Background
The storyline was first mentioned at the conclusion of the "Sinestro Corps War" in Green Lantern vol. 4, #25. As the war between the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps reaches its climax, the four Green Lanterns of Earth—Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner—are told by the Guardians Ganthet and Sayd of the Blackest Night prophecy. According to the prophecy, the two existing Corps would be joined by five new ones, each driven by a specific emotion and empowered by a specific color of the emotional spectrum, leading to a "War of Light" that would subsequently destroy the universe. Johns says the prophecy has its origins in the story "Tygers" by Alan Moore, which touches on the rising up of the Guardians' enemies the Weaponers of Qward, Ranx the Sentient City, and the Children of the White Lobe,the destruction of the Green Lanterns, and shows Sodam Yat and Mogo dying. Atrocitus, however, denies the accuracy of this prophecy, suggesting that it blended the Blackest Night and the Sinestro Corps War with pure falsehood.
Johns later said that Nekron was the leader of the Black Lantern Corps in an interview with IGN, though he originally intended to keep that plot element secret. Commenting on selecting the character as the mastermind behind his event, Johns said:
| “ | "For me it honestly was never a question. If I was going to do a Green Lantern storyline about the dead rising, the character I was going to use was going to be Nekron. He's pretty obscure, but like Black Hand, Sinestro and Hector Hammond – you know, these characters that had been a little under the radar for years or even decades – he's someone I wanted to pull out and reimagine and rebuild. And again as you're seeing, Ivan has done an incredible job, along with Joe Prado, on redesigning the character." | ” |
The teaser for the storyline states that "...the armies of fear and willpower must come together, because across the Universe, the dead will rise." An image depicts a hand wearing a black ring bearing the symbol of Green Lantern villain Black Hand emerging from the earth. Both Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver said that Blackest Night is the third part of a Green Lantern event trilogy that began with "Rebirth" and continued with "Sinestro Corps War". In an interview with IGN, Johns stated that he has the monthly Green Lantern book plotted up until issue #55. More details for the event were revealed in "DC Universe #0", which depicted Black Hand discovering the black power battery on the planet of Ryut.
"Blackest Night #0" was released on May 2, 2009 —Free Comic Book Day—and portrays a series of events directly leading into "Blackest Night #1". The standalone, self-titled miniseries consists of "Blackest Night #0" and eight monthly issues. Tie-ins include issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps starting with issues #43 and #38 respectively, and nine 3-issue limited series: Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps, Blackest Night: Superman, Blackest Night: Batman, Blackest Night: Titans, Blackest Night: Wonder Woman, Blackest Night: Flash, and Blackest Night: JSA. Ethan Van Sciver had planned to work on the opening book, but because of his work on The Flash: Rebirth miniseries he was not able to complete both effectively. Van Sciver and Ivan Reis created many of the designs for this storyline.
Read more about this topic: Blackest Night
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