Blackest Night

It's no secret that my favorite comic book character is Green Lantern. Not just any one Green Lantern but all the Corps. I do have my favorites (Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner), but I love the Corps. Which brings me to the title of my lovely post. Blackest Night is an upcoming story in the GL comics that is considered to be a huge prophecy regarding the fall of the Corps and the universe. Up until now, it's been mostly a tease. It all started back in 2004 with Green Lantern: Rebirth. Which brought back Hal Jordan from the dead and relauched the popularity of the Corps. It talked about the powers of emotional spectrum of the universe and even had glimpses of things to come. For instance, in the first couple of issues, the appearance of the Black Hand. Whose significance I'll get into later. Basically here's the Rebirth story in a nutshell. It's about Hal Jordan, redeeming himself with the Corps and overcoming Fear, which is one of the powers/colors in the emotional spectrum, in the form of Parallax. An entity that possessed Jordan for a period of time and is the Living entity of Fear. After defeating Parallax, Jordan helps rebuild the Corps. Again, subtle things are brought up in the series. The re-emergence of Sinestro, Hal and the Corps', greatest enemy. Who's power ring has ties to Fear and Parallax. Sinestro is also defeated, and he retreats from the Lanterns. 

From there the story starts to unfold and carry over into the Green Lantern monthly titles. Showing the rebuilding of the Corps. The second part of this story lies within the Sinestro Corps War series. After Sinestro is defeated in Rebirth he retreats to his home planet and starts his own Lantern Corps, the Sinestro Corps. Before I go any further, let me throw in a note. I mentioned that a big part of this story revolves around the powers/colors of the emotional spectrum. The Green Lanterns are in the middle of that spectrum. It goes as follows; the color green, the emotion of will power, sits in the middle of the spectrum. With a light side and a dark side of emotions that are on either side. On the light side we have blue/hope, indigo/compassion, and violet/love. On the darker side, we have yellow/fear, orange/avarice, and red/rage. Okay back to the good stuff. So, the Sinestro Corps relies on fear as its weapon and they begin recruiting an army to take out the Green Lanterns. Among its members are Parallax (now inhabiting the body of GL Kyle Rayner), Superman-Prime, and the Cyborg Superman. A war ensues. During the battle, the Guardians of the Universe (leaders and creators of the GL Corps) decide to rewrite the sacred Book of Oa. They begin to make new laws which start the path to Blackest Night. The first being the use of lethal force against the Sinestro Corps. Two of the Guardians are against this and they are expelled from the Corps. The Guardians also reveal the prophecy to the earth lanterns; Hal, Guy, Kyle (free from Parallax), and John Stewart. In which  they foretell of five more Lantern Corps arising, each based on a color/emotion of the spectrum. After the Corps are established the War of Light comes into play. With all of the Corps being destroyed leading to the Blackest Night. At the end of the battle, one of the Guardians sacrifices himself to defeat Superman-Prime, another is scarred by the Anti-Monitor, while Sinestro and several other members of his Corps are arrested. Afterwards, the Guardians realize that the Blackest Night will happen and put their second law into effect. Ganthet and Sayd, the two Guardians that were expelled, are seen creating a blue power ring to start their Corps of hope. The Anti-Monitor is shown on a distant, dark planet after getting blown half way across the galaxy, being imprisoned into a huge Black Power Battery.

On to the beginning of the Blackest Night. Back on the dark planet of the Black Power Battery, panels are shown that tease a proclamation stating "the armies of fear and willpower must come together, because across the universe, the dead will rise." Showing also a corpses hand coming out of the ground wearing a black ring on its finger. The symbol of which is the logo of the villain Black Hand. Other teasers have been shown like the Black Hand discovering the Black Power Battery on the dark planet. So, with the knowledge of the Black Lanterns being fallen heroes, villains, and other DCU alum, the rumors began to fly as to who would show up as a Black Lantern. Already announced/teased are Aquaman, former Firestorm Ronnie Raymond, Earth-2 Superman, and the Martian Manhunter. Meanwhile, in the GL titles, the other Corps start to emerge along with the Green and Yellow Corps. The Violet Lantern Corps appear in pages of GL Corps as the Star Sapphires now using rings and batteries. The Blue Lantern Corps shows up a short while later with its first member Saint Walker. The Red Lanterns show up in both titles in an arc entitled Rage of the Red Lanterns. So far, the Indigo and Orange Lanterns have only been teased. 

This series looks to be a huge and successful story for DC and a huge push for the Green Lanterns. I love this series mostly because of Geoff Johns. His writing and Ethan Van Sciver's art. This series has become the Star Wars saga of the DC Universe. So, by all means go read these stories. I highly recommend them.