We now have details on the contents of all seven (yes, seven) Blackest Night collections to be released by DC Comics next summer. The news that Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps will be collected outside the main Blackest Night collection will make some fans very unhappy. As follows:
- Blackest Night - the main eight-issue miniseries
- Blackest Night: Green Lantern - the Green Lantern tie-in issues
- Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps - the GLC tie -in issues
- Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol. 1 - the Blackest Night Batman, Superman, and Titans miniseries
- Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps Vol. 2 - the Blackest Night JSA, Flash, and Wonder Woman miniseries
- Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns - the eight "resurrected" titles
- Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps Vol. 1 - the three-issue miniseries (listed as volume one of multiple, but this might be an error)
The issue here, as we've discussed previously, is there's a consensus that you need to read Green Lantern between the pages of Blackest Night to understand the story, but the books will be collected separately.
This hearkens back to the Final Crisis problem, where the original plan for collecting Final Crisis was to collect the main miniseries on its own -- but having read it, it's clear that book would have made no sense without the additional Superman Beyond issues later added in.
I know emotions are high about this one. Are you eager for the Blackest Night collections? Can't believe you have to wait until next summer? Steamed about the separate volumes? Chime in!
DC dropped the ball with how "Sinestro Coprs War" was collected (I mean, really, why have a Geoff Johns penned issue of "Superman Prime #1" that CLEARLY is part of the flow of the story, just to stick it in a seperate Volume? Made NO Sense...Even Geoff said he didn't like how it was collected)...looks like they are doing the SAME thing with Blackest Night...what a shame.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunate. Not what Johns wants.
ReplyDeleteBut terribly & utterly expected. I'm still buying them.
Then I'll consider selling them when DC does an Absolute Edition someday where they have a better ordering.
It's extremely disappointing. I understand that there might be concerns with the page count (the main miniseries clocks in at 300 pages, while Green Lantern and GLC are 220 and 250 pages respectively), but they were better off going the Sinestro Corps War route instead.
ReplyDeleteLong post here, but I wanted to cover a few discussions.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that when I used to buy comics as they came out I was upset with the big crossover that was pushed into every book without relevence (i.e. Our Worlds at War), but since I swithed to just getting the HCs/TPBs I have really enjoyed them (provided that the important elements are included and the irrelevent stuff is discarded).
To this end, I have been very happy. This site in particular has made the enjoyment that much more by providing the recommended reading context order to get the most from the books. I expect that someone will provide a good reading order for the Blackest Night at some point as well, but it doesn't have to be only book-to-book. I really like the way the TPB Timeline here let's you know (without spoiling anything) why the books are listed in the order they are. In the case of the Infinite Crisis Superman books, there were elements of those collections that if you really wanted to read them in the way that made the most sense, you read up until the break in each book that had a little descriptive page about the Infinite Crisis story and then read Infinite Crisis and then went back to the point you left in each Superman TPB. Since GM wrote the FC stories to be read in a certain way, it made sense for DC to collect his FC books that way.
Also, with the way the HCs/TPBs are printed with the covers and issue #s included as break pages in most of the collections it is easy to switch back and forth to read them in whatever order makes the most sense although, yes, you have to put down one book and then pick up another each time, but that is not a big deal in contrast to waiting a month at a time to read each part and waiting almost a year from beginning to end to read it in entirety.
It also helps that for a lot of these big events, DC usually prints up a downloadable checklist which is usually a good reading order for the individual issues as well. I am saving the Blackest Night checklists to help deternmine a good reading order for when those books are released.
The way DC usually does these events now is to explain to the other editors/writers what the concept is and if they want in they are welcome to do so either in title, or as a separate mini-series if it interrupts the flow of their books. The BN concept is so cool from a character and conflict point of view that I can understand everyone wanting to play.
I am also very impressed with the level of the writing that DC has been putting out pver the last 5-10 years, especially since Identity Crisis. It used to be that the sole purpose (other that the original crisis) for big Summer stories and big book events was to lead up to a character dying, being injured, or changing costume, and once you knew what the change was the "story" leading up to it was mostly dragged-out fluff to sell issues leading up to it. I have to say that I am extremely happy that that is not the case anymore at DC. Now, even if you know that The Amazing Jocko is going to die it is still a story you want to read and enjoy because it is the story that is amazing, not the culminating event. Case in point, I have read the Identity Crisis HC about 5 or 6 times and thoroughly enjoyed it every time because the story and artwork is so compelling that it doesn't matter that i know who did it, I enjoy it the same as the first time I read it.
I assume that Blackest Night #0 will be included in the BN collection. Regardless, if you want to have it for free and missed it on Free Comic Book Day, DC has posted the entire issue for download for free from their site at this link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dccomics.com/sites/greenlantern/media/comic/Blackest_Night_0.pdf
And I am wondering if there will be another BN Tales of the Corps mini since the HC lists it as being 176 pages and the issues weren't 58 pages long, right? So if not, what is the other 50+ pages in this collection? Hmm.
yeah, I'm not really happy about this either. I only read in trades these days. Isn't the point of all this comics stuff to read stories? In order maybe?
ReplyDeleteThe DC website also now has the complete Origins & Omens pages for online reading for anyone looking for those that have been or will be collected (as well as those that may never be collected such as the O&O pages from JLA #30 and Vigilante #3). Just look under the Origins and Omens section at this link on the DC website: http://www.dccomics.com/dcu/heroes_and_villains/
ReplyDeleteThis is just DC/WB sucking us dry and forcing us to dish out as much as they think they can get away with. Blackest Night as been HUGE so imagine the shelf life it will have? And then when people want to buy the Blackest Night trade they'll be told they really should by the GL and GLC one also. And to get these in paperback, probably going to surpass next summer.
