The question: Can you really enjoy Blackest Night if you’re outside the fanbase?
I think so.
While I don’t see myself as part of the base, I feel that I’ve thrown myself into a different orbit than I’m used to and I’m not sure where I’ll end up. I’ll explain and I will offer up some other questions to which you, my friends, are welcome to offer back whatever insight you like.
The first thing that strikes me about Blackest Night #1 is how smooth it is. The story does not feel like it is trying too hard to explain itself which is a blessing if you’re coming to this, shall we say, cold and in the dark.
I felt welcome right from the start. Even more than I did by Green Lantern: Rebirth or The Sinestro Corps War. Maybe that has to do with the sense of urgency coming from all the talent involved, especially Geoff Johns, to finally deliver the goods. And yet it didn’t feel so much like a comics event as it felt like something that was working the way it should.
It didn’t matter to me anymore if I didn’t know every last detail and reference. It can be fun to go into this without any prior knowledge at all. But, I admit, the more you know, the more you’ll enjoy it. Just being able to refer back to the last issue of GL and reread the rise of Black Hand added something. And the same is true for going back to the now famous Free Comic Book Day Blackest Night #0. That special issue offered some interesting clues, I think, about how Bruce Wayne could hold the key to returning back to the light. This isn’t a spoiler, just my guess. Does that sound right?
I have to say that a little of the space opera aspect of GL goes a long way for my taste. I prefer character development, conversation and understanding motives. Growing up, I found the action scenes in Superman and Spider-Man to be cool but understanding what made them tick to be even cooler. Blackest Night is sensitive to this. For instance, I think the scenes with Hawkman are intriguing like when he goes into a rage over the phone with The Atom as he is attempting to shield him from harm. He tries to explain to Kendra why he must refuse The Atom’s wishes as we cut to a panel of a tiny speck of a superhero sitting on the edge of a gigantic desk, relative to his size, waiting by the giant phone. Hawkman saying, “She made The Atom feel small,” is corny and perfect in the spirit of Alan Moore.
Little moments like that add up nicely. But what about little continuity issues and the like? I just wonder what you all think about the many layers to the GL universe. On the one hand, I think it is fun to be challenged to follow the many paths in this narrative. On the other, this goes back to an older way of reading comics when you needed a program to follow the action not to mention a number of tie-in comics. Maybe it’s the best of all possible worlds since the flagship title is so strong you could do just fine to focus on it but, if you’re so inclined, you could also buy all the other related comics too.
So, why isn’t GL more popular? I mean, believe it or not, there are plenty of people inside the comics community who are not even dimly aware of what’s going on in the GL universe. When you have something as special as Blackest Night, people should pay more attention. I wonder if the problem with GL’s overall low profile goes back to its rather creaky origins. It’s only been after decades of development, that we find ourselves with something cool. GL simply does not resonate with people in the same way that Batman and Superman do. That may change. A major motion picture is no guarantee but we’ll have to wait and see.
Ironically, reading the retro version of GL in Wednesday Comics, all New Frontier style, was very refreshing to me. And I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that is what gets presented to the general public when the movie comes out.
Getting back to Blackest Night, the bottom line is that this series moves the ball forward considerably. In fact, if you really want to stir things up, forget about going back to Abin Sur, just make this into a movie and, if it’s done right, this would be your summer blockbuster.
July 16th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I disagree. I’m outside of the fanbase, I read it, and I was bored. None of it really seemed important to me, and the violence seemed there for shock value.
Then again, I’m biased: I simply don’t believe that large events ever really matter in comics. I don’t think anything really changes because of them (the original Crisis notwithstanding).
July 16th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
“Then again, I’m biased: I simply don’t believe that large events ever really matter in comics. I don’t think anything really changes because of them (the original Crisis notwithstanding).”
I would agree with this statement, generally speaking (although you can point to plenty of plot points/new characters from Infinite Crisis to Civil War that have stuck around). For me “change” isn’t nearly as important as the SPECTACLE. I never expect real change in my superhero comics (it’s not endemic to the genre); I come for the eye candy and the bombastic plots.
July 17th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I’m not a GL reader. I think the last time I was a regular reader of the GL books was back in the Mosaic days. But by and large, I’m not a big DCU fan. The bulk of the superheroes in my collection tend to come from Marvel. I’ve got all the hardcover collections of Kirby’s Fourth World and Kamandi, and I enjoyed 52 and Seven Soldiers immensely and Final Crisis (with a few reservations).
I’ve been hearing lots about Johns’ run on GL for a while now, but I hadn’t checked it out yet. I started with GL 43, which was fantastic. A great character piece with some of the best art I’ve ever seen out of Doug Mahnke (and I really like his work).
But Blackest Night 1 really left me feeling very little. It was loaded full of minutiae that did nothing for me as a casual reader. It served to highlight just how frequently DC has killed off characters. Super-zombies don’t really appeal to me. They didn’t in Marvel Zombies, and they appeal less here.
I was interested enough to give it a try, but it didn’t click with me. I’ll likely follow the reviews online. If it looks like there is significant improvement, I’ll try the TPB. If not, I think they missed their chance to make a regular out of me.
Also, on a related note, as a 52 reader (who bought the singles, gave them away to friends and bought the TPBs), I’m VERY disappointed that DC did nothing with the Ralph & Sue ghost detectives concept. It would have been nice to have at least seen a mini come out before they returned as Black Lanterns.