It’s nearly summer, which means that it’s crossover season. Last year, Lucas Siegel and I tracked the Secret Invasion in a series of columns that we called Damn Dirty Skrulls. This year, we’ve decided to follow the events surrounding The Blackest Night. That’s right; Damn Dirty Zombies is here!
Today, we’re going to kick-off with a “What We Know Now”. Based on previous information and yesterday’s full DC Solicitations, we now know that the following characters will see hellish second lives as Black Lanterns.
So, yeah, Spoilers On.
1) Earth-2 Superman: We’ve known about this one the longest, given his early appearance in DC Direct action figure ads for this fall.
2) Martian Manhunter: Like Superman, J’onn’s skully form was previewed in the DC Direct house ad for the following month.
3) Aquaman: Assuming that the guy haunting the house ads is our Aquaman and not an Aquaman that slipped thru a crack in reality in Final Crisis, he’s here.
4) Firestorm: Another house ad reveal, we can all guess that this is Ronnie.
5) The Flying Graysons: Shouldn’t that be the Dying Graysons? Their cat was let out of the black bag in the copy for Blackest Night: Batman #1.
6) PA KENT?!: Well, Black Lantern Supes apparently digs up his grave in Blackest Night: Superman #1, so it appears that we may have one Black Lantern in overalls.
7) Terra: That’s confirmed on the cover and in the copy for Blackest Night: Titans #1. It also mentions other Titans; since Geoff is writing BN, I’m guessing he’ll acknowledge the Titans he offed in Infinite Crisis: Bushido, Pantha, and Wildebeest. I’d say there’s a fair to middling chance that we’ll also see Aquagirl (the original), Kole, Marvin, Lilith/Omen, Hawk, Dove, Harlequin, Power Boy, or Danny Chase. Maybe even Osiris! One note on Terra: it’s ironic that an earth-powered character who originally died in a landstorm of her own creation won’t stay buried.
8 ) Katma Tui: She’s in the copy for Green Lantern #45. If you don’t recall, Katma died in Action Comics Weekly #601, 21 years ago. However, she still gets more respect than Merayn Dethalis.
9) A Bunch of Other Green Lanterns: In the solicitation for Green Lantern Corps #39, it pretty much indicates that all the dead GLs in the crypt on Oa rise. Good idea keeping all of the bodies together, Guardians!
As we move closer to the rising, we’ll keep tabs on other forthcoming Black Lantern revelations. For the record, we found this quote from DC Executive Editor Dan Didio to be quite telling. In last week’s installment of the main site’s “20 Answers and 1 Question“, Didio strongly implied that Hawkman and Hawkgirl would be flying on black wings by the end of Blackest Night #1.
So there’s where we start, kids. I’m sure you have plenty of questions. Who will live? Who will die? And will Superman have to dress any of their corpses? Check back in semi-regularly this summer as we attempt to answer. Except maybe that last one, because, well, ick.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:10 am
You forgot the dead Sinestro Corps members.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Oh, and Alexander Luthor was mentioned in the Adventure Comics #1 solicitation
May 19th, 2009 at 11:10 am
That dead Ch’p on the cover of the upcoming GLC issue was just creepy-looking.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Daaaaaammmmmnnnn. Im excited about having a coherent, straightforward DC Universe extravaganza like Blackest Night!
May 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am
They’ve already topped the Skrull reveals of last summer & the series hasn’t really started yet. Nice.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Black Lantern Power Boy would be amazing, the creep just got creepier
May 19th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Well… the solicits for Green Lantern #43 seem to imply that Bruce Wayne will be a zombie as well (if you wanna read the cover that way), although now Didio is saying he’s not dead to begin with. If he IS a Black Lantern, it’d be huge…
May 19th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I’m going to be super annoyed if they kill off the Hawks in BN just for shock value. After all the work that Geoff Johns put into those characters for the past decade it would seem like a total waste. Although maybe he caught wind to whatever Starlin was trying to do with Carter’s origin in that special a few months ago and decided it was a mercy kill. Either way, here’s hoping it’s a red herring. There is nothing wrong with those characters as they are now that a good creative team couldn’t take advantage of.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Dead Batman.
He’s dead. He’s not dead. He’s dead. He’s not dead.
Pick a state of existence, DC and stick with it!
May 19th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
imho, DC needs to refocus on stories that do not rely on their primary characters dying. Maybe turning into zombies would be better?
May 19th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Would also love to see some dead bat-villains, but they keep bringing most of them back anyway!
