Was Blackest Night a good story?

[Jay Dogg]

It was cool...nowhere near Sinestro Corps War, but it was better than Final Crisis. I didn't like the aftermath (Brightest Day) though.

[Shurato2099]

I'm going to agree with most folks here: Sinestro Corps War > Blackest Night > Brightest Day >= Final Crisis. Sinestro Corps War was very strong, IMO, while Blackest Night suffered notably from its expansion from a GL-Event to a line-wide event. I also didn't appreciate some characters being offed-and-forgotten the way they were (Tempest, Holly "Hawk" Granger, etc; dead and never mentioned again).

[Captain Smith]

It wasn't bad - I do object to the common throwing the Spectre to the side to avoid him just ending the crisis in a big boom! Saying you have no power here, blah, blah. Too cliched.

[PennyDreadful]

I'm going to agree with most folks here: Sinestro Corps War > Blackest Night > Brightest Day >= Final Crisis. Sinestro Corps War was very strong, IMO, while Blackest Night suffered notably from its expansion from a GL-Event to a line-wide event. I also didn't appreciate some characters being offed-and-forgotten the way they were (Tempest, Holly "Hawk" Granger, etc; dead and never mentioned again).

They offed Holly Granger because they were bringing back Hank Hall. I'm not sure what the point was in killing Garth.

[Outside_85]

It was a bizarre mix of space cops, superheroes and a zombie apocalypse, and that last entry isn't a really good mix into the other two. The appeal of a zombie apocalypse in movies are usually the idea of following a group of people while the living dead are after them and wait to see if any of them are left at the end after having tried to outrun the horde. That bit is lost when you add in superheroes, so the experience is boiled down to another hero punching bad guy scenario when the dead heroes and villains also got up.
The whole reason the dead get up in the first place is also one of the things that bother me; because Death is also an emotion apparently and has a lantern corps instead of the normal route of Nekron as the demon that he is simply raises them through magic. That it' down to science to make dead flash move is just odd to me.

Then there was the usual stack of victims that had to be killed by the ghoulies to make the whole thing seem important.

The big reveal came out of the blue and made absolutely no sense if you know anything about the Guardians (they are older than our planet).

But still it was entertaining enough, when it didnt make me wonder how many short cuts they were allowed to make to make it meet.


Personally my biggest dissapointment of all regarding Blackest Night was that Raven was completely absent...and empath left out of an event that is nothing but about emotions...

(Btw; Final Crisis> Anything Geoff Johns)

[The Emerald Knight]

It was a bizarre mix of space cops, superheroes and a zombie apocalypse, and that last entry isn't a really good mix into the other two. The appeal of a zombie apocalypse in movies are usually the idea of following a group of people while the living dead are after them and wait to see if any of them are left at the end after having tried to outrun the horde. That bit is lost when you add in superheroes, so the experience is boiled down to another hero punching bad guy scenario when the dead heroes and villains also got up.
The whole reason the dead get up in the first place is also one of the things that bother me; because Death is also an emotion apparently and has a lantern corps instead of the normal route of Nekron as the demon that he is simply raises them through magic. That it' down to science to make dead flash move is just odd to me.

Then there was the usual stack of victims that had to be killed by the ghoulies to make the whole thing seem important.

The big reveal came out of the blue and made absolutely no sense if you know anything about the Guardians (they are older than our planet).

But still it was entertaining enough, when it didnt make me wonder how many short cuts they were allowed to make to make it meet.


Personally my biggest dissapointment of all regarding Blackest Night was that Raven was completely absent...and empath left out of an event that is nothing but about emotions...

(Btw; Final Crisis> Anything Geoff Johns)

You dont like any of Johns work? Or do you love Final Crisis?

[PennyDreadful]

I actually liked Johns' GL work, but in recent months I've realized he's kind of overrated.

[Flashpoint]

I love Blackest Night. I'll be frank--I'd dropped comics entirely in 2007 and 2008 to concentrate on my career and my social life. It was Blackest Night that brought me back to comic book collecting again. Fans were just crazy for this story and eating it up left & right. I couldn't resist; I jumped back in.

