Really Late, Yet Spoiler Free Blackest Night #8 Review

(I originally wrote the review below for the Newsarama Best Shots Extra coverage, but I got it in just a little too late for it to be included. I'm not going to flesh it out with specific plot point references and the like. Feel free to discuss "spoiler" bits in the comments section, as it has been out for 2 weeks now.)

Well, Blackest Night is over. That’s probably the only thing that everyone reading this issue will agree on. As conclusions go, I think this issue was rather weak and that it exposes some weaknesses in the event overall.

I normally strive to judge an issue on its own merits, rather than putting the weight of the rest of its arc on top of it. But, in this case, there are some elements of the larger story that you can’t ignore in looking at this individual issue.

With how many issues/pages were kept locked on the pitched battle with Nekron and his Black Lanterns, the resolution seems too neat, tidy, quick and unsatisfying. There are more costume changes that seem designed to sell action figures rather than service the story. The handling of the happy little side effects to the light beating the darkness, with each getting a few panels of attention, seems like just enough room to acknowledge that something happened and so little room as to boil down to kind of annoying quick hits. In a final issue of an event that already had a somewhat unmanageable number of characters and subplots to focus on, devoting eight (not always efficiently used) pages to reactions and “telling” instead of “showing” would appear to have hurt the ability for the first part of the issue to breathe and flow.

Now, I’m fully aware that the final issues of events often suffer due to having to tie a pretty bow on the wrap up. But I don’t know that it has to always be that way. In fact, I think that expectation has helped perpetuate the trend. Instead of languishing over making the flow tight, it is as if creators and editors are liberated by the idea that the audience will complain of a letdown to some degree regardless, so they put more of a priority on making sure they clearly spell out how everything has changed and what comes next. That they seemed to have failed to create much excitement for what comes next through how they presented it here just underscores the problems with this final issue.

Ryan Sook On The Atom & Hawkman, BN #6 Only To Ship 12/30

UPDATE: BLACKEST NIGHT #6 will be the only DC Comics book shipping for the week of 12/30. This is the sort of thing that is often done in events when they're clearing the field for major line-wide changes. Is that happening here?

ORIGINAL BLOG: As per Geoff Johns' Twitter account, Ryan Sook is the artist on his contribution to the Blackest Night skip month twist/event.

Johns is excited to work with Sook and I don't blame him. While Sook has had some trouble with getting his best work finished by deadline, he's almost a mortal lock to present something beautiful for a one-shot that gives him lead time.

It is great to see Geoff still getting geeked to work with particular artists. He's already had quite an impressive list of artists he has worked with, including but not limited to Gary Frank, Doug Mahnke, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis and Dale Eaglesham (anyone left out is an oversight, not a reflection of my opinion of them).

DC Comics: Blackest Night In August

I've been slacking on the blog, lately. I can't really blame it on work getting in the way, because I've done more blogging with a much more hectic schedule. Regardless, I'm planning on making this a daily thing again starting now.

With that out of the way, I'm...at work. Waiting for the project to get under way, I figured I'd compose an entry via e-mail. Stupid internet filters keeping me from Blogger. Images will follow the text entry and be corrected to go with each proper entry later this evening.

In August, DC is dominated by Blackest Night. This brings no complaints from me, as I've been looking forward to it for a long time. As we're discussing solicitations, you don't want to read further if you want to remain completely unspoiled. Nothing outside of what is in the solicitations will be stated.

Blackest Night: Superman #1

The Shane Davis cover is a striking image and a bit unexpected for me. Jonathan Kent isn't THIS Superman's dad, so I wouldn't necessarily expect that would be a target of his. The interiors are going to be by Eddy Barrows, which isn't everyone's favorite choice, but I think he'll exceed expectations. For all the grief I've given James Robinson for his writing since returning, I've been converted to a believer again. The World of Krypton stuff is reading very nicely. I'll give him a mulligan on that Atlas arc from this point on and try not to bring it up again.

Blackest Night: Titans #1

While I'm not thrilled with the proliferation of tie-in mini-series for this event, JT Krul has supposedly been consulting Geoff Johns on this (meaning it may avoid being a completely unnecessary riff) and has shown a lot of enthusiasm in his interviews. I would have to say I'm more concerned about Ed Benes on the book. His habit of posing characters for excessive T&A shots can be very distracting. I'm hoping he'll avoid doing that with a Black Lantern Terra.

Blackest Night: Batman #1

This mini screams of cash-in more than the other two, despite it being Peter Tomasi handling the scripts. I've been very impressed by his past work and he's obviously deep into the Blackest Night plans, having handled the run-up on the Green Lantern Corps series. But Deadman, "cries of the dead rising" and Black Lantern Flying Graysons, while possibly making for a good story, don't seem like they'll handle an intregal plot point for the event or move it forward in any noticeable way. I've yet to encounter any Adrian Saef artwork that I'm aware of, so that's a completely unknown quantity. I'd like to assume that putting him on a Blackest Night AND Batman book means he's a great talent...but I've been burned by that sort of thinking before. I'll still pick this up on the strength of Tomasi's previous work.