Abattoir (OK, we don’t really need him back)
Batzarro (can stay dead for all I care)
Blockbuster I
Blockbuster II
Black Mask (oh, wait he’s not dead)
Black Spider (oh wait, he’s not dead)
Clayface II
Charaxes
Copperhead
Dr. Phosphorus (oh wait, he’s not dead)
Dr. Death (was he ever killed?)
Dr. Tzin-Tzin - the return of the evil oriental!
Doodlebug
King Snake - better off dead
Kite-Man (OK, we never learned if he was really killed or not, but the last mention of him was being killed by Deathstroke)
KGBeast
Magpie - see above
Mirage
NKVDemon
Night Slayer
Joe Coyne (The Penny Plunderer)
Ra’s Al Ghul (he’ll be coming back eventually anyway)
The Reaper
Ratcatcher
Spellbinder I
The Spook (unfairly decapitated!)
The Squid
Ventriloquist (and undead puppet - creepy!)
May 19th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
@Scott Rogers: You’re referring to Schroedinger’s Bat, I presume?
May 19th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
We knew about Superman way before the figure - in a JSA teaser panel, Johns has Power Girl gasping as the zombified hand emerges, screaming “Kal-L?!?” in disbelief. Although he didn’t get to write it in JSA, it seems Johns’ intent was always to bring back Earth-2 Superman.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
wow,Marvel Zombies…..didn’t we read this already?
May 19th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
I’m confused, I thought Blackest night was literally going to bring these characters back to life, same persona, attitudes, etc……….now they’re going to be mindless zombies until control of the Black Hand?
May 19th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
How about Solomon Grundy? Original JSA characters like the Atom, Hourman, Sandman?
Ra’s Al Ghul?
Maxwell lord?
Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)?
Ralph and Sue Dibny?
The Joker’s Daughter?
Tomorrow Woman (technically not dead as she’s an android)
And I just read somewhere that the original Spectre (Corrigan?) will be amongst the living dead.
I wonder if all of the dead will only be from the present. How about dead Legion character’s? Karate Kid, Ferro Lad, Invisible Kid,
May 19th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Indigo/Brainiac 8 who was turned to flesh and killed seems to be on her way to returning since the Titans Omens page had her strangling Donna and it’d be inconvenient to bring her back otherwise at the moment since it might ruin the Brainiac story going on in the Super-titles.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
@Scott Rogers: Ra’s Al Ghul has been ressurected and pretty much alive
May 20th, 2009 at 12:11 am
this is definitely not Marvel Zombie. We don’t know the rules or who can be a Black Lantern. Can’t wait to see Kal-el vs Zombie Kal-L!
May 20th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Hmmm, not sure about the Zombie Lanterns. If their ring passed on to a successor when they died or were dying, then what powers would they have? Does being a Black Lantern grant you powers?
But I am looking forward to this series… it perfectly fits a theory I heard that the best fiction is when you put the character in their worst possible situation. Having the JLA square off against Martian Manhunter and Aquaman has to fit that bill.
May 20th, 2009 at 6:59 am
“Good idea keeping all of the bodies together, Guardians!”
——————————
Maybe you should look up the definition of a crypt ….
May 20th, 2009 at 7:06 am
If the dead are starting to rise, then it only means one thing….Jesus is not far behind …LOL joking
May 20th, 2009 at 8:35 am
@IvCNuB4
Maybe you should look up the definition of a wisecrack.
More to the point: look up Lantern history. This would not be the first time that the rising dead have jumped up to bite the Guardians in the ass. When would a previous time have been? Oh yeah, during the “Tales of the Green Lantern Corps” mini in the early ’80s. Wait . . . what’s that? There’s going to be a “Tales of the Green Lantern Corps” mini for Blackest Night? That can’t possibly be intentional, can it? Especially not after Green Lantern Annual #7 fro a while back?
May 20th, 2009 at 10:44 am
What about DARKSEID?!?? Didn’t he “die” in Final Crisis?? Along that line maybe Mandraxx might also return.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Both adult Bart Allen’s and Conner Kent’s bodies are the in the present, right? Why not raise them? Won’t that be a nice little timef**k?
Same with Ra’s’s original body. Now he’s in the body of his albino son, correct?
Orion’s body is probably still around too.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
One hand shown in Blackest Night 0 seemed to be the original Mirror Master although he was killed billions of years ago by Krona.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:11 am
Ted Kord can’t come back as a Black Lantern as he is not dead. Dan Garrett however…
May 21st, 2009 at 6:26 am
@Ben Linus
I don’t think Darkseid is “dead”, more that he no longer exists. There is no corpse to rise from the grave.
May 30th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
What about Aztek? Or was he incinerated by Mageddon?
June 16th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
The original Super Girl…..who died in Crisis…now there is a coup de gras!…..her body was still around although somewhere in outer space.