Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Blackest Night #0
DC Comics
Johns, Reis & Mahnke
DC’s installment for Free Comic Book Day is the zero issue for their upcoming event titled Blackest Night. For those that aren’t in the know, Blackest Night is the war of various colored rings that is based in the Green Lantern line of comics that is about to spill into the larger DC world. Many free comics are reprints or all inclusive one shots hoping to grab your interest in the characters. However, this comic acts as a jump on point and as a handbook to follow the Blackest Night event. This comic provides more value for nothing than many opening issues to large events have in recent years. It’s definitely worth your time.
The comic has twelve pages of story. For the most part it’s Hal Jordan, the main Earth Green Lantern, recapping much of what has happened in the past few years, mainly focusing on heroes that have died or that have returned from the dead. He does this with the most prominent recent hero to return from the dead, Barry Allen. This is important because it seems the Blackest Night event deals with various DC characters returning from the dead. It’s also worth noting that Hal Jordan himself has returned from the dead.
The event could go any number of directions from here. Do those that have already returned from the dead get exempt from the Blackest Night’s army recruitment process? Or are they fair game for the potential zombie army? One thing is clear and that is that this issue provides a long list of characters that may be impacted or eligible to get raised from the grave.
The issue also contains a letter from the chief author, Geoff Johns. This letter is interesting because he admits to how events can be letdowns and that delays could be a big factor in the overall experience. While he doesn’t guarantee that all the comics will ship in a timely manner, he does call himself and the artists out by admitting they start from the behind the eight ball. This takes some admirable level of guts on Johns’ part.
Finally, the comic provides a section that outlines each color, some of those characters, their history, powers and weaknesses. This is an excellent section. Many of the armies have been introduced over the course of two years in two different titles and it is a little difficult to keep track of everything without turning to the Internet or previous issues. The back of this comic provides a good armchair companion to quickly refer to as a refresher. If you look closely though you will see a couple of spoilers with regard to characters in or not in various colored armies.
This might be the best free comic I’ve ever received. This isn’t because the story was so great or the content was so vast, but because the book is a jump on point for DC’s major event. For the longtime readers of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps they also need this issue because it gives some clues into the coming event. I’d say if someone has any interest at all in Blackest Night then they need to pick this issue up. At the same time I would be curious to see someone pick this up who previously didn’t care for Blackest Night and decide the upcoming event isn’t at all interesting. Any way you cut it this issue didn’t disappoint. It certainly didn’t hurt knowing it cost nothing.
5 out of 5 geek goggles