And I was so glad I did. The story was strong in many ways, particularly for the way Geoff Johns directly examined the role, function and history of death in the DC Universe. He also managed to flesh out the relationship between many classic characters in the DC Universe such as Barry Allen and Hal Jordan or between Aquaman and Mera. Above and beyond some smartly-executed dialogue and some effective characterization, the action sequences were superb. The reveal of Nekron was handled brilliantly, too, with the way Johns built up suspense and got fans hooked on what was happening and then keeping us hooked after the reveal as well.

Blackest Night is easily one of my favorite DC crossovers of all time. It did indeed have a thoroughly engaging plot with smart characterization and sharp dialogue. And the phenomenally lush, detailed artwork by Ivan Reis was a career-defining period for Ivan as a storyteller, too.

Oh, and I loved Brightest Day as well.

[Cardinal!]

I'll admit, I did mostly enjoy Blackest Night. The story wasn't particularly well-written, well-developed, or innovative, it probably took itself a bit too seriously, and it was rife with a lot of the problems I generally have with Geoff Johns' writing, but it was entertaining enough as an event and it did have some moments that came as a genuine surprise to me (Mera not only surviving the first two issues, but becoming a lead character for one; Tempest getting killed in the second issue, not so much). And there were certain chapters and tie-ins that I absolutely loved (the prelude issue with Black Hand, the Wonder Woman and Titans tie-ins). The main event probably didn't deserve a lot of the critical acclaim it got, but it was enjoyable in the way that I've enjoyed the Transformer movies and the like. I would never call it good, but it was entertaining and fun to read. At its best, I'd give it a solid B/B+. At its worst, a C.

[Desaad]

To begin with; Final Crisis is better than anything Geoff Johns has ever written, and by far. I don't know how it got brought into the discussion, but it need be said.

As to Blackest Night, I think it did what it wanted to do, and it did it well. Johns is really very good at constructing accessible, satisfying superhero spectacle that does just enough differently to be memorable but not so much that it could be called daring or even novel.

He took the basic principals of what Claremont and Wolfman were doing in the 80s, put a little shine on it, updated it it slightly, added more violence and put it out there. I think his command of the action/adventure-movie style script is second to none right now, with deliberate choices being made for pacing and reveals.

It's just that his ambitions aren't very lofty, and I've grown overly familiar with all of his writing ticks.

here is a wonderful critical analysis of what Johns was doing

http://toobusythinkingboutcomics.blo...ackest%20Night

[G.I.JOSE]

It was the best event that DC had in a while.

This exactly.

[Cryptid]

Blackest Night works as a collection of perverse fan-baiting scenes, in which virtually every zombified character taunts the living heroes with a potentially controversial item from past continuity, but all those clever vignettes and menacing spreads never cohere into a story worth following. The mythology is fairly straightforward, but then the business of moving the characters around and gathering up all the lanterns proves too tedious and too arbitrary, like a videogame fetch-quest shoved into the world of paper and ink.

It's a good premise. But the story is about as badly paced as any crossover I've read. Final Crisis is probably less accessible, but at least it celebrates the bizarre corners of DC's past instead of leaving us with a more conventional universe than we started with.

[Toosie25]

i really how they treated dawn granger...i mean after the brightest day was crap i wish to see dawn granger i mean old hawk is a bigger idiot than the new hawk...

[big al]

I liked it. It was pretty fun. I liked seeing Martian Manhunter as a zombie declaring he's as powerful as superman and everyone just keeps forgetting it. I was actually shocked when Ralph and Sue showed up in the first issue.

what I don't like about events is it seems like unless you kill off a character it's not an event. I really don't like killing characters for the sake of killing a character. Lots of good characters died and really some had no reason to be killed-tempest etc.

[the4thpip]

i really how they treated dawn granger...i mean after the brightest day was crap i wish to see dawn granger i mean old hawk is a bigger idiot than the new hawk...

I think you need to insert some missing verbs and preposition so we understand do you post. Do you like how they treated Dawn? Hate it? Salivated over it?