Customer Reviews

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a long time DC fan, it has been an absolute joy to follow Geoff Johns's work with Hal Jordan / Green Lantern. Like the best creative minds, Johns has succeeded in taking the core of a myth -- will made manifest in green light, an intergalactic police force, old loves and enemies, what it means to be frearless -- and stretch the boundaries of the core to unexpected, but not too unfamiliar territories.

Blackest Night expands on an already expanded Green Lantern mythos. The green light of will actually coexists with the other sentient emotions in the universe; red for rage, orange for avarice, yellow for fear, blue for hope, indigo for compassion, and violet for love. And as emotions do, they go to war with each other through their various lantern corps for control and dominance. In the midst of the war, emotionlessness, the black emerges to restore the universe into its original lifeless and lightless state. It then falls to Hal Jordan to rally his worst enemies (Sinestro, Atrocitus) and his best friends (Barry Allen) to go all out, restore the light and defeat the black.

This particular volume provides vignettes / back stories of specific members from the various corps. While each of the stories fleshes out different aspects of each of the colors, they also illuminate the emotional roots of the featured characters and why they were chosen / consumed by the respective emotion. This volume is not critical to enjoying the Blackest Night storyline, but it does supplement the already rich tapestry of the event.

Blackest Night may very well be the best crossover to come out of DC in quite a while, with mastermind writer Geoff Johns providing various other titles that add a bit of depth not only to the main storyline, but to the various colored Lanterns that play such pivotal roles. Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps provides a handful of stories involving various members of various Lanterns; namely Green Lanterns Kilowog and Arisia, Red Lantern Bleez, Agent Orange Larfleeze, Sinestro Corps member Mongul, Blue Lantern Saint Walker, Star Sapphire Carol Ferris, and Indigo Tribe leader Indigo-1. We also bear witness to the birth of Nekron, and even get a first hand take on The Book of the Black. Also featured here is the two-part story from Adventure Comics in which Superboy Prime yearns for a happy ending, but winds up facing off against the newly-risen Black Lantern Alexander Luthor and the heroes Prime murdered during Infinite Crisis. The various artists, including Jerry Ordway, Rags Morales, and Doug Mahnke among others, do great work, while Johns along with Peter J. Tomasi and Sterling Gates manage to flesh out more of the overall Blackest Night story. All in all, Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps isn't an essential tie-in to Blackest Night, but it is a worthwhile endeavor regardless.

This volume collects the `parallel' Blackest Night stories from Blackest Night - Tales of the Corps #1-3, Green Lantern #49, Adventure Comics #4 & #5, Blackest Night #2-#8. Some of these are back-stories (Killowog, Arisia, Mongul II, Saint Walker, Carol Ferris), others are continuations of, or lead-ins to, scenes from the main series (Superboy-Prime). They are worth reading if you are following the Blackest Night series, or the characters' own series, bur this is not a stand-alone volume.

For a more in-depth accurate review read Merlin63's review. I just wanted to add that his collection is not appropriate for a hardcover edition. There is the barest amount of material and what is there is not particularly impactful nor does it provide a fresh perspective with which to view the main storyline. This is not worth the $$$.

This is crap. No, really it is. It's essentially a collection of short and even shorter stories giving some background on some of the key, (and really, not so key, but maybe they'll make more of an impact on the over all mythology much later on) ring bearers of the various Lantern Corps.

The page count for each individual story (with the exception of the last two) range 9 to 11 pages for the longer pieces, 6 to 8 for the shorter ones. These are individual pieces, held together by the thinnest of threads, with no overall arch giving the whole a beginning, middle and end.

Here is my contention: You can't do a 6 page comic book script (and if you manage to pull it off with and 11 page count, my friend, kiss the ass of whatever God you pray to that stuck his divine hand down and moved your pen accordingly) and write anything that is character driven or helps illuminate the complexities and contradictions of the soul. All you can do, really, is fill the page count and hope your artist pulls it off for you.

But this ain't a movie folks! You still have to read the words. And if they don't inspire you to linger, not all the pretty pictures in the world are going to stop you from moving to the next piece hoping for something that truly satisfies.

That may seem simplistic, and certainly it is a generalization. Some pieces are almost decent, one in particular is, really, absolutely wonderful. But more on that later.

Ok. Let's start off with the first story. It's a story about Killowog's early days and how he had to go through basic training with a hard task master every bit as hard as him. Raise your hands those of you who didn't know every drill Sergeant was once a rookie. No one? Ok. Alright. Let's try this: raise your hands those of you who've seen Officer and a Gentleman. Leaving the romance out of the picture, that's still a better movie than this is a story. You get the idea, moving on...

Next story is about Arisia and the circumstances that led to her receiving the ring; circumstances need I add, which are highly unusual given the fact that all of the previous bearers were immediate family members. This isn't like deciding to be a cop. The ring has to choose you. The ring needs to deem you worthy. You have to be born to it. And growing up seeing your grand father, father, mother, brother, all fall in the line of duty and still have the courage and tenacity for the ring to find you, and proclaim you as the next bearer of this special burden, speaks volumes about your character.

That's not in this story though. Basically, she watches her dad and brother die and then is overjoyed to be next on the chopping block as she reports for basic training. Nice art though. No, really, nice art.

Then you get a story about a Red Lantern babe, and yeah, she's got good reason to be pissed. So, what?

The first almost good story doesn't come 'till two stories later and that is the story of Saint Walker, and how he came to be the bearer of the Blue Lantern ring. Raise your hands those of you who've read the Book of Job. Same thing, but with a slight scifi/superhero twist.

