@ Pop Syndicate-- Blackest Night #4
"For a Green Lantern-centric event, there’s a distinct lack of Green Lanterns in Blackest Night #4. The first three issues of this series were more of a buddy event, having Green Lantern and the Flash team up to fight zombified versions of their friends and teammates. Geoff Johns started out this massive event with the comic book equivalent of a buddy cop film plot. You almost expect the Flash, as he’s getting pummeled by an undead Martian Manhunter, to mumble “I’m getting too old for this *#$%.” even as Green Lantern is off dislocating his own shoulder all in the name of justice and impressing the women. There were some other superheroes showing up but the Atom and Mera, Aquaman’s wife, are far from the headliners that Green Lantern and Flash are. Add in a catchy guitar-driven soundtrack and possibly even Gary Busey and you’d have the makings of a classic comic book here. Well, instead of going for Lethal Weapon, Geoff Johns and Ivan Reiss try to take their story to the more creepy side of superheroes."
To read the full review, click here. I don't really know where the Lethal Weapon thing came from but as I was writing it, I realized that there is a connection; Richard Donner. Donner is Johns' one time boss and former writing partner and the director of Lethal Weapon. So I guess this isn't as far out there as it seems. I'm still enjoying Blackest Night for what it is but I'm hoping something big (something other than Necron) happens soon. We're four months into the thing and all it's been about so far is build up. That, my friends, is what we call a big tease. Both in Blackest Night and in Green Lantern, Johns is teasing and titillating us. "Ooh, look, it's a dead Hawkman" or "You resurrected Abin Sur! You Bastards!" has been all about teasing us. Even releasing the identity of the big bad a couple of months ago? You guess it-- tease. Blackest Night is a different beast than The Sinestro Corp War was but it felt like things moved at a brisker pace in that earlier story. We saw different locales and different bad guys at this point in Sinestro Corp War. The thing by this point actually felt a slight bit multi-faceted. So far, Blackest Night has been surprisingly narrow and restrained. It's showing us some skin but not showing us everything. And I still think it was a mistake breaking up the Briggs and Martaugh of the DCU.