Blackest Night
Brightest Day: ‘They’re back for a reason’
SPOILERS after the jump for Blackest Night #8 … don’t say I didn’t warn you …
- April 2, 2010 @ 05:00 AM by JK Parkin
Bon voyage, Blackest Night — but where was the Final Crisis love?
Darkness and light: Final Crisis hardcover by J.G. Jones; Blackest Night #8 variant by Doug Mahnke
Yesterday the eighth and final issue of Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis’s hit event comic Blackest Night came out, and DC has been celebrating its successful conclusion (how about that fold-out spread, huh???) in grand fashion. On Tuesday, DC’s official blog, The Source, hosted an open thread for fans to share their favorite Blackest Night moments and memories. Source blogger and PR guru Alex Segura posted a heartfelt encomium to the series, its spinoffs, and its creators once it wrapped on Wednesday. Today, editor Eddie Berganza contributed a eulogy of his own.
All well-deserved, as far as I’m concerned: Blackest Night clearly worked for its intended audience, myself included. A hook everyone could understand, a huge (and fun!) expansion of the Green Lantern mythos that convincingly roped in characters from the Flash to Lex Luthor to Hawk and Dove, rock-solid art from Ivan Reis, perhaps the most t-shirt-friendly concept in comics history…I had a hoot with this book and its parallel Green Lantern tie-ins as well, and judging from the uniformly positive fan feedback in the comments for Segura’s tribute, I’m far from alone.
- April 1, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Straight for the art | Lanterns of all colors by Ryan Kelly
Red Lanterns by Ryan Kelly
Artist Ryan Kelly shares four sketches he’s selling on his blog, featuring various Lanterns of various colors. He plans to use the money for travel expenses and to print a personal project he’s working on called Funrama.
- March 30, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Siege probably isn’t a bomb and Blackest Night probably isn’t a phenom
Siege #2
Marvel’s Siege #2 sold 108,429 copies in February, according to ICv2.com’s latest sales estimates. Remarkably, that’s only 55 copies fewer than the first issue sold in January.
This means one of two things: Either this is the most amazingly rock-solid issue-to-issue performance of an event comic ever or, more likely, as chartwatcher Marc-Oliver Frisch points out, Diamond knocked 20 percent of Siege #1′s sales off its January chart to account for returnability. Either way, it seems the earlier hue and cry that Siege is some kind of flop need to be significantly dialed down.
Look, I have no idea what Marvel’s internal sales expectations for Siege were or are. I know that the “seven years in the making” hype creates the sense that this was supposed to be the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and thus sales comfortably beneath those of a late-run Blackest Night issue give the impression of failure. But at the same time, Siege is way shorter than any of the other events Marvel has done in recent years, suggesting the company and creators had a different view of its structure and goal than, say, Secret Invasion. They also started promoting its follow-up, the line-wide “Heroic Age,” more or less concurrently with Siege itself, and in a way that pretty much assured readers of the outcome of the series — in other words, Siege has been treated as much as a means to the end of “The Heroic Age” as an end in itself. All in all, it comes across as a very different beast than Blackest Night does across town.
Meanwhile, Siege isn’t the only title with some mysterious sales-chart goings-on going on. Blackest Night #7′s 130,613 copies appears at first glance to represent an amazing 30-percent increase over Issue 6′s first-month sales of 100,651, and that’s pretty much how ICv2 reported it. But keep in mind Issue 6 was first sold during Diamond’s “skip week” between Christmas and New Year’s, meaning it actually shipped the week before it went on sale; retailers who failed to sign an embargo agreement received their copies the first week of January instead, and thus 35,344 copies’ worth of sales ended up showing up on the January charts rather than the December charts. Thus, Issue 7′s performance represents a drop of around 5,000 copies, not an increase of 30,000. Blackest Night is still the hottest thing in monthly comics these days by a long shot, but it’s not adding a third of its readership with its penultimate issue, any more than it lost a third of its readership in December.
