tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post8630637649952271513..comments2024-03-27T21:12:28.287-05:00Comments on Collected Editions: Review: Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)collectededitionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14698269790653953645noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post-77923857702898717152010-09-10T15:20:14.011-05:002010-09-10T15:20:14.011-05:00"No more resurrections" sounds to me lik..."No more resurrections" sounds to me like "no more mutants" -- we all knew that would only last so long, and no longer.<br /><br />My post-Blackest Night resolution is to pick up the books that matter (or matter to me) and leave aside the ones that don't -- that is, bypassing the umpteen Batman books or the second JSA title. Unfortunately, I keep thinking I really ought pick up the Brightest Day hardcover ... *sigh*collectededitionshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14698269790653953645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post-51632405066056658362010-09-10T11:28:03.601-05:002010-09-10T11:28:03.601-05:00@ collectededitions & dl316bh: I think you'...@ collectededitions & dl316bh: I think you're both right with Blackest Night not seeming to make as big an impact as, say, Infinite Crisis and not being quite as disconnected as Final Crisis. In your retrospective, you make the observation that the event has huge, and that it might have done better to remain more tightly focused on the Green Lantern books (like Sinestro Corps War) and I agree.<br /><br />I still got the impression, though, that this wasn't intended as a "rule changer" type crossover. Sure, the "no more resurrections" is a strong statement, but I felt reading it that Blackest Night was more about closing one book than opening another one. It was a belated goodbye to the "dark and edgy" DCU (which is something that has been said goodbye to countless times since Kingdom Come, but series like Cry For Justice demonstrate it's never really gone). I thought Blackest Night was just a really, really, REALLY overstated full stop at the end, an attempt to tidy things up for a new direction, without commenting too much on that direction. And, in fairness, I think Johns concedes as much - although it obviously ties into coming events (obviously Brightest Day), it does seem like it's too obviously a piece of set up. Which is odd in a medium like comic books.<br /><br />I hope, but the reviews aren't helping me believe, that Brightest Day might offer more of a mission statement.Darrenhttp://m0vie.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post-51334372592689425622010-09-09T20:17:37.353-05:002010-09-09T20:17:37.353-05:00Blackest Night doesn't seem to be having a lot...Blackest Night doesn't seem to be having a lot of long term effect on much of anything. Most of the effects seem to be from Brightest Day. Any series that tied to Blackest Night seemed to move on from it relatively simply, not calling back to it much.dl316bhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14779958088602323101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post-88077648030552017072010-09-09T16:37:24.106-05:002010-09-09T16:37:24.106-05:00For me, Final Crisis mattered just the right amoun...For me, Final Crisis mattered just the right amount -- didn't derail every series, but continues on in Batman, Justice League, Titans, etc. I'm actually not sure Blackest Night mattered enough, at least initially (not necessarily counting the Brightest Day crossovers), but admittedly I'm only just now starting to read those tie-ins.collectededitionshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14698269790653953645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post-48983467229383754142010-09-09T12:59:10.174-05:002010-09-09T12:59:10.174-05:00The fanboy prodding is part of why I love the Supe...The fanboy prodding is part of why I love the Superboy Prime character. For the most part, I've grown to despise fandom in general over the years. So seeing the fanboys lampooned? Hell yes, sign me up.<br /><br />I do hope this is the last we see of him for now though; if they go too much further with him right now there's the risk of the joke wearing thin.<br /><br />@CE: It's kind of funny, because there were quite a few people who bashed Final Crisis simply BECAUSE it was self contained. Cut to right before that and everyone is complaining about how they have to get drawn into the events and why can't they be self contained. They do that and they catch flak for the event "not mattering". Ugh, fans.dl316bhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14779958088602323101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post-34316468606979554472010-09-08T11:27:38.521-05:002010-09-08T11:27:38.521-05:00Agreed that Johns pokes a bit at the fanboy mental...Agreed that Johns pokes a bit at the fanboy mentality in his use of Superboy-Prime (here and elsewhere); in this instance, and with the use of the DC creators, I thought he implicated himself a bit in giving his characters too hard of a time. Certainly the end upholds your interpretation, in that Superboy-Prime, as the fanboy, is soon to learn the danger of getting what he wishes for ...<br /><br />Darren, I'll talk a bit more in tomorrow's post how I felt Infinite Crisis was more layered than Blackest Night; Blackest Night had strong points, no question, but ending Infinite Crisis I had a better sense of how the crossover would change the tone and characters of the DC Universe, that I did not have with Blackest Night. Though, my sense is that more readers liked Blackest Night than Infinite Crisis?<br /><br />As for Final Crisis, I think it's hard to compare; Final Crisis is only a crossover event in the most liberal definition of the term; more like a self-contained miniseries that happened to have an effect on the DC Universe. I have great affection for Final Crisis as its own thing, whereas it's more difficult to separate Infinite Crisis or Blackest Night from what surrounded them.collectededitionshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14698269790653953645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post-86377628037857359072010-09-07T07:15:37.434-05:002010-09-07T07:15:37.434-05:00I dug this collection because it is just a scrap b...I dug this collection because it is just a scrap book, basically. Things that don't fit anywhere else. As you said, the stories are entirely predictable, but I appreciated the texture. And the Book of the Book is a wonderful bit of shading on the event (filled with all sorts of little connections that I missed the first time around).<br /><br />And I have no problem with Johns' parody of fanboy-ism in Superboy-Prime, because it's a parody of a very particular type of fanboy.<br /><br />What did you make of the event as a whole, in comparison to Final Crisis or Infinite Crisis?Darrenhttp://m0vie.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10945794.post-19679475826233779932010-09-06T11:26:06.628-05:002010-09-06T11:26:06.628-05:00I really liked this one, too, because it's pre...I really liked this one, too, because it's pretty manageable in the midst of this big sprawling epic crossover. I liked how some background characters finally got a story, which is one of Johns's strong suits. There did seem to me a qualitative difference between Johns and the other writers in here, but perhaps that's just me being a diehard Johnsian.<br /><br />Interesting reading of Superboy-Prime as Johns's admission of guilt in the crossover casualties. I've always read Superboy-Prime as an indictment of the fanboy mentality - always shouting for something different, destructively so, and never happy with the status quo because how it "used to be" is somehow intrinsically better than "how it is now." I thought this really came out in BL Alexander Luthor's speech about how Superboy-Prime wants to control something he has no role in creating. One wonders, then, if this two-parter is Johns's way of condemning to death the greedy fanboy.Zach Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17905320964723323391noreply@blogger.com