While prepping for convention season doesn’t leave a lot of free time, I’ve still managed to keep on top of my reading, specifically in the realm of Comics and Graphic novels.

It seems that while Marvel has learned how to successfully pull off a landmark event (with a few exceptions), The folks at DC can’t seem to get their acts together (again, with a few exceptions).

Last week, I had decided to purchase the Final Crisis Hardcover now on sale, in the hopes that if I read through the entire thing in one sitting, perhaps I’d actually understand what was going on. After reading it through, I may have succeeded in further confusing myself. From cover to cover, I have no idea what’s going on, except that somehow the Cavemen are responsible.

Maybe with the dozens of tie-ins available for this series it would have made sense, but frankly, the DCU is populated by so many un-remarkable super heroes these days that I find it hard to care.

However, it’s not all bleak over at the DCU. What Geoff Johns is doing with the Green Lantern Corps lately, and what he has planned for the Blackest Night, I can’t get enough of. I’m ridiculously looking forward to that line.

Still, aside from the aforementioned Johns, Judd Winnick, and Greg Rucka, the DCU is in bad need of new writing blood. Unfortunately, I think the top brass at DC were hoping that Grant Morrison was their answer to Marvel’s Bendis. Turns out he’s not.

What are your thoughts on the current state of the DCU?

- Because I Can.

I think I'll pick on Batwoman as my example.

Before this new iteration of Kathy Kane ever made a comics page, DC announced with blaring brass horns that she was a lesbian. It made papers and magazines and interviews, and stunningly dull characterization. Throughout 52 and subsequent stories, Batwoman posed her way through pin ups while her on-again/off-again girlfriend, Renee Montoya, did all the heavy lifting in terms of going through plot and character growth. The biggest new development is that Kane, despite being closeted and supposedly an elegant woman that moves in Bruce Wayne's circles, now has her father fully aware of her sexuality AND has big, obvious shoulderblade tattoos. Also, we still have no idea why she chose to emulate Batman, whom she only just met last month.

A brief update for those of you who aren't familiar with Renee: she was Harvey Bullock's partner on the Batman Animated Series of the 90s, and was outed by a jilted Two-Face. Her family disowned her, and she eventually quit her job after finding herself unable to murder her partner's killer in cold blood. Depressed and alcoholic, she's contacted by a dying superhero, and eventually succeeds him as the Question. She's also apparently a key figure in a prophecy concerning a cult of evil as well as the head of a government intelligence agency. This paragraph, while summarizing the major events leading to the current status quo, doesn't do a single one of these stories justice. Renee Montoya may not be the most well-written homosexual character in mainstream comics, but if she isn't, then I haven't seen who is.

And yet, Batwoman has the cover of a Final Crisis tie-in TPB, despite her near-cameo appearance there and Renee unquestionably being the lead character. Batwoman has the lead in Detective Comics, still going through the same storyline that introduced her character, while Renee has the backup story.

To my knowledge, both characters are presently written by Greg Rucka. The same person responsible for the shallow, stereotyped, uninteresting Batwoman also brings us the clever, surprising, sympathetic Question. I picked up Detective Comics anyway, hoping for a change of the trend, but no -- Batwoman still thrusts her leather-clad nipples at us in the lead, and Montoya's low-key but entertaining story got cut short just as it was getting really good.

DC, for whatever reason, can't tell the good from the godawful. The Battle for the Cowl was a terrible, plodding mess that didn't have even half the stories the ads promised, yet it had tie-ins galore that were only tangentially related to the miniseries. If a comic so much as mentioned that everyone thought Batman was dead, but might not really be, DC slapped the banner on the comic cover. Meanwhile, much-beloved series like Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Checkmate, and the Suicide Squad folded due to mismanagement or lack of support. Two years ago, Countdown to Final Crisis got ad after ad after ad, but was so thoroughly denounced by fan, critic, and even creators alike that all anyone remembers 1997 for in DC crossovers was the Sinestro Corps War. Even now, Final Crisis was so badly done that people are still finding out that Superboy's back because of it.

DC's got creative staff to pull off as good or better comics as anything Marvel can put out. For whatever reason, the whole thing's so badly mismanaged that I've seen no small number of Green Lantern fans worrying about Blackest Night solely because DC's marketing machine is supporting it. The trend, they say, has been that this is a kiss of death for good storytelling.