ReplyDeleteMakes sense from the suits point of view who go home and don't read comics, sucks for someone like me who skipped BL cause I'm reading Johns GL through trade.
Another reason it sucks; I'll probably buy the BL and BL: GL books...they'll get me to suck it up (hope they don't read this lol)
I think this is a better structure than the Sinestro Corps War collections. With SCW they mixed together two seperate storylines told by different creative teams into one "narrative". It was a mess.
ReplyDeleteThis approach is better: Collect the main mini, which tells its own story, and collect GLC as its own story. Which it really is.
The only downside is that the Johns-penning Green Lantern chapters rely upon the narrative of Blackest Night to work; they often take place inbetween chapters of the main series. So everything from the main BN book and the main GL book should be collected chronologically.
Collecting them seperately means the GL chapters will seem like a bunch of "Meanwhile..." sidebars.
As relates to collecting Sinestro Corps War, I'm hearing two conflicting ideas.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand, I too thought it was offputting to have some of the core pieces of Sinestro Corps War, like the Superman-Prime special, collected in a different volume. That's an argument for "all-in" -- collect everything as it was published chronologically, even if that means multiple volumes.
On the other hand, Sinestro Corps War did have two separate storylines and writers mixed into one volume (Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps), and this too was offputting; the story went back and forth in a very in-organic way. It reminded me of the 1990s Batman-family crossovers where each issue jumped to a different character handling a different thing. So this is a "separate volumes" argument.
Additionally, my personal pet peeve are these multi-volume collections where you don't get a complete story in each volume -- it's recently been a problem with Superman: New Krypton, Justice Society: Thy Kingdom Come, and also Sinestro Corps War. Increasingly, I don't want to buy especially a pricy hardcover and have it be "to be continued" where I have to wait some months for the next volume. That's another "separate volumes" argument -- put Green Lantern and Corps in a separate volume from Blackest Night so I get three complete hardcovers and not three separate volumes, even if I have to read them all to get the whole story.
So it's interesting how the Sinestro Corps War collection didn't quite work -- it seems they might have included in some things they left out, but at the same time left out some of the things they should have left in.
Taking all that into account, I think I've talked myself in to liking how Blackest Night is being collected. Even though it's an ungodly seven books, having seven complete books makes me happier than having seven parts to have to read to get the whole story.
Granted, if I come to find it reads as an inscrutable mess, I may feel differently ...
I'm not sure I agree that you need to read the GL issues to understand the main Blackest Night mini. They're more like suplimental reading.
ReplyDeleteSupplimental reading, yeah, but the Green Lantern issues do not read well without the main mini. It's basically a companion volume. This is fine when it's a bunch of asides, but Green Lantern's frequently told important stories to the Blackest Night that fit right in. Seperated, the collection is going to be a disjointed mess.
ReplyDeleteI'm opting out. Just collecting up to Sinestro Corps War and stopping there; I'm already too far along towards it to stop where I am right now. Such action is probably going to seem stupid to some of you, but I'm greatly annoyed to the point where I don't even want to bother.
Green Lantern Corps, I could understand, but Green Lantern? Thanks DC.
Then again, I don't really know. I may change my mind. Either way, I'm definitely mad about it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the Suicide Squad ressurrected issue is going to wind up doubly-collected, also in the Secret Six trade where the story crosses over. It should, I think...
ReplyDelete(Probably will, also. They did reprint the Wonder Woman issue where she killed Max lord in all of the appropriate places, didn't they?)
There was never any need to reprint the Wonder Woman issue, being honest; there was a recreation of the scene in just about every single ongoing running at the time. XD
ReplyDeleteI suspect the Suicide Squad tie-in's are probably going to end up collected there, yeah. Oddly, the eight ressurected issues are collected, but the two issue tie-in's to the ongoing aren't. Which could mean just about anything; most will probably end up collected in the main volumes.
How this will work with some like Teen Titans is going to be interesting through. That tie-in came right in the middle of a story and it doesn't look like it's going to tie-in at all. I had suspected all relevant Titan tie-ins would be collected in a seperate volume, but DC curiously added all the three issue mini's together in a two volume set. Which leaves the Teen Titans tie in issues the odd man out as far as collections.
Updates on some new trades with tie-ins:
ReplyDeleteGreen Lantern: Agent Orange includes #39-42 (the four-part Agent Orange story), in addition to the GL Origins & Omens story from #38, and the Pages from Blackest Night #0 on each of the Spectrum Corps/Tribes/etc. It doesn't include the Blackest Night #0 story as that will likely appear in the BN trade.
Outsiders: The Deep includes the Batman and the Outsiders Special #1 (which bridges the story between Battle for the Cowl and The Deep) as well as Outsiders #15-20 (The Deep).
Supergirl: Who is Superwoman? includes #34 and #37-42 as well as the Supergirl Origins & Omens story. Supergirl #35 and 36 are in Superman: New Krypton Volume 2.
Surprise, surprise... we get screwed yet again.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't they just put the whole d@mn thing in the proper order and publish them as "Blackest Night" vols 1 thru whatever? If I'm forced to purchase these in hardcover (if I want to read them before 2012 or so), I want the story to flow right along. I shouldn't have to juggle seven separate volumes in order to get a continuous narrative. Christ, who needs the hassle of having to figure out what the correct reading order is and jump between seven books?!
Ugh.
I'm with Anonymous - I just can't be bothered. I'll just read the wikipedia page.
ReplyDelete