Blackest Night #2

Yeah...vague solicitation. Almost no point in having one: it has nothing to sell the issue in it and, honestly, doesn't need to anyway. At this time, retailers are aware this is going to be something big and their existing customers have already communicated in some way what their level of interest is in the book. The only thing that would necessitate a solicitation would be to express that some Spider-Man unmasking or Captain America catching a bullet with his chest level stuff is going to happen. Maybe if this was Marvel, it would have just read "Nuff Said!" and been done with it.

Green Lantern #45

While the idea of seeing the non-green factions go at each other (rather than this being driven completely by the Guardians' gang) piques my interest, zombie Sinestro Corps cannon fodder doesn't. I'm not complaining, because we've certainly known that not every Black Lantern was going to be a marquee character. Just saying it does nothing to amp my excitement to see the issue. Then again, with Geoff Johns & Doug Mahnke on it...I didn't really need to be amped further. The John Stewart/Katma Tui bit is worth looking forward to, assuming they can give it the space it needs to be effective.

Green Lantern Corps #39

In what may seem contradictory, I am excited by the idea of Green Lanterns being revived in Black to go at their former colleagues. The reason is this: we know and care about many of the living Lanterns and even a few of the dead ones. There's not nearly as much emotional weight to a fallen Sinestro Corps member fighting against a live one, since we don't know them or their relationships nearly as well. I know some of them have been given personalities as Mongul was establishing his control of the group, but that's still far from where we stand with the GLC and its diseased members. I think Tomasi and Gleason tend to do "all hell breaking loose" pretty well, on top of that.

Blackest Night #1 Final Cover

God help me, I almost titled this "Final Night".

Ultimate Comics Walk-Up Sales For Feb 18st, 2009

From Lee Newman of Ultimate Comics, the list of top-selling books at one of their locations in North Carolina for what was released on 2/18/09. Pull lists are not included, as this is meant to capture what is being bought off the shelf.

(Ed note: I know, this is real late. It's awful "Special Olympics" of me.)

1. Deadpool #8
2. Secret Warriors #2
3. Superman: World of New Krypton #1
4. Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? #1
5. Black Panther #2
6. Batman Cacophony #3
7. Hulk: Broken Worlds #1
8. Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #3
9. War of Kings #1
10. New Avengers: The Reunion #1

An all Big 2 week because well it was huge.
1. Jon, the company manager, loves this book and it is infecting all of us and our customers as well.
2. That Jonathan Hickman, we love him, so do our customers.

The rest of the list all smacks of Event (but then again so are Secret Warriors and Deadpool).

Employment circumstances have left my head spinning on a daily basis, leaving the blog to be not as high a priority as I'd like it to be. So this list wound up sitting in my inbox MUCH longer than it should (my apologies, Lee). 

Lee is right: a lot of that list (and the list I imagine we'd see for this week and weeks upcoming) can be classified as "event" related. But I don't know if I'd say they are all tied to the "four letter word" version of an event. Obviously, it is all in the eye of the beholder, but I believe most of the titles listed there are great concepts and stories first, event marketing second. 

I've Been A Bit Of A Marvel Event Hater...

(image found at DeviantArt)

...but thinking about it lately, I've come to remember all the types of stories I wished that the super-hero comics would tell. We always settled for Elseworlds, What Ifs and plain ol' out-of-continuity mini-series to get our fix of that really complicated story idea that you knew would never happen in the regular books because it would be too difficult to coordinate and too big of a gamble for the publisher to take (in case readers thought it sucked).

I've been too caught up on holding editorial and creative teams to hyperbolic statements made in fluff interviews to sit back and really appreciate the balls it must take to ALMOST ALWAYS have some major changes happening to their fictional universe that has ripple effects (or more) through their entire catalog.

I, also, get stuck on the idea that they went in this direction instead of that one or maybe weren't quite as ballsy with the changes as I'd like to have seen. That kind of reaction is either testament to how well they've been pulling it off (that my major complaint is that they should have gone further), a bit of entitlement or both.

When I review books (which I'll get back to shortly, whether you want me to or not), I make a point of trying to step back and evaluate the execution as much or more than I evaluate what story direction they've chosen. I've kind of lost sight of that in the last few months.

That doesn't mean that the execution of the last few years of events has been flawless, mind you. Just that I think that a lot of fans forget that, at one time, they asked for this sort of cohesive storytelling to the fictional universes they read about and now try to tear it down because it went off in a direction different from what they would have preferred.

You have to take the good with the bad and, sometimes, just have to step back and realize that the next major change might bring along that story you've been waiting for them to tell for years.

Is Pick On Didio Day Over?

Cuz I just wanted to sneak these bits in:

People seem to identify this problem as being unique to DC, but I would argue that it happens across the entire industry. I would argue that no matter what your expectations are every week, those expectations are unfortunately broken. I would argue that this problem is unique to the business.