This summer, I've got more DC than Marvel on my pull list, mainly because of Blackest Night and Gotham City Sirens coming out, along with some good-looking limited runs (the Red Circle, Kevin Smith Batman miniseries). But, up until now, I've been getting two Marvel books (Deadpool and just recently Thunderbolts) and two DC books (Green Lantern and Secret Six) a month.

The only DC writer that I follow regularly besides Geoff Johns is Gail Simone (current writer for Secret Six and Wonder Woman; if you haven't picked her stuff up, it's definitely worth a look). The only thing I've read of Grant Morrison's is the new Bats and Robin series, and that turned me off.

Also, Skeksil: Montoya's a good character, but she does not make a good Question.

I must unfortunately agree with your assessment of Final Crisis. I bought it hoping that reading it cover to cover in one sitting would make sense of it. That did not turn out to be true. As I have told several people who have asked me my opinion since they found I purchased it "I know why some people to not care for Grant Morrison". It really is a terribly jumbled narrative with no real flow. Or at least no flow I could follow. And I refuse to buy tie-ins in order to make the main story make sense. The main story should always stand on its own. The tie-ins should just elaborate on some of the more minor plot points.

Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps however, are joys to read. I am collecting those trades as they are released, and am only a few shy of all the current ones. I cannot recommend those two books more highly. I've also heard a lot of praise for World of New Krypton, but I am probably going to wait till it comes out in trade form so I can have the whole series in one easy to carry form. I also intend to buy Superman: Last Son, New Krypton and BrainIAC. I've read through Last Son once already and it is really good (at least I think it is). And BrainIAC leads directly into New Krypton (and therefore World of New Krypton).

On a completely unrelated note, it took a post about the state of the DCU to finally get me to register here even though I've been reading LFG since it first started. Wow am I a geek.

DC's made an odd choice with that, yeah. I mean, the Denny O'Neil run that they're collecting in TPB right now is still pretty melodramatic (I know, shocking change from the guy who brought us Green Lantern/Green Arrow), but it's pointedly more grounded than anything about Renee since she refused to kill Corrigan. I'm hoping that her new stories are going to be more like the old Question series, and I do feel we're on a good start for that trend.

(Also, what Venneh said about Gail Simone x100. Secret Six is phenomenal, and Gail's actually made Wonder Woman interesting and nuanced.)

As someone who's read all the tie-ins except the unreleased final Legion one, they don't help. Some of the individual issues of Final Crisis are fine if you're familiar with the minutiae of DCU history, and as late as #5 I thought the series' disjointed start could be redeemed by how well they were depicting Darkseid. I was wrong, and I canceled my order.



Ditto.

(Oh, and I bought all the corps shirts. So take that.)

The problem I have is that it's all been done so many times before. No matter which universe it is Marvel or DC the basics remain the same. Every single event runs the same: Good Guys have a problem and no one can understand who is behind it, Big bad guy reveals him/herself, Heroic Sacrifice, Good Guys win. And, the reason they have this list of stuff to do is because they've been around for decades, the characters are timeless to people and everyone wants to see it all end up fine for the characters they grew up on, and it has to be readable by people who just picked up a comic for the first time. The big point of all of these is the Heroic Sacrifice, because then all the heroes get depressed for awhile and then the person gets resurrected somehow after the public loses the flavour.

Infinite Crisis- Earth-2 Superman (Coming back in Blackest Night)
House of M- Hawkeye (Came back by the end)
Secret Invasion- Wasp (TBA)
Civil War- Captain America (Reborn)
World War Hulk- Rick Jones (Wasn't really dead, came back in Hulk.)
Messiah Complex- Professor Xavier (What? A week later?)
Final Crisis- Batman (Probably in less then a year)


All the way back to Crisis on Infinite Planets with Barry Allen who has come back. The only ones not playing by the rules are Green Lantern in DC and the Annihilation plotlines in Marvel and that's because it's in Outer Space and it's crazy like that. I know it sounds bloodthirsty but I actually want to see someone die for no particular reason. The best example I can think of was when Gwen Stacy died. That happened almost 40 years ago, and it still sometimes is brought back into the light. When Batman died, all I thought was 'Meh, he'll be back', when Wasp died I thought 'Didn't happen on panel, didn't happen.' This is why I perfer Indy comics, they just do their own stuff and keep themselves out of this.

Many of my problems with the DCU stem from, yes, the writing. One of the largest problems I have is their constant use of deus ex machina plot devices. It seems like a lot of the time, the characters themselves don't really solve much. Some of the things that happen are also, quite frankly, ridiculous. I mean, hell, in Final Crisis...wait a moment, SPOILER ALERT for those of you who want to torment yourself by reading Final Crisis.

