Curse you Mass Effect. Curse you.I did want to take a moment to sing the praises of something that deserves it, and that is Blackest Night Starman #81 by James Robinson, Fernando Dagnino, and Bill Sienkiewicz. This is the perfect example of how a massive crossover tie-in book should be made, and it joins Booster Gold #26 as one of the best books in an already excellent event.
I am quick to point out that Blackest Night has been something that needs to be read. Before it debuted, it looked like just another book that would cash in on the idea that two things that are independently awesome will be doubly so when combined. It first appeared to be DC's reaction to the ridiculous (undead heroes battling Evil Dead's Ash) and absurd (killing Galactus, because their hunger for flesh knows no bounds) Marvel Zombies, but while Marvel Zombies was about fun zombie camp, DC delivered with something I found more somber and thoughtful.
Yes there were moments designed to be for shock and awe, like the killing of Hawkman and Hawkgirl or Aquaman summoning zombie sharks, but for the most part it was an interesting refection on what creates a hero, that shines particularly bright on the lesser known of the DC canon.
Death and superheroes go hand in hand. We all know this. Death is one of, if not the, strongest force pushing a character into superheroism/villainy. The first thing Peter Parker did when he discovered his powers was seek profit as a pro wrestler, that is, until Uncle Ben's iconic last words. Bruce Wayne's parents, the planet Krypton, the list goes on. Even if a death wasn't the original catalyst, nearly every hero has someone they cared about stuffed into a fridge, or they sacrificed themselves to reignite the sun.
DC has a tendency to kill off a whole lot of characters, but for a multitude of reasons they often don't have the cojones to keep them dead. At some point they will return from the Speed Force or Superboy Prime will punch reality. I wasn't even positive that they actually killed off Bruce Wayne until I saw Batman as a Black Lantern. Therein lies the rub. Death and reincarnation have become such ingrained tropes of the medium. It no longer carries as much weight as it should. I love Joss Whedon to death, but look what happens whenever a character of his is in a happy romance. They get shot by accident, shot on purpose, cheat with a werewolf, kill Jenny Calendar. We expect it. The second they kiss we start counting down to their inevitable demise. When a comic book hero dies we just sit back and wait for him to come back.
So why did it work when Blackest Night basically said "F**k it" and brought every dead character ever back to life? Because it was an effective device to achieve what crossovers are for. Introduce new readers to the universe.
Comics are a bit alienating in that regard. There are so many characters and so much history, most of which is self referential, that it's tough to find a good point to just jump in. In 1993 I bought Superman #82 simply because it had a robot Superman on the cover. To my six year old mind that was the coolest thing ever (my 22 year old mind still agrees). However, nearly every page had a little box that said "see Superman #[whatever]" or "Don't read this until you've read Green Lantern #[so-and-so]". Wikipedia did not exist, so this was discouraging to say the least. I didn't buy another comic for 15 years. I loved comics and read a ton of trade paperbacks, graphic novels, and anthologies, but never a comic book. I was too scared I'd start in the middle of an arc and not know what was going on. Hell, before I started reading Spider-Man, I bought three volumes of The Essential Spider-Man books and read hundreds upon hundreds of pages so I'd be up to date on the backstory. It didn't help. Maybe that's why I don't read Marvel at all.
Through trades and cartoons I became well versed in the DCU, but Blackest Night is where I actually started making trips to the comic book store every Wednesday. It was easy. I started with #1, and just bought everything with the BN logo. Tons of other people are doing the same, so all the books at least try to explain things the best they can.
Then there are the Black Lanterns themselves. They feed on emotions, by eating hearts, because (this is where you place tongue firmly in cheek) that is where emotions come from (though I like to think they actually gain power from eating the endorphins that fear or rage sends through the blood, thus the heart, but I digress). That makes pretty much every Black Lantern jump out and go "Hey! I'm that guy that died that made you who you are! And here are a list of the flaws and foibles that make you an interesting, developed character! Now give me your heart om nom nom." They are walking Wikipedia entires, and in the hand of Geoff Johns, I don't care. It is amazing.
