iFanboy Video Podcast
Show Notes
Josh Flanagan, Ron Richards, and Conor Kilpatrick take a long hard look at Blackest Night, the mega event from DC Comics, serving as the culmination of years of Geoff Johns’ stories the Green Lantern Universe. We’re looking at the whole thing, dead heroes and all, and what was so great about it.
Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern Trilogy
It didn’t start with Blackest Night #1, but way back when writer Geoff Johns revived Hal Jordan in Green Lantern: Rebirth, which was then followed by the “Sinestro Corps War,” Blackest Night has been the planned ending of a long story for a very long time. From the establishment of the rival Lantern Corps, to taking up the thread of Prophecy from an old Alan Moore story, this was a an epic tale, long in the making.
Blackest Night: The Series
We take you through the whole series, twists, turns, oaths, grizzly deaths, and resurrections. Who is Nekron? Where did Lex Luthor come from? Will all be well? Who is the Black Hand?
Was Blackest Night Any Good?
While undead superheroes taking over the world might seem like a bad thing, it sure made for some fantastic comics, whipping the comic reading public into a shirt buying, ring collecting frenzy. Johns largely succeeded at something most creators don’t get the chance to attempt, and Ivan Reis succeeded in doing the work of his career, and some of the best comic illustration of in the business on this book. Was Blackest Night worth all the hype? We’ll let you know.
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Great show as always. I was hoping they would of said which of the 7 hardcovers that are comming out are worth haveing. I didn’t read the series in issues. I was waiting for the hardcovers but I don’t want to buy them all if I don’t need to so I need to find out which ones are worth buying.
@LEXPRIME: Blackest Night and Green lantern: Blackest Night are the essentials. I’m also going to buy Black Lantern Corps Vol.2 cause it has the Blackest Night Flash by Geoff Johns.
This really helped me out alot but I still think Blackest Night was a fucking mess
I probably won’t have to buy the trade after this,,
Gotta love a classic Ron@ifanboy.com moment
I’ll go ahead and be the dick that says you guys gave both "Secret Invasion" and "Final Crisis" the benifit of a re read, which I think would have really enhanced Blackest Night….
Great show guys!
Nekron seemed more obscure than Black Hand. I couldn’t find him in the DC Encyclopedia when he first appeared in this series.
I hope they include BK Starman in the omnibus
Great show guys. My only nitpick is I would have given the series an "A" overall instead of a "B+". And @Gabe has a good point – a re-read does enhance the experience (better in trades?). Also, I read somewhere that DC is (eventually) releasing Sinestro Corps & Blackest Night as Absolutes *drool*
Fantastic show – was really looking forward to what you guys had to say about this series. I agree with the B+ assessment – was a great "summer blockbuster" read, but like all summer blockbusters, it got a bit too chaotic at times and less cohesive towards the middle of the event with all the shocking moments taking a bit too much away from the overall narrative. Looking back at it now, I think the series would have done a lot better as 6 parts rather than 8 to make it more cohesive.
Beyond those nitpicks, I’ve already gone on record in my podcasts that not only was this Ivan Reis’ coming-out party, but it solidified Geoff Johns as the premier superhero writer today. One can only hope though that he can sustain this pace now that he’s the CCO of DC.
Short answer: No. It took too long. There was too much of it to collect. It interefered too much with the ‘normal’ operations of many books. It only accomplished the resurrection of a handful of characters.
Good show, though. Almost always fun to watch.
I was just about to email asking if you guys were going to do a show on this. Thoroughly enjoyable:)
Thanks Cedric and ABirdseysView. I will following your advice and start with green lantern and green lantern corps and of course the main series…..then maybe I will get the black lantern corps vol 1 ans 2 because I am intrested in the 3 issue flash and superman stories. but those will most likley be it. I heard the other 2 arn’t that important. Thanks again though.
As far as I’m concerned, Ivan Reis IS the new George Perez, and it was a crime to not acknowledge him at the Eisner’s.
Gonna wait ’til the trades come out in a month’s time to watch this. I assume BN is completely spoiled?
blackest night …what a missed opportunity. i yawned all the way through it.
HAHA! That intro is so bad it’s awesome!