Okay, ready?
Orion, a New God, is killed with a bullet. Yes, it is a special God Killing Bullet™, but seriously, doesn't the Dog of War deserve better than that? Follow this up with the fact that Batman shot Darkseid with the God Killing Bullet. Batman. Shot. Darkseid. Yes, I know Darkseid is, well, Darkseid, but was it really necessary to have the Dark Knight do the shooting? It goes counter to everything about the character, and I don't think it was handled in a way that was consistent with Bruce Wayne. Finally, how does Darkseid's "essence" get beaten completely?
Superman sings. He sings a note that's "counter to Darkseid's vibrational frequency", and defeats him once and for all.
I mean, come on. One of the greatest threats the DCU has ever known is taken down once and for all through the majesty of song?

Anyway, the spoilers are pretty much done, and those are just a couple of my beefs with Final Crisis, which are indications of the DCU as a whole. The last thing, though...Barry. Barry, Barry, Barry.
Now, Hal Jordan was brought back a couple of years ago, but that was done in a fairly cohesive, believable(for a comic book) way that payed honor to the character and the sacrifices he'd made. I don't feel like that's the case with Barry Allen. I mean, he's been the DCU's patron saint for twenty plus years, and now...he's just back? Just because? No fanfare, no nothing? I don't know, I think after the amazing All Star Superman series, DC thought that Morrison was the answer to their prayers, but this was just clunky, confusing and boring.

See, here's the thing; I'm far more inclined to read DC, as, for the most part, I can count on quality writing (I just recently started comics, about six months ago now), and, at the very least, a variety of characters.

Marvel, on the other hand, will pummel you to death with a character once they get popular. See: Deadpool, (unfortunately), Wolverine (ENOUGH).

And yet, Deadpool got cast as Green Lantern. Go fig

Buncha random comments:

Wait. Superboy is back? Where? When? WHAT? Oh wait. Are you talking about Superboy Prime? Psh, don't care about that wanker. I wanna see the return of Con-El/Connor Superboy. I liked that character a lot.

While I like Ryan Reynolds in general, I honestly would have preferred to see Nathan Fillion as Hal, as shown in that fan trailer that was all over the web about a month ago.

I agree that comic-book resurrections are overdone and no one ever seems to die permanently. But I think the reason it's not working is it's never explained how or why these people came back (with the possible exception of Superman and Jean Grey). Or at least, most of the explanations are, well, kinda lame.

Now, if resurrection were a standard part of the universe and some effort was made to explain what happened AND if ANYONE could possibly be resurrected (not just popular characters or whatever), I think that would at least kill some of the
"meh, whatev" feeling we have when this shit goes down. And then of course, the other side of the coin: They seriously do have to kill some people and have them stay dead.

Finally and most germane to the original subject matter: I couldn't understand fuck-all about Final Crisis. I wanted to, but I honestly could not figure out what the hell was going on and I never did learn how it all ended -- just one day everyone was talking about how it was over. So to the poster who explained the basic outline: Thanks.

In terms of individual stories, I'll don't care if it's DC or Marvel as long as it's really good. However, these days I tend to prefer the DCU.

I didn't like what has happened recently with Spider-Man (Brand New Day) and Iron Man (Civil War), and they're my two favorite characters besides Captain America (who's dead, but maybe in another dimension? I don't know, I'll wait till Reborn is over to try and make sense of that). DC has seemed more consistent to me in recent years, with GL: Rebirth, Superman: Red Son () Infinite Crisis (I don't know about anyone else, but I loved Infinite Crisis), 52, Green Arrow: Year One, Sinestro Corps War... well, a lot of that involves Geoff Johns. He's a very good reason that I prefer recent DC.

Also, DC has the greats. Most Marvel characters, except Spider-Man and maybe Captain America, just can't compete with Superman and Batman.

And you say that DC is overflowing with uninteresting characters, but I'd say Marvel has many, many more.

Haven't read Final Crisis, though.

Superboy AKA Kon-El is back. He came back in Legion of 3 worlds. And Bart Allen too.

Never have been a huge fan of DC.

As for the debate of DC vs Marvel you are all wrong. The best ones are neither! Vertigo and Dynamite are probably 2 of my current favorite, and Image is still my favorite. Walking Dead and Kirkman is all that needs be said for Image.

