Black as Night and Sweet as Sin

The blockbuster event of this summer.

2 years in the making and featuring a cast numbering in the thousands.

It’s darker. It’s more mature. It’s edgier.

It’s not Harry Potter and the half blood prince.

It is way cooler than HP for the pure and simple reason that it contains zombies!

At least that’s what I think they are…

For a storyline that’s been set up for 2 years and 2 books into the saga, I honestly still can’t tell you exactly what a Black Lantern is.

All I know is that they scare the hell outta me and they are cool as hell.

Geoff Johns is a VERY strong writer for character comics. He single-handedly sparked my interest in the Justice Society of America, a team comprising of relatively old, silver age heroes which should have no business in today’s world whatsoever. They represent a generation of values that just does not make sense anymore. Somehow, he managed to make these old foggies relevant and develop these characters into ones that the reader can care about. No mean feat, considering the membership of the Society is dynamic (at best) and said membership consists of anything from 5 to 50 characters.

He is also really good at rejuvenating old concepts and retelling the mythos of  over powered, over exposed characters like Superman and Green Lantern to make them interesting again. He lifted these characters  from the “fight with the monster of the month” monotonous storylines to something else altogether. Cue the Sinestro Corp War, the War of the Light and New Krypton.

One genre which he never really touched so far is that of Horror and Gore, normally more the niche of writers like Garth Ennis and Jason Aaron.

Geoff Johns’ tales till now might be a little dark and slightly angsty, but they normally end with a message of hope. He’ll even try to show the more humane side of “evil” characters such as Black Adam and even Brainiac, which adds another dimension to their characterization and make them more compelling characters. I don’t think he really believes in Evil for Evil’s sake. Green Lantern #43 and Blackest Night #1 seemed to be proving me wrong as he shows he can out evil and out gore the best of them. Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis was supposed to depict a scenario where evil won and all hope is lost. But seriously, the final scenes of Blackest Night #1 were one of the most “f%& me blind” scenes I’ve seen in a comic for a very long time. It shows how absolute the Black Lanterns’ potential for mischief could be, and Johns is milking it for all that it is worth.

He paints a scenario that seems totally hopeless for the heroes to overcome. Case in point: the scene below.

Which I should probably mention: Spoiler Alert!

Sidenote: Is it me? Or is this Dark/Black theme the “in” thing for the moment? I mean… Marvel is having their Dark Reign event going on too… Certainly makes one wonder about the ideas are coming from…