Blackest Night: WE ARE SO SCREWED
Hi. Sorry to spam you, o beloved flist, but you all know by now how curious I am to see how Blackest Night will play out.
Below is a teaser image that may count as a SPOILER.
POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW. SCROLL ON PAST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE IT.
Ready?
I've been dying of curiosity to see what the Black Lanterns will look like. Will they just be rotting zombies, or will DC do something interesting with them visually? What will their rings do? Will they retain their memories of being alive? Will they be angry, sad, or something different altogether? Will they be willing supplicants and puppets or will they retain any individuation and consciousness?
If the below is any indication of the quality of the art that we'll see in Blackest Night, we have our answer.
WE. ARE. SO. SCREWED.
Black Lantern!Firestorm. Pray for a quick death, children, because we are so completely screwed. If I saw that coming at me, I'd bite down on that capsule of cyanide so quickly that I'd be dead before I hit the ground.
If black=death and death blots out and negates all emotion (which, as a concept, doesn't really uniformly work in the DC verse, and that's a problem), I'm having a hard time seeing how the Black Lanterns won't win.
Notes:
1. That is incredibly cool looking.
2. Black power signature.
3. I repeat, incredibly awesomely cool looking.
I really wish Van Sciver were doing the art on this project rather than Reis. Van Sciver's detailed style is much more suited to epic space opera.
One more image.
Zombie!Martian Manhunter:
One minor quibble: why isn't he in his native form?
Note to Geoff Johns apologists: this is not a perfect story. There are already continuity problems within the lead up to Blackest Night itself, problems with the Star Sapphires (and their fetishtastic cleavage costumes), problems in how Western and arbitrary the assignation of meaning is for each color in the Lantern spectrum (see China, color red, see orange, Svadhisthana) that could have been easily and elegantly explained away, the Guardians are being written as anything but the wise, altruistic, and all-knowing benevolent entities that have been around for a few billion years and thus should know better than to be so ignorant of the nature of emotions (see recent GLC issues and how the Guardians dealt with the Zamarons), and Geoff Johns, who loves Hal Jordan as much as I do, is currently writing Hal as being a colossal dick. There is absolutely no redeeming value to the way Hal is portrayed as behaving towards the Blue Lanterns. If I was a Green Lantern and a Saint Walker showed up to recharge my depleted ring, thus saving me from certain doom? I'd be down on my knees (or the closest approximation thereof that one can achieve in a hard vacuum) in profound gratitude.
Johns may have reasons for doing this with Hal, so right now I'm adopting a "wait and see where it goes" attitude, but honestly, he's giving the Hal haters so much fodder that it disturbs me.
But I'm still hooked. This isn't a perfect story, there are annoying glitches and occasional bits of sloppy writing and editing ("Atrocitus"? Really, Geoff? Really?), but the concept is so compelling and epic that I'll be along for the ride.
But DC and Geoff Johns? Please leave Ralph and Sue Dibny alone.
Below is a teaser image that may count as a SPOILER.
POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW. SCROLL ON PAST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE IT.
Ready?
I've been dying of curiosity to see what the Black Lanterns will look like. Will they just be rotting zombies, or will DC do something interesting with them visually? What will their rings do? Will they retain their memories of being alive? Will they be angry, sad, or something different altogether? Will they be willing supplicants and puppets or will they retain any individuation and consciousness?
If the below is any indication of the quality of the art that we'll see in Blackest Night, we have our answer.
WE. ARE. SO. SCREWED.
Black Lantern!Firestorm. Pray for a quick death, children, because we are so completely screwed. If I saw that coming at me, I'd bite down on that capsule of cyanide so quickly that I'd be dead before I hit the ground.
If black=death and death blots out and negates all emotion (which, as a concept, doesn't really uniformly work in the DC verse, and that's a problem), I'm having a hard time seeing how the Black Lanterns won't win.
Notes:
1. That is incredibly cool looking.
2. Black power signature.
3. I repeat, incredibly awesomely cool looking.
I really wish Van Sciver were doing the art on this project rather than Reis. Van Sciver's detailed style is much more suited to epic space opera.
One more image.
Zombie!Martian Manhunter:
One minor quibble: why isn't he in his native form?
Note to Geoff Johns apologists: this is not a perfect story. There are already continuity problems within the lead up to Blackest Night itself, problems with the Star Sapphires (and their fetishtastic cleavage costumes), problems in how Western and arbitrary the assignation of meaning is for each color in the Lantern spectrum (see China, color red, see orange, Svadhisthana) that could have been easily and elegantly explained away, the Guardians are being written as anything but the wise, altruistic, and all-knowing benevolent entities that have been around for a few billion years and thus should know better than to be so ignorant of the nature of emotions (see recent GLC issues and how the Guardians dealt with the Zamarons), and Geoff Johns, who loves Hal Jordan as much as I do, is currently writing Hal as being a colossal dick. There is absolutely no redeeming value to the way Hal is portrayed as behaving towards the Blue Lanterns. If I was a Green Lantern and a Saint Walker showed up to recharge my depleted ring, thus saving me from certain doom? I'd be down on my knees (or the closest approximation thereof that one can achieve in a hard vacuum) in profound gratitude.
Johns may have reasons for doing this with Hal, so right now I'm adopting a "wait and see where it goes" attitude, but honestly, he's giving the Hal haters so much fodder that it disturbs me.
But I'm still hooked. This isn't a perfect story, there are annoying glitches and occasional bits of sloppy writing and editing ("Atrocitus"? Really, Geoff? Really?), but the concept is so compelling and epic that I'll be along for the ride.
But DC and Geoff Johns? Please leave Ralph and Sue Dibny alone.