ivan reis
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
Blackest Night vs. Siege: Place your bets!
Blackest Night #7
Siege #2
They say nice guys finish last, but when event comics will finish is anybody’s guess. The demands of a high-profile series around which entire shared universes revolve can play havoc with scheduling. Naturally, editors and publishers love to maintain the artistic quality and consistency (and sales levels) provided by the big-name writer-artist teams that tend to lend such books a sense of “this is a big deal.” On the other hand, they need to get books out on time so that other series whose storylines depend upon what happens in the event can proceed as planned — and so that they don’t end up alienating retailers and readers. But these same readers and retailers can end up just as irritated if they get the sense that the creators are being rushed, or if fill-in artists aren’t up to snuff. It’s a tough row to hoe.
With his front-row seat for a variety of events this decade, including Avengers Disassembled, House of M, Civil War, and Secret Invasion, Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort knows this better than anyone. So it was with an obvious mix of boldness and trepidation that he made the following prediction on his Twitter account:
It’s height of hubris time: I’m willing to bet that SIEGE will wrap up before BLACKEST NIGHT does.
- November 20, 2009 @ 10:20 AM by Sean T. Collins
Back, in black
Grumpy Old Fan
Lisa: Dad, you shot the zombie Flanders!
Homer: He was a zombie?
To paraphrase Milton Berle, of all the universe-shattering events DC Comics has published over the years, Blackest Night #1 (written by Geoff Johns, penciled by Ivan Reis, and inked by Oclair Albert) is certainly the most recent. At the risk of being unfair to the various bits of Green Lantern lore Johns and his collaborators have been outlining over the past five years, Blackest Night is essentially a zombie story. A mysterious, malevolent force “recruits” its members from among the universe’s deceased, giving them black power rings and bidding them to “rise.” Now the Green Lantern Corps, and their colleagues in the superhero community, have seven more double-sized issues (plus ancillary tie-ins in other titles) to stop the Black Lanterns. I thought issue #1 was promising, and I’ll tell you why.
- July 16, 2009 @ 02:45 PM by Tom Bondurant