Sure, it happens everywhere. But you, Mr. Didio, were those most emphatic about scheduling issues getting fixed. Marvel made the decision that it won't put fill-in artists on a major event and stuck to it. Quesada has said they'd do everything they can on scheduling issues, but did not feel that sacrificing quality for timeliness was an acceptable trade-off.

DC, on the other hand, lets their events run fairly late and then STILL uses fill-in artists. You have to pick a course and stick to it. If you're willing to use fill-ins, then try to have artists ready to fill-in, rather than wait until you're sacrificing both quality (in as much as lack of consistency in art styles) and timeliness.

As Mr. Miyagi said:

"Left side road? OK. Right side road? OK. Middle of road? (SLAP) Squish like grape."

Pick an approach that satisfies timeliness or satisfies quality issues, rather than satisfying neither.

Regarding the use of the multiverse:

DD: The real answer – I just don’t want to approach it in a haphazard manner. Being incredibly candid, I want Grant Morrison to have first crack at it. So realistically, the multiverse is Grant’s toy to play with and use as he likes. I want Grant, when he becomes available, to do the first and best exploration of the mutliverse. He has the best grasp of the concept, and the interpretations that I feel matter.

Geoff did a wonderful job for the Earth-2 story he did in JSA recently, but Grant has so many fabulous ideas for the multiverse that we’re going to wait for him.

That's right. It is an incredibly wise idea to wait for the guy who's work ethic more or less led to you needing to bring in Doug Mahnke to finish Final Crisis and who wants to go off and do Vertigo for awhile. I'm sure we'll get to see that in a reasonable amount of time with the customer base just as anxious and excited to see it.

All that said, I like Didio and think he often gets too much shit from fans (and told him as much at Wizard World Chicago...twice...while drunk). There's just obvious room for improvement.

Uh Oh...

So, Secret Invasion #8 is going to be late? Brevoort says it is due to the extra pages and the care Yu is taking with them, but we all know that Tom and the truth have an on again/off again relationship when it comes to spinning negative news.

I hope it's not to make another change due to spoilers. According to Mr. Anonymous, Mockingbird was supposed to turn out to be the real deal until spoilers started flying willy nilly.

I don't think it is possible that they'll change who leads the Dark Avengers or who becomes/remains Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, maybe it would be easy enough to slot in someone else as leader, as long as they answer to the person originally intended to be the leader. It gives the appearance of change without really screwing up all the things they have planned already.

I, also, doubt that they'll change who is jumping ship from one Avengers team to another. The character that Mr. Anonymous gave me would need to have so many plans changed that I don't think they can scrap the move just to nullify spoilers.

Can't wait to find out...

SAWMANIA Hits NYC In November

SAWMANIA HITS NEW YORK CITY FOR THREE DAYS, NOVEMBER 14-16

Meet "SAW" Legends Tobin Bell ("Jigsaw") and Shawnee Smith ("Amanda")

Get Autographs From the Stars of the "SAW" Movies

Take Photos with the Puppet and Inside the "SAW" Bathroom

(New York) SAWMANIA, the ultimate experience for fans of the SAW movies, comes to New York City, November 14-16, 2008. For the first time ever, fans of the blockbuster SAW franchise will have the opportunity to meet the stars from all five SAW movies, including horror legends Tobin Bell ("Jigsaw") and Shawnee Smith ("Amanda"). Fans interested in this once-in-a-lifetime SAW event can go to: www.sawmania.com

SAWMANIA attendees will have the opportunity to:

• Get Autographs from and Take Photos with their favorite SAW stars
• See Amazing Traps, Props and Wardrobe from the five SAW movies
• Get a Photo of Themselves Inside the Legendary SAW bathroom
• Take a Picture with the Puppet that was seen in the SAW movies
• Go to Parties with the SAW Stars and Attend Question and Answer Sessions

"The most loyal and dedicated fans in the world are SAW fans," says event organizer John Raybin. "This event is built for the fans, and it's an experience that every SAW fan will want to enjoy." SAW V opens in theatres October 24. The Twisted Pictures/Lionsgate distributed SAW films have theatrically grossed over 550 million dollars worldwide. SAW is the most successful horror movie franchise of all-time!

Appearing at SAWMANIA are the following actors and filmmakers: Tobin Bell ("Jigsaw"), Shawnee Smith ("Amanda"), Costas Mandylor ("Hoffman"), Betsy Russell ("Jill" - Jigsaw's Wife), Beverley Mitchell ("Laura" in SAW II and "Lucy" in 7th Heaven), Mike Butters ("Paul"), Mark Rolston (SAW V, Aliens and The Shawshank Redemption), Kevin Greutert (Editor and SAW VI Director) and Producer Mark Burg.

SAWMANIA is being held at BLVD in New York City on Friday, November 14 from 1-6PM, Saturday, November 15 from 10AM-6PM and Sunday, November 16, 2008 from 10AM-5PM. Fans are urged to buy their tickets in advance at: www.sawmania.com or by calling 203.661.4444. Tickets may be purchased on the day of the event at: BLVD, 199 Bowery, New York City. BLVD is accessible by subway, train and bus.