Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Blackest Night - Tales of the Corps #1 - DC

I had seen this book in the postings, but I guess I had just never really thought about it. I was surprised when I saw it in the stack of new books. Basically this title serves to fill us in on the rest of the Corps . . the other various spectrum's, and the members therein. The first chapter is about the Blue Lantern Corps, and specifically Saint Walker. We start with Larfleeze attacking Odym, the Blue Lantern's home. He want a Blue ring. Saint Walker is trying to explain to him why it won't work for him, he's not a creature of 'hope'. As he's doing so, he thinks back to his greatest test of 'hope' . . he's thinking of what he went through shortly before becoming a Blue Lantern . . before he was chosen. Geoff Johns writes all of these stories, with various artist. Jerry Ordway does this chapter. It wasn't as exciting as what we've seen recently in the Green Lantern books, but . . it was interesting, and informative. I think it's kind of a respite before the storm. As we go through the book, Geoff and Doug Mahnke do splash pages of the various corps, and we see some of their members. I thought it was interesting that on the Blue Lantern page it's members included Sister Mercy. She was introduced to us during the Crisis, but I wasn't aware that she had become a member. Next we see Mongul as a boy. He acts and plays like any other boy, except for his penchant for death, domination and omnipotence. His father returns from a trip and disciplines him for building an idol to himself. "There is only one being on this planet deserving of veneration. And it is not you, boy. Understand?" He has been chastised, but he still thinks . . "Suns will soon shudder at my coming. And one day, the stars will run red. I am content. For now." There's nothing like an 8 year old megalomaniac. This chapter is brought to us by Geoff and Chris Samnee. And finally we get a look at the Indigo Tribe, by Geoff and Rags Morales. The indigo tribe are as yet undiscovered. Their language is untranslatable, so we don't really know what their powers are. We see one of the Green Lanterns, and one of the Sinestro Corps that have spilled their fight over onto their planet. I'm not sure if they absorb powers or just manipulate them. But they dispatch both members with equal ease. The Green Lantern goes out quieter, but I think that's because he was already injured. The Sinestro Corps member fights back, and their leader, a woman, takes him out with equal prejudice. It looks as if she feels no emotion either way afterwards. It kind of had the same feeling as if they were walking across a field and came across 2 new flowers . . and then picked them, because they were there. This is a 3 issue mini. It'll be interesting to see what happens next issue as we saw 4 of the 7 Corps this issue alone. We didn't get a tale from the Green Lantern Corps, but . . they did have a splash page. So, the storm has begun. And with 2 $25 variant covers this week . . I have a feeling that it's going to be an expensive one. I guess there was a 1 in 250 cover available for the Blackest Night book. Yikes! I'm glad I didn't see that one.

2 comments:

  1. I think the Mongul stuff was written by Peter Tomasi, but I packed my copy of this issue in a moving box already. If I recall correctly, all 3 of these issues are coming out this month and are exclusively written by Johns and Tomasi.

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  2. Actually . . you are correct. Thanks for the catch.

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