Yeah, I've been collecting the Invincible Ultimate Collections of Doom, and I do wish such storylines could be done with the older characters. I mean, sure, DC'd never let Supes slaughter the JLA and then shack up with a giant bug, but there's something to be said for the kind of freedom Kirkman has.

I agree with Malcontent; Fillion would've been a better Hal. Reynolds would've been a better Kyle.



Vertigo is a DC imprint.

Yeah I thought I was missing something with Final Crisis too. I heard a quote once form Morrison about what his plans were with Final Crisis. It was something to the effect of trying to write a story around the theory that all time exists simultaneously.

Which, after reading Crisis, it makes sense of the idea of Crisis, because you get the idea behind it. Yet the story still feels all over the place. I was back flipping through pages at some parts thinking I missed something.

A little forewarning about what he planned to do would have helped. A little. But...

They're comics. I like complex plot lines and all that. But I don't think you should have to have an explanation to accompany the story to understand what's written.

I'm all for experimenting with comics and writing, but the way this came off. I have to wonder if even Morrison knew where this story was supposed to go.

I agree that Marvel does events heck of a lot better than DC. Everything seems much more streamlined and organized as if they thought well ahead of time what they were going to do with these things and the characters. DC on the other hand seems to be shooting from the hip and doing whatever comes to mind right away, the exception being Green Lantern and Superman both of which are more or less controlled by Johns.

I read almost every comic book that comes out presently and I'm fairly good at knowing past comics. (yes I do have a life) I can honestly say that Final Crisis was putrid and made me feel as if I was reading daggers into my eyes. I have no idea how people could read it without the crossovers and such. Even with reading the specials and crossovers the it is still confusing as hell. Morrison stuffed so much symbolism and homages that it lost focus. This is just another attempt by DC to sort out so many convaluted storylines while trying to make a buck. Crisis=Reset button. This challenges Zero Hour for worst Crisis ever.

To be honest I love Geoff Johns, Gail Simone and James Robinson. I will look for any book they write in the past and read them. They should just make Johns the exec. editor because anything good comes through him anyways.
Also remember that although DC owns Vertigo and Wildstorm they are different companies and their material should never be included with DC material because it just gives DC fans false hope.

I believe Marvel has created a blue print for somewhat successful events that change their universe. I'd also like to add that after Marvel events dramatic change happens, not just the random 2 sentences that DC will put in every other comic. Just because fans don't like that their favorite characters aren't the studs they were before doesn't mean it sucks now.
I'll be honest Spiderman's Brand New Day sucked in the beginning but if you've been reading for the last maybe 6 months it's like they made Spiderman interesting again while planting him back into his roots (no more everyone knows him and wants to kill/sue him).
I don't care if they bludgeon me with Deadpool. I say take on more titles so it gives a better chance for Ryan Sohmer to write a Deadpool title.

Grant Morrison should not be allowed to write comics, period. His stories are aweful and almost always get put back to normal after he leaves a title. If you want a good example of this just look back at his run on X-Men or "New X-men" as it was renamed for his run.

With Frank Quitelys help, he changed that title drastically. He destroyed Genosha, killed Jean Grey (again) and replaced her with Emma Frost, killed Magneto twice, put all of the teams in leather suits, and populated the world with millions of horrible deformed useless mutants. One of witch was Beak, my least favorite character to ever come out of a comic. He looks like the product of a man who got drunk and fucked a chicken out of sheer boredom.

All of which they easily fixed with "House of M". Almost completey erasing anything he had done previously. The only thing left from his run is when he changed Beast into a giant man-cat. Oh, and Genosha is still gone.

So when I learned he was going to be writing "Batman R.I.P" and "Final Crisis" I almost switched back to marvel just to avoid the pain he puts me through when takes over my favorite books. Which is why I never read "All Star Superman". That and I can't stand Frank Quitely's art. He makes every one look 90 years old.

I would apologize for offending any Morrison/Quitely fans (I think they has 7 of them now), but I would be lying.

Also the Superman and Green Lantern books are currently my favorites. Geoff Johns is my hero.

Its been forever and a day since I commented here, but some subjects are just so juicy I have to, so lets jump in. I think one of the unspoken flaws rampant in comics, from DC to Marvel to others isn't just that the writing is disjointed, but that the authors themselves are not very qualitative. They aren't well read, for lack of better description, and they increasingly rely on tropes without understanding the meaning of those tropes. Sure, the structure is the same: threat, reveal, challenge, sacrifice, and victory, but what is the value of that victory when the sacrifice is ultimately hollow? Nietzche more adequately describes in The Birth of Tradgedy more eloquently argues than I can that essentially without sorrows to contrast glory there can be no glory because greatness becomes meaningless.