Moving on... You get a story of the indigo tribe. Pretty pictures, they basically talk in nonsense. Apparently not only can the ring not identify what they're saying, the editors can't either. Too bad, something happens which is kinda weird kinda cool, but your guess is as good as mine. (I have no guess, so if someone wants to illuminate what the [...] happened, I'd kindly appreciate it).

Then you get a story about Carol Ferris and how the Violet ring sought her out this time. Ok, it's nice. But there's a two panel exchange between Carol and Wonder Woman in one of the other volumes which says about as much of her character and Wonder Woman's as this whole story does. But it's still nice.

Right smack dab in the middle you get a two page text piece by Ethan Van Sciver detailing how he came to design 6 of the 8 lantern symbols, and it's interesting how much thought he put in to it and how much sense it makes once you read it. Could have saved it for the back of the main Blackest Night volume.

Ok, here we go. Highlight of the book time. Twelve pages of mostly text that look scrawled on parchment with black chalk drawing around the edges depicting the scene or scenes being described. It starts off as a direct correlation between the seven colors of the rainbow corps, and William Black's journey toward the black end of the spectrum, but it abandons that metaphor about midway through, but doesn't suffer for it.

Indeed, becomes better for it's exclusion as he details his childhood and upbringing. His alienation from friends, and a family who, even then, thought he was just too weird for his own good. His decent to immorality accompanied by a lack of consequence for his (even as a child) truly heinous actions.

It's the making of a serial killer, if as in lord of the flies, one is left, through neglect, to one's own desires to dictate their upbringing. Twelve pages (thirteen if you count the facing page) called "The Book of the Black. The Burned in Thoughts of William Black", chapter and verse.

And yeah, Geoff Johns wrote it, but he wrote some of the unspectacular pieces as well. Still, this one's a keeper folks. Could have stuck it somewhere in the main volume of Blackest Night and saved me the 25 bucks, but nooo! Gotta milk this puppy for all it's worth (and yes, I am aware that you cannot milk a chihuahua, which is entirely my point).

Finally we come to a shattering conclusion (if by shattering you understand the monumental stupidity I felt at shelling out twenty five bucks for a book I finished in less than an hour and half when I could've bought Ken Follett's World Without End for two thirds the price and have that last a number of weeks) with a two part Superboy Prime story.

Huh? ... WTF? A bunch of Black Lanterns go to earth prime in order to kill him and turn him over to the dark side (uh, darker side)...(yeah, that's right).

Earth prime is supposed to be our earth, and here's Superboy, but without his powers, but the Black Lanterns somehow grant him his powers (don't ask me, man) and he gets pissed and decides to take it out on Dan Diddio and the editorial staff of DC Comics (I know how you feel bro) for what he perceives as their meddling with his life...

And this is the longest story in the book. It has a kind of an open ending (to be continued! Please don't). And there you have it. What I didn't mention wasn't worth it. I don't think I gave away any spoilers. I hope not. The tone, texture, and revelatory particulars are still buried in the text of the stories themselves for you to enjoy or not.

I think, I hope, ultimately, all I laid down was just one guy's opinion. And I didn't charge you twenty five bucks for it!

It is easy to forget that there is more to the Green Lantern Corps than Hal Jordan or the other Earth Lanterns. The organization consists of over 7200 officers with varied backgrounds and unlimited storytelling potential. "Tales of the GLC" in the 1980's helped flesh out the ancillary characters and the "Tales of the Sinestro Corps" in 2007 helped flesh out members of their rival faction. "Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps" takes the next logical step in fleshing out the casts of the new Corps that have arisen since the end of the Sinestro Corps War.

The tales are written by "Blackest Night" architects Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi. Each of the Corps are represented here. The book serves as a companion to "Blackest Night: Green Lantern" and "Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps" as it helps establis the context for the actions of characters like Saint Walker or Carol Ferris. The Black Lanterns' are also fleshed out, as their leader's origins are expanded upon and given full detail -- while setting up a key plot point of the finale. The main book can still be enjoyed without these tales, though.

Aside from the tales, the book also contains the "The Book of the Black" backup features from "Blackest Night", collecting the sickening viewpoint and memoirs of William Hand AKA BlackHand. There's also a nice in-depth interview with "Green Lantern: Rebirth" artist Ethan Van Sciver, where he discuses how he created the symbols of the other Corps. The book concludes with "Adventure Comics" # 4-5, which tied into the event and featured (as of this writing) Geoff Johns' final Superboy-Prime story.

Finally in a hardcover format... This comic series is awesome!!! Even if you are not a Green Lantern fan, buy this book!!! The story will pull you in and the art is fantastic!

There were excellently written and colored stories in this compilation. A tad heavy on the pocket book with all the other Blackest Night stories, but well worth the price in my mind. Solid A plus.

I was hyped as hell for DC's event Blackest Night and put all of the tie-ins on my preorder list as soon as I could find them on Amazon. Then I remembered how DC had screwed me out of some of my money and only got the Green Lantern and Blackest Night books and decided to read everything before buying everything else. I saved myself twenty bucks by not buying this book. Nothing in it really gives much insight to Blackest Night, the stories of each of the members are dull and nothing that couldn't be figured out and the book is as thin as a stalk of grass. Save your money on something else and don't buy this.

A great compilation of the Lantern tales within the DC Universe.
Arrived in mint condition and had a leaflet for the next book in the series.