The aforementioned Booster Gold #26 was the pinnacle of this. Now, I had no idea who Booster Gold was and all I knew about the Blue Beetle was that he was sort-of Watchmen's Nite-Owl, but through a few pages of backstory and Booster's inner monologue, the fact that he couldn't say a word during Ted Kord's eulogy was one of the most gut-wrenching things I've read in mainstream comics. I then bought several Booster trades, an action figure, and will probably continue to buy Booster Gold (despite some really heavy handed dialogue in #28. Second picture from the bottom). Now that is a tie-in done right.
Currently Blackest Night has taken a few missteps. Mainly it has lost sight of it's own badass-ery. It killed Hawkman and Hawkgirl in the first few pages. Batman and Commissioner Gordon fought zombies with flame throwers. That is f**king awesome. Now they have Kyle Rayner sacrifice himself, and angry over his death Guy Gardner becomes a hybrid red/green lantern, which is spectacularly cool, but they ruined it by having a Star Sapphire come out of nowhere and bring Kyle back with the power of love and Pokémon tears. Let's not forget making the Scarecrow a yellow lantern, the physical embodiment of fear, then not having him do anything, the degrading treatment of Wonder Woman (read about that here), the leak of the post-Blackest Night story, Brightest Day, which showed what appears to be a white ring, which better not be be the deus ex machina solution to Black Hand and Nekron, plus a few weeks of weak tie-ins.
However, in the middle of all this comes the purpose of this rant, Starman #81. First the art is spectacular. The cover has the intriguing idea of using Shade's darkness as the light source, which is both visually pleasing (shadows apparently give off a bold, magenta light). I'm a sucker for visual metaphors. Plus there is a shadow from Shade's glasses on the underside of his hat's brim. It's the little things.
Inside the book, all the art looks like it was drawn using one continuous, never ending line, which I've never seen in a comic book before. Shading is scribbles, with plenty of space between the strokes, which in a comic about a guy named Shade who controls darkness, is interesting to say the least. The sky and Shade's shadows are purple, and I love purple shadows and pink to purple gradients in general.
What is really intriguing is the use of negative space. In Hope O'Dare's apartment there is no furniture. There is the outline of a dresser and a night table, but the pillows and blankets are draped over emptiness. This a both apropos to the character, Shade being a manipulator of darkness (darkness = absence) and the theme. The Black Lantern, the titular Starman, shows up and reeks havoc, but for the first time, the Black Lantern is not the focus of the story. The story is about Shade, a former villain, trying in vain to be viewed as a hero, who has fallen in love with a cop named Hope O'Dare. Hope is reluctant to love him back because she's afraid of his immortality. So there being an absence, an empty void, simply the idea of a bed in her apartment during their post-coital soul-searching is quite the loaded. There are worse ways to spend $2.99
This is what makes Starman #81 so cool. The framing, the coloring, the lines, the shading, the art and story intertwine in a way you rarely ever see in Marvel and DC books. It is a comic book with subtext. The former villain saving the city from the hero turned evil, the underlying tension in the script. All I knew before this about Shade was that he was the only useful member of the Injustice Gang in the Justice League cartoon. Everything above I gleaned through dialogue, and not overly expository on-the-nose comic book dialogue. Context clues and subtext. That's usually stuff saved for the indies.
Standard mainstream comic dialogue.If she's in mourning, why is she smiling?
In fact, it contains probably the best comic book line ever.
"I couldn't find my spats" - I'm speechless.
3 comments:
Spatts O'Leary!
Seriously though, in the beginning you hit it on the nose, and you pretty much summed up my relationship with the DCU. Blackest Night sounds like an excellent read, despite turning the concept of Green Lanterns into the concept of Power Rangers or Care Bears.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with the Lanterns becoming the equivalent of Captain Planet on Angeldust. If anything it just makes things more fun!
Very well put together commentary, I must say. You know I'm not much of a DC fan and I've generally avoided Marvel for the past ten years or so due to their extended exploration of that terrible "Marvel 2099" Alternate Universe, but I'm becoming more and more intrigued by the Blackest Night storyline. Well, not enough to buy the comics myself, but enough to bum em off of you.
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