Therefore, it isn't just comic writers need to stop ressurecting iconic heroes because people love them, but comic writers need to have them die and in turn have the reprecussions of that death have significance. Not just for the six months for Superman to be dead, not just until the 'new' Captain America puts on the old costume. A hero needs ot die and die solidly, forever. Otherwise, if he must be ressurected, one must show the cost of ressurection. One does not die, come back, and find personal contentment or become more sexy and successful, if one dies they died and now are forever divided from their fellow man. Death might be the undiscovered country, but how can you possibly relate to man and woman when you've been beyond the viel and come back to the banality of the daily grind? Consider Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion, of which DC did an Elric series. The Eternal Champion longs for peace, and if he can't have peace he longs for death because he inexorably knows he is dammed to rise again and fight.

Are we really to believe that Superman is so supremely good that his regrets are nothing more than Kryptonian incontinence? Is Batman so self-centered that his gnawing doubt never leaves him paralyzed? Is Spider-Man so responsible, Wolverine so bad ass, or any of the other characters out there so exemplary they are immune to human fraility? And if they have frailities, how many times can that be abused and twisted into strange shapes in the name of a good comic before it becomes a pantomime?

We comic readers really don't want supermen and we don't want unbeatable heroes like Goku, being one of the most offensive examples, we want normal men and women who in spite of true death and privation rise to the occassion. We want to see a priest answer the call, we want to see someone beautiful be destroyed preserving something innocent. We want to see someon touch the face of god with courage, having lost everything but his dignity. Give us that, and you will never run out of readers.

I think I do want a Superman though.

I agree with some of what people have been saying about different things, and disagree with others, and that doesn't even begin to mark on my feelings about Green Lantern.

Someone said we dont need heroes like Superman, but I disagree. I think the anti-hero is important, and the flawed hero is important too. BUT...what's wrong with a hero you can truly rely on? Yes, it doesn't make for the best reading, but that's what makes the character good is that he's solid. That being said, too many more than superman being like that and it gets old.

MARVEL:
Marvel characters range from the most ridiculously boring(X-Men with their constant political anti-mutant plotlines that no one really cares about anymore) to the most intriguing(Avengers / Spider Man who have characters that actually show occasional character growth), but the thing that makes Marvel amazing is what they've done these past few years. Every story leads into another, and all the different comics tie together into the overall 'Marvel' story. They've taken a mess of different comics and made it into a coherent, well written story. I really love the stories that marvel comes up with, but I can never bring myself to care about the characters, especially when you never know if Mephisto is just going to appear and muck up years of character advancement. Death is all good, but simply negating things that happen? A bit too much for me.

DC:
DC continually comes up with good ideas for it's amazing characters but never gives these characters time to grow. Oh look, superman made a mistake and someone paid for it. He seems kind of upset. Now we will never speak of this again. Now we're going to have some terrible crisis in an attempt to get our continuity straight, but instead of anyone actually doing this we finish our epic storyline and everyone goes back to the EXACT same place they were before. The one year later thing had more potential than anything DC had ever done before and they really kind of crapped all over that...

Green Lantern:

Allow me to being by saying that if Kyle Rayner had remained the primary GL I would have a GL tattoo. Probably on my ass. With a heart around it.

I love the idea of the green lantern, I love the powers. I love the stupid oath. I never hated the yellow weakness. I acknowledge that it’s stupid, but Kryptonians came from a planet seemingly genetically engineered towards poisoning them, so whatever. I have over 3,000 dollars worth of GL stuff(not including comics). He is my hero, and I am a 23 year old married man.

Green Lantern was always a real character. He was a person with powers. When Stewart destroyed a planet by accident it tore him up inside. When Jordan found his city destroyed - he lost it, which was appropriate. When Rayner found his girlfriend dead in the fridge he responded angrily, appropriately. Of all the GL I loved kyle the most because he represented character growth, continuity, and more in a comic book character. I felt bad for him at times, I disagreed with him at times, but that’s how it should be. You never agree completely with any one person. You always have disagreements…problems….Sure, beyond these simple things he had some issues. John Stewart accidentally destroyed a planet and years later it makes him wake up in the middle of the night weeping like a woman. Rayner gives a power ring to someone who uses it’s powers to destroy 100 solar systems and Rayner gets mildly perturbed for about five minutes.