- March 11, 2010 @ 08:52 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Blackest Night #7
Publishing | The penultimate issue of DC Comics’ Blackest Night miniseries led a weak February in the direct market, which saw comic-book sales slip 3 percent from the same month a year ago. Sales of graphic novels, on the other hand, actually rose 1 percent — the category’s first increase since March 2009 — which the retail news and analysis website ICv2.com notes is “somewhat remarkable given that over 12,000 copies of Watchmen were sold in February 2009, over 10 times the number sold in February of 2010.”
Blackest Night #7 sold more than 130,000 copies, followed at No. 2 by Marvel’s Siege #2, with about 108,400. They were the only titles to break 100,000 in February. ICv2 notes that sales of Blackest Night increased some 30 percent from the previous issue’s first month while those of Siege were virtually unchanged. That seems like an impressive performance for both titles.
The 13th volume of Vertigo’s Fables topped the graphic-novel chart with sales just shy of 12,000, followed by the Kick-Ass Premiere Hardcover with just over 9,000. [ICv2.com]
- March 11, 2010 @ 06:57 AM by Kevin Melrose
Blackest Night #8 cover revealed
DC Comics revealed yesterday the cover to Blackest Night #8 by Ivan Reis. And like the cover to Green Lantern #52, it now makes sense as to why they didn’t share the cover when the original solicitations came out, as it spoils the end of BN #7 … check it out after the jump.
- March 3, 2010 @ 05:30 AM by JK Parkin
There’s a new Lantern in town …
After the events of Blackest Night #7, which came out yesterday, DC reveals two covers for Green Lantern #52. You might remember that when originally solicited, DC held back the covers for this issue, and now we know why … they didn’t want to spoil the end of BN #7.
SPOILERS for the latest issue of Blackest Night after the jump …
- February 25, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Legion fans want their plastic promotional flight rings
Legion of Super-Heroes #1
After the release of seven plastic promotional rings for Blackest Night and the announcement of three more for Brightest Day, some fans are hoping DC Comics will show the Legion of Super-Heroes a little love.
It seems only logical that a Legion flight ring should come next. After all, the Green Lantern Corps, the Flash Family and the teenagers from the future form a sprawling trinity of functional superhero jewelry. Plus, Legion of Super-Heroes is being relaunched with legendary series writer Paul Levitz at the helm.
But just in case DC needs a little convincing, fans have organized a grass-roots postcard campaign reminiscent of the one launched in September to return Wonder Woman to its original numbering. (Of course, that one originated with the publisher, not with readers.)
Blogger Sven Straatveit points out that DC already has a flight-ring mold — a ring was released with DC Direct action figures of Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl — so the company won’t have to shell out money for design or sculpting. Sound reasoning, that.
So how about it, DC?
- February 25, 2010 @ 07:56 AM by Kevin Melrose
Is Marvel’s Siege a bomb?
Siege #1 was January’s bestselling comic. Written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Olivier Coipel, it’s the capstone to years’ worth of event-driven Marvel Universe storylines, and the launchpad for a linewide rebranding called “The Heroic Age.” Anecdotally, it’s generated a lot of happy chatter from readers, especially following its gut-wrenching (heh heh) second issue. It’s a major milestone in the Marvel metastory by two of the company’s most popular creators, and it’s literally a chart-topper.
So why, as Marvel Vice President-Executive Editor Tom Brevoort points out, are people saying it’s a flop?
According to ICv2′s sales estimates, Siege #1 sold 108,484 copies. That’s just a hair above the 106,444 copies purchased of the month’s No. 2 comic, DC’s Green Lantern #50, which is the eighth issue of a Blackest Night tie-in arc. Blackest Night proper’s sixth issue sold 135,695, well above the figures for the launch of Marvel’s much-hyped event.
A longer-range comparison makes for grim reading, too. Veteran number-cruncher Marc-Oliver Frisch of The Beat ran down some stats at his blog:
- February 22, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Sean T. Collins
The Fantasy Lantern Draft begins!
