Single Issue Spotlight - Blackest Night #7

So far, I've been really hot and cold about Blackest Night. I know that events as a whole aren't always going to be awesome the whole way through, but usually the best events have more highs than lows. BN so far has been fairly middling, alternating between pretty good to pretty bad between every issue. Since #6 was the best issue of the series so far, were Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis able to keep it going in #7? Hit the jump for my take on it. And of course...

Blackest Night #7

Verdict: Pretty Good.

Well, no need to strectch this out too much, but I liked this issue. I think that the things that worked in issue #6 were still firing on all cylinders here: finally answering questions, lots of cool scenes with the other lantern corps, and getting big DC characters into the lantern action. There were some great scenes with Lex Luthor as the newest Orange Lantern, as we see the ring of Averice take over his mind. Likewise, Larfleeze continues to steal every scene that he's in as he has quickly become the break-out star of Blackest Night and I'll guarantee that after it's over Larfleeze continues to be a big figure in Green Lantern. There's some great interactions between the heroes of the GL universe, as FINALLY Kyle, Guy, and John start to get in on the action with the rest of the other lantern corps, I mean it's only the second to last issue for crying out loud and we finally have more of the Green Lantern Corps show up. And the action of this issue is top-notch, which is not surprising since Ivan Reis has been the absolute best part of BN from the very beginning and has yet to disappoint with the visuals.

But the best part has to be the big reveals in this issue, as we see why Nekron came to Earth (but not specifically why Coast City other than because the Universe revolves around Hal Jordan) and we finally see the great big reveal of the White Lantern which all of the internet knew was coming and it turned out awesomely. Especially because of who turned out to be the White Lantern, which I'm sure most did not see coming.

Aw yeah, Sinestro. This has really been mostly his event, since I think that he's had the greatest moments in his limited amount of screen time in the main event book, and over in Green Lantern Sinestro's managed to steal all of the scenes there too. I do have to say that I was really glad to see him turn out to be the White Lantern that's going to be able to stop Nekron and throw down with him. Unfortunately, this leads into the biggest complaint that I had with this issue and really the whole event in general.

Look, this awesome splash page of the reveal of the White Lantern happened on the last page of the second-to-last issue. Here it is, number 7 of 8 and we finally learn that Nekron is out to uncover the Entity (the living embodiment of... uh, Life) and... I guess kill it? Cause that'll destroy all life? And that's why Earth was so important and the Guardians hid the secret and prevented Earthmen from being in the lantern corps to hide the fact that this was where the Entity was. Okay, that's pretty cool and everything, but why didn't we hear about this sooner? Like seriously, I sat through five issues of the same freaking things happening over and over, and we finally get developments in #6 and 7. So out of an 8 issue mini, we only get about 4 issues of things happening. You could seriously skip from issue #1 up to #6 and not miss a beat. In fact, Kirk Warren did a Blackest Night in 60 seconds that recaps the whole event in less than a page. 6 issues, condensed down to about 3 paragraphs. That shouldn't happen with your big tentpole event. Period, end of discussion. I don't want to be one of those guys that says "Meh, this event isn't nearly as good as this other event that happened", but this quite frankly fails as the final chapter after GL:Rebirth and the Sinestro Corps War.

Not only that, but there just doesn't feel like there's any threat here. Nekron has spent three issues and numerous tie-ins just standing around, and Black Hand hasn't done JACK SHIT despite being built up by Johns for the last several years. And even in this issue, there's no big fight between the heroes and Nekron, he just stands there as they blast him and nothing happens to him. So this means that the entire big fight with Nekron takes place in issue #8 of 8. What a great way to reward the loyal readers of this freaking event, make them sit through several issues of the same-old, same-old and then rush the big showdown into one issue. I feel the same way that I did with the Star Wars prequels as I do with this event. We know what all of the big story beats are going to be, and we all know what's going to happen in the story but everything ends up getting crammed into the last chapter. It's just such a waste.

I know it sounds like I didn't like the issue, but I honestly did. I really enjoyed this issue for what it was. And if this was issue #5 or 6, I would have loved it. But with so much that still has to happen and only one issue left it was disappointing that this event has crammed everything into the very end because we were "treated" to five issues of "Hero that was dead comes back, taunts loved ones, rinse and repeat". That should have been issues one and two. But it wasn't, hence my disappointment. Still, check it out if you like the Green Lantern stuff.