But look at where the character started, and look where he ended. True growth occurred for the character. But Hal Jordan? No, this man makes a mistake in anger and goes with it, attempting to fix things as he feels is right. If you want to redeem the character, then do so – but don’t negate the mistakes. He isn’t superman, and he shouldn’t be. He’s a human with a power ring, and people should stop treating him like the most important hero in the corps. Bringing him back the way they did was a dishonor to the character, taking away his emotion and making him as pure and flawless as Superman(and we already have a superman).

And now they’re introducing all these other corps? I stopped reading a few months ago, but I was pretty upset. Does no one else hate it when all of a sudden an ancient mystery is revealed – with 7 different interlocking parts, then all of a sudden, all 7 parts activate at once? This would have been amazing if they had revealed the danger of the ‘blackest night’ years ago, then introduced parts over the years. But no, this is the single most important thing in GL history, we just found out about it and it’s all going on right now!!!!

And you know that when all is said and done it won’t have any impact. DC hates character growth, and it makes me so bitter, because GL could be so much more.


Sorry for the rambling at parts...I tend to be poor at communicating without being able to go off on tangents..hopefully I made sense and wasn't too annoying

That being said, how is the current blackest night storyline going? I jumped ship right as it began, but would appreciate a recap if anyone would like to provide one

Well...... I actually liked Final Crisis.

Sure, I was confused to the point of feeling like I needed to review Wikipedia articles immediately after reading the series. Things jump around with seemingly little purpose. Martian Manhunter is killed almost as an afterthought. The final issue has about seven dozen climaxes that seem to happen without any particular rhyme, reason, or significance. Yet I couldn't help but love what I was reading somehow. I love the concepts behind the story, I love the reinterpretations of classic DC characters, and I could stare at the artwork for days. And I'm not the only one on that regard, Final Crisis still sold and reviewed well, even if people were terribly confused.

Reading the tie-ins isn't going to help you at all. Unlike the Infinite Crisis lead-ins, tie-ins, and aftermath issues, the Final Crisis books are disconnected from just about everything else except in the editorial theme to FC: evil wins. The only minor exceptions are the FC Superman mini-series and FC: Submit, which is why they were collected in the hardcover, but even there the connections are pretty minor. Even Countdown can be ignored, mainly since FC was being written alongside Coundown and as such took very different directions. I suspect that DC is trying to get away from the only real problem of Infinite Crisis: that you HAD to read the four mini-series to get the lead-in instead of WANTING to read them for their own sake. If you want a better lead-in to FC, you're better off reading Morrison's previous DC books. Seven Soldiers in particular introduced his reinterpretation of the New Gods and the FC versions of Mister Miracle and Frankenstein. As annoying as it may be to have to read a five-year old series to get Morrison's self-referential style, it's still a good read. Besides, SS won an Eisner for best finite/limited series, which in my opinion means something was done right.

I also don't think it necessarily helps to compare DC to Marvel in this. Both companies are equally guilty of muddling their storylines and titles at one time or another. Even the "changes" and "united front" of Marvel created by Civil War is limited. It seemed to me that the whole "registration vs anti-registration" camps existed in name only once the series ended, characters were doing pretty much the same things they did before the Civil War as though nothing had changed. Heroes on both sides continued to team-up to take out shared threats. World War Hulk being the best example, in which Iron Man offers a blanket pardon to all heroes that help defend New York from Hulk. If they were being consistent with their changes, you'd think that Iron Man would have made more arrests following the Civil War instead of giving pardons and making exceptions to his own rules. But doing that would lead to around half of the Marvel titles being set in a superhuman prison for the better part of a year. I have a feeling the current Dark Reign storylines will eventually end with the pre-Civil War status quo largely being reinstated. A plot like this tends to go in a cycle, and both Marvel and DC will continue to go in cycles unless the editors decide to have a set lifespan for a character, instead of having continuous superhero death and resurrection stories.

Speaking of death-and-resurrection stories, Geoff Johns did that with Green Lantern: Rebirth, he's doing it with Flash: Rebirth, and is going to do that with Blackest Night. All three of these were ideas that Johns brought to the table, not Morrison, not a DC editor, but one of DC's best writers, the Brian Michael Bendis of the opposing side. The core of Blackest Night revolves around resurrecting just about every dead DC character from their large history. And the same people that criticize these kinds of stories are cheering him on.

Good thing he's going to get each and every single one of them right and garner popular acclaim, or else they might have to stop death-and-resurrection stories altogether.