Blackest Breakfast by Jeremy Wojchihosky
One of my pet theories about superhero comics is that the best of them don’t hesitate to tap into what I call “inner-eight-year-old gold” — those simple, magical ideas that made playing with your Secret Wars or Super Friends action figures so much fun. (I, for one, made Iron Man and Magneto arch-enemies. I mean, c’mon, it’s right there!)
One of my favorite such goldmines is the opposite-number villain, those baddies who share a hero’s basic look and power set but change the color scheme and otherwise stand as a mean-spirited mirror image. That’s why I’ve loved Geoff Johns’s Green Lantern run ever since he introduced the Sinestro Corps, and why that love has only gotten stronger as a whole rainbow of Lanterns has been introduced for Blackest Night and beyond. And like a kid playing with his toys, I can’t help but daydream about which other characters it’d be cool to draft into the War of Light.
Looks like I’m not the only one. Over at his blog The Cool Kids Table, Ben Morse has selected a rainbow of Marvel characters he thinks are fit to wield the various multi-hued Power Rings floating around the DCU right now. If he had his way, you’d have a very different Red Hulk on your hands from the one Jeph Loeb concocted, while Clint Barton would look more like Green Arrow than ever and Storm would be making Love rain o’er everyone. This isn’t the first time he’s done a Lantern Draft, either: Like any DC fan worth his salt, he came up with his own personal picks for the roles currently filled in Blackest Night by Mera, Lex Luthor, Scarecrow, Ganthet, the Flash, the Atom, and Wonder Woman. Click the links to see his full rosters.
- January 28, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Ring, Ring: Photos of the ‘Blackest Night tie-ins for Siege variant’ trade-in in action
BN tie-ins sent to Marvel (photo by Tom Brevoort)
“Turns out nobody has any extra copies of those ring books…” Thus tweeted newly minted Marvel Vice President, Executive Editor Tom Brevoort this morning. And based on the accompanying picture, which showed a stack of covers for Blackest Night tie-ins that were part of DC’s recent power ring promotion, your sarcasm detectors were right to go off there.
It’s anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but the photo, and a subsequent pic documenting some 300 mailed-in covers from a single store, show that some retailers at least are both willing and able to take Marvel up on its controversial offer to retailers to exchange one Deadpool variant of Siege #3 for every 50 copies or covers of DC’s “ring books” they receive.
But will the initiative be a success overall, for either Marvel or the participating retailers? Does all the publicity for it factor in positively or negatively? Those probably aren’t the kind of questions you can answer with an iPhone photo, but we’ll see.
- January 25, 2010 @ 10:59 AM by Sean T. Collins
Tom Brevoort sounds off on Marvel’s DC trade-in offer
"Wanna trade?": unintentional commentary from Geoff Johns, Art Baltazar & Franco's Tiny Titans #25
It’s a Tom Twitter Twofer today! Perhaps unsurprisingly, Marvel Executive Editor and Twitter king Tom Brevoort took to tweeting on the topic of Marvel’s offer to exchange unsold copies of the Blackest Night tie-ins that were part of DC’s successful power-ring promotion for a rare Deadpool-themed variant-cover version of Siege #3. His opening statement:
I see there’s a lot of chatter about our SIEGE #3 offer, so I have to ask the question: how is this bad? We’re making no money on the deal (actually losing a little) but it will put some more much-needed cash in retailers’ pockets, And if your retailer doesn’t have these books in stock, excellent! Good on them, they ordered appropriate to their customer base. But while no retailer wants to hurt their relationship with DC, we’ve been hearing from lots of them that they’re happy we’re offering this. As for the stripping, that’s all about making it cheaper for these guys to send the books back. But we’ll take complete copies too. And sure, send the stripped insides to the troops–well done, you! They tend not to keep comics mint on the battlefield in the first place. And while we listed the titles we’d be taking–all of the “ring” books– we never mentioned either DC or Blackest Night at all. Not a knock. And if DC wants to make their own offer, let ‘em! That’s cool too, if it frees up deadlocked capital for retailers to order new stuff.