Ivan Reis is ridiculous. And yeah, they really should have acknowledged him at the Eisner’s. As for people waiting for the trade…why wait when you can make your own: http://www.chrisdwoo.com/post/641725809/heres-the-front-covers-without-the-plastic 😛
OK, that was an awesome show!
@GloriousGodfrey– You yawned for an entire year!? your jaw must be f*cked?
Great show, guys. Blackest Night was terrible and your show reminded me just how much it sucked and why. You guys might have called it pretty good and given it a B+ but did you listen to you guys talk about it. It was a total mess. Not a cool, interresting mess like Final Crisis but a mess where a bunch of stuff happened usually with no consequence and a mess that took place over a bajillion books that went on FOREVER. Seriously, I didn’t buy all the Blackest Night titles but when I was going through my comics the other night, I noticed just how many freakin’ issues this bloody thing took up. Worse, while I liked some of the side stuff, I thought most of it was totally worthless and I can’t see myself ever coming back to any of it. To make all of this worse, Blackest Night was supposed to be the culmination of years worth of stories and to have the whole thing amount to nothing more than a year long slug fest could not have been more of an anticlimax. Johns needs to stop screwing around with continuity and trying to control the whole DCU and get back to telling good stories again because his recent stuff just hasn’t been up to snuff.
Though, yes, Ivan Reis’ work was indeed incredible. So good on him.
@Ilash: We really liked it. Sorry.
@Conor: No, I know you did but your conversation about it really brought out all the bad points for me. Also, I have to say, while you guys have clearly liked it all along, I actually thought that most of your review of it seemed largely negative so I was kind of suprised to hear you give it such relatively high praise when you summed it up. Sorry, I know you fellas obviously know what you like more than I do, it’s just that your praise of this series felt a lot less enthusiastic than when you talk about stuff that you really like.
Sorry if I’m being madly presumptious here but it’s just my little observation based on what I’ve seen and heard.
@Ilash: I think you’re bringing your own issues with the series into your viewing. We’ve said many times that this was the best event in years.
@Conor: You probably are right about me bringing my own issues with me but, on the other hand, we disagree fairly often and my reaction has never been quite like this. I know that you guys have said over and over that you really like it, it’s just that when it came to the review portion of the show itself, I didn’t get much sense of enthusiasm from any of you and you did seem to be criticising more than praising it. I may be totally off base here but that is how it came across to me.
You can like something, but still discuss the particular problems with it.
Not on the internet!
Oh, of course you can. I’m just saying that my own perception is that you seemed to have more problems with it than things you liked and that you weren’t overly blown away by what you did like. Like I said, I was surprised. I know how much you guys seemed to like it when it was going on that I found myself surprised by your reactions when you were discussing the book. Conor might be right though. It may well just be my own biases at play here.
I wish most of the tie ins were done like STARMAN #81. Everytime I revisit my copy pumps me up for the event, even though it’s already over. Just looking at those "zombie-vision" panels alone reinvigorates me.
I didn’t think much of the tie-ins for this series, as they just re-hashed what was already being done in Blackest Night as far as bringing back a dead guy that was related to the character of the series. GL and GLC was enough to keep me in the loop of everything as far as tie-ins go.
I kinda wish DC was releasing these in collections the same way as they did for Sinestro Corps War; where they alternated issues of GL & GLC along with the various extras (of which I wish they’d included a few more of the important extras) throughout the 2 volumes, instead of one for GL and one for BN. The GL issues mostly just work towards BN and will probably end up being a bit lackluster on their own.
Johns’ run would be great as a nicely oversized (i.e. the same size as the Marvel Omnibuses and some of DC’s deluxe HCs) omnibus collection one day, perhaps like the treatment Starman is getting.
@thepowerout
yeh it was. i’ve just had to have it wired back on. My doctor has advised me to stay away from Brightest Day, and Hal Jordon as well, for as long as possible.
I think that generally event comics tend to have more flaws. Plot holes are addressed in tie ins, and the story itself has to hit certain beats.
Whats odd is that in theory I love Geoff Johns stories, but his execution of them makes him one of those writers I actively avoid.
great show. great outtakes