But back to Grant Morrison:

Morrison has been churning out a ton of critically acclaimed titles since DC brought him 20 years ago. His approach has always been highly experimental, trying to do new things with comics as an art form, running from his work on Animal Man and Arkham Aslyum to today. Conceptually, many of these ideas are good ideas. In recent years though, some of these ideas either clash with the stories and approaches taken by his fellow writers or are not explained within the story itself. He packs so many ideas and so much research into these stories that the ability to translate these ideas to the reader can get muddled. A good example is his reimagining of the New Gods, in which they exist as metaphysical gods, not alien spacewarriors. It's a concept that he first presented in Seven Soldiers (arguably one of his best works alongside All-Star Superman, and a better lead-in to events in FC than any tie-in) and expands on it with FC. But it contradicts the events of Countdown and Death of the New Gods (both of which are supposed to lead into FC), and assumes that the average reader of superhero comics can follow the insanely metaphysical style of storytelling. Morrison seems to like placing the reader in the middle of mind-altering reality-warping scenarios instead of the objective approach most writers give to an "end of the universe" crisis. But for a lot readers, there will be no context unless you're have Google right beside you as you read.

While I loved Final Crisis, I will agree that these kind of stories work a lot better when he's working outside of the main DC continuity. All-Star Superman, Seven Soldiers, 52, Seaguy, We3, these are all stories done within the last five years that have been properly narrated and engaged readers without impacting the editorial direction of DC. They're also the kind of stories that probably got him the Final Crisis job in the first place.

Uhh thats why you all need to switch over to topcow when someone dies in topcow they stay dead with the exception of say Angelous and the Darkness as they are the primal forces universe and with out them the universe would be out of balance. Another reason as to switch over to topcow is that they have far better writers and with the exception of guest artists the art work over all is much better.

As for (marvel) Civil War I thought things didn't end will with it though I will admit that I have been thinking about picking up the hard cover for it.

Not much to add to this thread, just wanted to make a few comments. I feel that Marvel in general has better writers (in terms of cohesiveness and clarity, not necessarily skill) than DC, and that they are definitely better at managing their reset "crises"-type events than DC as well. Overall, I also definitely consider Marvel's characters to have more growth and expansion than DC's characters; as someone noted, DC storylines often end exactly where they began before starting another, whereas it feels like Marvel's often have some sort of discovery or event that inexorably changes a character or timeline.


Ugh, don't remind me. Ryan Reynolds should not be in any superhero movie, much less two. Besides, isn't there some unwritten rule that says an actor can't portray more than one comic character? If not, there should be. With all the crossovers nowadays, what would happen if Deadpool and GL were to somehow be stuck in one comic/movie? Reynolds would be double-booked, which, apart from basically damning any potential movie straight to bargain bins everywhere, would be quite tough to pull off.


You know, that's always confused me. If Kryptonite damages Superman, what happened when Krypton was still around? Did they not have any super-powers because they were always in proximity to Kryptonite? Or does it only weaken Superman because it's irradiated?

I know I'm the one who originally said that, but it is actually explained thusly:

Krypton is not bad to Kryptonians
Krypton explodes and gets irradiated in said explosion
Kryptonians come to earth and feed off of yellow sun radiation
Yellow Sun Radiation + Old bad radiation = death? Or at least power loss?

I dont care if theres an explanation or not, it's retarded.

Not only that, but there's about 20 different kinds of kryptonite. It's amazing how much debris from a single exploding planet landed in the same place, isn't it? ;p

I will just link you a new review about final crisis, and he'll help you WHY it sucks, and what is fucked up with it.

Countdown Prologue:
http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com/video.../8982-countdown

Countdown, Part 1:
http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com/video.../at4w/9246-cdp1

Countdown, Part 2
http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com/video...9479-countdown2

(The prologue is for those who doesn't know anything about comics, and want to be able to see why he, linkara, reacts as he does.)

To me, the problem lies not in the retcon (since Emerald Twilight was an abysmal story written by someone with very little knowledge of the GL mythos, and the express point of the storyline was to ruin Hal as completely as possible), but in not exploring it. I'd love to see Johns revisit Emerald Twilight and clarify exactly how Parallax works, since his one-shot in the Sinestro Corps War was more about Kyle's despair than about the creature behind it.

As far as I'm concerned, storylines that are massive derailments of their characters are deserving of nothing greater than a retcon. If I went to bed tonight, and woke up tomorrow to a Spider-Man who'd never gone through One More Day, I'd be the better for it.



