It’s
finally here. I know a lot of people complained about how long the prelude to
Blackest Night lasted but I tried to say “Hey! As long as its good comics, who
cares?” But you can only tease an event for so long until you have to actually
deliver. I can only masturbate for so long before I have to say “OK, its time
to ejaculate.” Well, kids, lets just say Geoff Johns delivered and I’m still
wiping his literary discharge from my face.

                Everyone
who’s anyone knows that Geoff Johns is a force to be reckoned with. The man has
his hands in almost every corner of the DC Universe and those corners are,
arguably, better for it. I will admit, however, that I was growing a bit
disenchanted with the last few issues of Green Lantern. They weren’t bad, but I
just wasn’t as enthralled with them as I used to be. This issue, though,
brings back some of that excitement I felt when I first read Green Lantern:
Rebirth. The first two pages are dark and creepy and full of atmosphere. Its a
great way to start out and made me want to see immediately where this is going.
The comic does shift gears a bit in the middle, first with Hal Jordan’s
ruminations on death and then with the perspective pulling back to see the
broader effects of death on the DCU. These parts seem necessary to set up what
is to come but aren’t that engaging. I can almost guarantee that all of this
will pay off and that each of the characters we visited will be touched by the
coming of the Black Lanterns in some way, but as for immediate gratification,
there isn’t much to be had in the middle of this issue. That changes in a big
way at the end, however.

                At
about ¾ of the way through this issue, the shit hits the fan. Geoff Johns takes
the intensity knob and turns that bitch up to 11 and doesn’t let up. The pages
at the end of this issue are some of the most intense I’ve read in a while. Two
things happen:

1). The emergence of the Black Lanterns occurs.

2).  Geoff Johns takes
two characters I don’t care and know absolutely nothing about and changes that
within about 4 pages just to completely destroy them in one of the most brutal
ways I could imagine.

These scenes are both terrifying and spectacular and I
couldn’t have asked for anything more.

                That
brings us to the art. I’ll admit, when I finished Rebirth I couldn’t imagine a
Green Lantern book without Van Sciver but Ivan Reis has been doing his absolute
best to win me over and I think this book is the tipping point. I’ll say that
the intimate moments weren’t as effective as the spectacularly brutal ones but
the quality of the latter was such that it more than made up for it. Reis’
scenes of horrific violence at the end of this book were the stuff of
nightmares. If I were to nit pick I might mention that the layouts feel a bit
too grid based and shine the most the bigger the panels get, but, in all
honesty, I didn’t notice it until I went back for the second read.

                We’ve
been waiting long enough for this event but it seems the build up was actually
worth it in this case. Blackest Night #1 has its flaws but when I put this book
down I had to find someone to talk to about this despite the fact that it was 1
in the morning. There are some true moments of genius in this issue and I hope
the rest of the series can not only pay off the set up this book did, but also
continue the level of intensity set by this issue if not increase it(do
intensity knobs go past 11?).