Well this issue got me more excited for Blackest Night than just about any thing up to this point.

 I love the art.
 I love the story.
I loved it all.

 Johns and Mahnke have created a damn fine comic here. The art is absolutely perfect for the creepiness that is Hand. He has that weird undercurrent that that guy from Dexter had when he was in Six Feet Under, the look and feel of someone who works with dead people.

Something about his faces, maybe the teeth and mouths, but something about them makes him the absolute perfect artist for the DC zombies.

As for the story, I only really remember Black Hand from the O'Neil Adams run where he was more of an eco terrorist than creepy necrophiliac, but of course that was a reinvention anyway.

I've heard it said about Johns that he just reinvents the silver age to fit in with the darkness of the 90's and I can entirely see that with Black Hand. I mean, his power used to be shadow puppets for god's sake.

Still, just because there is a predictability to your work doesn't mean it isn't good. I know that when I read a Peter David book that if I look for the worst possible pun, then I can probably work out where the story is going, doesn't mean I don't love his work.

I don't remember seeing the "predator" avatar before, but I'm glad that Hand is the one for the Black Lanterns. And killing himself at the end was absolutely perfect.

Is it sad that I knew all the dead characters by their name, and had read all their deaths, except for Jean Loring's?

Johns has an encyclopedic knowledge of DC and when you write epics like this is shaping up to be, that can only be a positive thing.