- January 15, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
‘And I thought Thor was a robot!’
That Hitler/Downfall video meme is really working overtime. First the Führer learns that NBC is moving Jay Leno back to late-night. And now … now he finds out he could have trouble tracking down some of those Blackest Night tie-ins he missed because of Marvel’s Siege #3 variant offer to retailers. (Warning: The video’s subtitles contain obscenities — and typos.)
(Via Geoff Johns)
- January 14, 2010 @ 04:34 PM by Kevin Melrose
Marvel offers retailers a ‘rare’ variant, in exchange for unsold DC comics
The rings from DC's "Blackest Night" promotion
Just how successful was DC Comics’ highly publicized Blackest Night ring promotion? That’s what Marvel would like to know.
In an apparent attempt to find out, the publisher is offering direct-market retailers “an extremely rare” variant in exchange for covers from unsold copies of six titles linked to the DC promotion.
According to a press release sent this afternoon, for every 50 stripped covers Marvel receives by Feb. 16, retailers will qualify to receive one free Siege #3 Deadpool Variant.
The specified titles — Adventure Comics #4, Booster Gold#26, Doom Patrol #4, Justice League of America #39, Outsiders #24 and R.E.B.E.L.S. #10 — received significant sales boosts in November, thanks to a promotional incentive that allowed retailers who ordered a certain number of copies of each book to buy bags of the corresponding color plastic rings. For instance, for every 50 copies of Adventure Comics, retailers could buy two bags of blue rings, and for every 25 copies of Outsiders, they could buy two bags of violet rings.
In the case of a low-selling title like Booster Gold, the promotion meant an order increase of more than 35,000 copies over the previous issue. Critics at the time questioned how many of those would end up in the dollar bin. But a good number of fans and eBay sellers didn’t care — they were just happy to collect the plastic rings in Pokemon-like fashion.
The Marvel release notes that the offer isn’t a Diamond-affiliated promotion, and that the distributor shouldn’t be contacted. Instead, Marvel will get in touch with retailers once the publisher receives their submissions.
- January 13, 2010 @ 03:01 PM by Kevin Melrose
DC announces Blackest Night follow-up: Brightest Day [Updated]
"Brightest Day" teaser
“DC Comics this morning announced Brightest Day, the long-rumored follow-up to its bestselling Blackest Night crossover event.
On the DC Universe blog, Executive Editor Dan DiDio described Brightest Day as a 26-issue biweekly series that will debut in April with an Issue 0. The comic will be written by Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi.
The title, like Blackest Night, is derived, of course, from the first line of the Green Lantern oath: “In brightest day, in blackest night …”
Fernando Pasarin (The Outsiders, Justice Society of America) will pencil Brightest Day #0. However, no artists were announced for the rest of the series. More details are promised later this morning.
Update (12:27 p.m. PST): This afternoon, DiDio announced that newly DC-exclusive artist David Finch will provide the covers for Brightest Day.
And in an interview with IGN.com, Johns revealed that some of the central characters from Blackest Night, such as the Atom and Mera, will be seen in Brightest Day.
“We’re introducing new characters, rebuilding some classic DC heroes and villains, and at the same time bringing in new concepts and ideas,” he said. It’s a lot like what we’ve done with Green Lantern. … That’s what I’m hoping Brightest Day accomplishes in the DCU – taking characters and concepts that have been around for a long time and reintroducing them in big ways and with new elements. That’s a lot of why, in Blackest Night, you’ll see a lot of characters confronting the past, because it’s time for us and them to put the past to bed so characters like Ray Palmer can move on to the next adventure and next step.”
- January 11, 2010 @ 06:16 AM by Kevin Melrose