ignorance by all of the Guardians, except Scar, the characters cannot realize that by conflicted with one another, they have reach another step towards the fruition of the "War of Light" - at this point, Lanterns of Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow are in combat. During the arc, Hal loses control of his rage and actually becomes chosen as a Red Lantern, until a Blue power ring is placed on his finger and negates the effects of the Red.
If the Hal moment shows us anything, it's that despite his miraculous turnaround as a character since the 90's, he's still a conflicted human being with emotions running rampant inside of him - which makes the last big reveal of "Rage of the Red Lanterns" all the more worrisome. With the formation of the Violet Lanterns, we discover that Carol Ferris has joined their ranks. How this will play into Hal's future and Blackest Night overall remains to be seen, but I'm fairly certain it won't be in a good way.
"Rage of the Red Lanterns" recently concluded in Green Lantern, and the next storyline, introducing the Orange Lanterns - "Agent Orange" - kicks off April 8th with Green Lantern #39. We don't know much about these guys quite yet, but we'll surely be seeing a lot of them in the months to come. We're down to the wire now: this storyline will take us straight into Blackest Night #1 in July. As I mentioned, the perfect jump on point is arriving in about a month on Free Comic Book Day, so if you're curious to see what all this hooplah is about, all you've got to do is head to your LCS and pick up a copy. And, should you miss the free version, DC EIC revealed recently that there will be a copy available for purchase closer to the release of Blackest Night #1. With Flash: Rebirth debuting recently and heralding Barry Allen's return, it remains to be seen what role that series will play in these events, but I think that it's safe to assume that a series handled by the same team that kicked off the Green Lantern saga would have some significant ties.
Are you ready for the dead to rise?
