Current mood:

geeky

Blackest Night 4, GL 47 and Alan Moore
Wow, I'm doing lots of reviews lately. How did I get so many going at once?

Maybe it's the sheer volume of "Blackest Night" related comics coming out. It is kind of nice to be able to read developments in a big crossover story arc once a week instead of once a month...as long as they're good. Luckily, most of the ones I've read have been good so far.

"Blackest Night" 4 takes the spotlight off of Hal (who's been teleported off Earth by the Indigo Tribe) and focuses it on Flash, Mera and the Atom (Ray Palmer) as they try to rally Earth's superheroes against the Black Lanterns. While there's a fair amount of action in this issue (including an appearance by the JSA), a lot of it is character development of Barry and Ray.

I wasn't too happy when they brought back Barry, but I'm liking him in "Blackest Night." Probably his best scene is when the other heroes are suffering insecurity because they feel they aren't in the same tier as Supes, Bats and Wonder Woman. Barry, in exasperation, tells them to stop dithering and be, well, like Hal. "God help me for saying it," he grumbles, "and if you tell him, I'll deny it, but BE LIKE HAL! Stop worrying and act like you were born to kick Black Lantern butt!" Nice touch. :)

Atom has some good scenes too. Ray is cool because he uses his shrinking power in very cool ways, like adjusting his belt to shrink everyone through a phone line to escape the Black Lanterns. I like it after they come out woozy on the other end and Mera says, "I wish one of us could fly." Surprisingly good banter in this issue.

Oh, and the Black Lantern power charge reaches 100 percent...and Black Hand summons the Black Lantern Big Bad Hidden Boss to Earth. His identity has been revealed on several sites already; if you want to know who it is, shoot me a message.

GL 47 covers what's going on with Hal and the other various Lanterns after leaving Earth. Best part of this is all the character and background info on Sinestro; it's really neat stuff (He has a FIRST NAME? Really?) Geoff Johns is also doing a nice job starting to slot in the other Lantern Corps into the big picture; for the first time I see where the Red Lanterns fit in! Huh! How about that.

Oh, and ebenbrooks will be pleased that Saint Walker is his usually totally cool self. :)

One more tidbit: Apparently someone asked Alan Moore what he thinks of all this Blackest Night stuff, he wasn't very nice in his response. What do you think? Link here:

http://www.thegreenlanterncorps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9890

Personally? I have huge respect for Moore, and I love his Swamp Thing and Green Lantern stories. But I think he's being unfair, perhaps because of his very bad experiences with Marvel and DC in the past. It doesn't seem reasonable to me to pick on Geoff Johns for using Moore's stories for inspiration when the characters Moore made iconic-Swampie and the GL Corps--were in turn created by people other than Moore.

And wasn't Watchmen originally developed with the Charlton Comics superheroes in mind (Question, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle)? Again, I think Moore is being colored a bit by his own professional bitterness. But he did write some of the best GL short stories ever. Thoughts? Comments?