It's been going on for some time, actually. The Sinestro and Star Sapphire Corps are expressly drawing upon pre-existing stories, and the last issue of GL in particular shows Johns working to address one of the odder bits of the GL mythos in the last 30 years. While I'd have preferred more time for the new corps before the Blackest Night, I'll deal.



No offense intended, but the storyline you praise drove me from comics for years. I'm glad it's been undone.

None taken

I'm used to people disliking Kyle and favoring Hal, so it's no biggie

I do agree that the way Twilight was done was pretty weak, but I love that the character fell. Watching him fall made him so much more real to me. His city was gone, and he felt responsible.

Should he have murdered everyone? No, but considering his logic was that by doing so he would get the power to make it so that he never had to it does have a bit of logic to it.

BUT!

I do not think they should have made him a villain. I loved the villain he played to Kyle as GL, but it wasn't fair for the character. He should have fallen, should have done something to lose his ring, maybe hurt someone, but mass murder? Ehhh......

And like I said, if they wanted to bring him back that would have been fine, but retconning it so that he was simply emotional and got taken over by a galactic parasite? And now his greatest shame is that in a moment of weakness he didn't have the willpower to resist......scapegoat...Hal Jordan is just as flawless to me as Superman, and as I said earlier - I'm good with only one superman.

Meh. My preference of Hal over Kyle's got nothing to do with Kyle's first appearance being in the last issue of Emerald Twilight. Anyone who does, frankly, is as far off as those who say that Hal's somehow an inherently bad character. As I say on the DC forums, I'd rather read a Cable story written by Alan Moore than a Hal story written by Liefeld. The only real problem I had with Kyle was that, under Dooley, the comic kept comparing him to Hal. It's something that inherently turns me off as a reader -- if the creative team behind a character is so insecure about their guy that they can't shut up about how he's like or better than someone else, I'm of a mind they're probably right and the other guy's better.



Meh. I buy Superman losing his crap over Lois, or Bats pulling a gun on someone he thinks has killed Nightwing. It's not that I don't think Hal could have gone to this extreme, just that for something like this, they should've taken it as a sign that none of the bigger names they approached wanted to touch this story.



Hence why I think it's a subject worth revisiting. I agree that it's a cop out to say that it was entirely someone else's doing, and he's 100% innocent. I'd like to see exactly where Hal is culpable in the new storyline.

Fair enough. The implication wasn't necessarily that you didn't like Kyle, but that I'm used to people being very bitter over the whole Hal/Kyle story.

Aside from that slight miscommunication(my fault completely) I think it's safe to say that I pretty much agree with everything else you said

I think there are two main troubles with it, and it's one that Marvel frequently suffers as well.

First, the power ranges and character numbers are two broad. You have people like unpowered and not that skilled next to million year old hyper power people and you expect them to make a good story together? Maybe an arc centered just around the two but not a lot. It means you need to make a giant yet minor problem at the sametime. To give someone who can move mountains just as much of a reason to be in it as the guy who just shrinks himself. This doesn't mesh well all the time, it's why a lot of super groups tend to send characters away for some arcs. Less because of character and more often his powers would ruin everything. So 40 characters? Yeah, big problem. Especially when you add the broad effects of some like magic vs tech. Gadgets vs legit super power.

Second, the amount of characters is to much to write. When you have 40 plus characters you tend to suffer that some are just going to get hosed. Fanboy esque fights get into it. And they like to hose some minor character to buff up a main character. Jade & Kyle I'm looking at you. DC really especially loves to kill off its female characters especially sometimes it seems, or sideline them constantly for such. So who gets the stardom? The favorite character of the writer, of the public, or a DC mainstay? Both Marvel & DC have flubbed the continuity pretty bad when doing massive arcs. Usually because to many stories to track get involved and they slip up more often and what's worse, sometimes the right and left hand doens't know what their doing. House of M with Marvel for instance, the Spiderman comic line completely messed what it was supposed to do as the writers didnt' communicate at all. DC does this to.

Overall, I'm not a big fan of giant arcs that's going to include everyone! To me, that's to much of an attempt at fanboy jollies at the expensive of a good story.

That's the other thing! Did the entire planet of Krypton land on Earth in pieces?? How in the world is it possible to have that much Kryptonite floating around?? Gah.

Just Wiki "Final Crisis". Reading the pages in Wiki will fill you in on all the important stuff. It may not give you the details, but it tells you the important stuff that happens in all the other comics without having to spend a couple hundred dollars on all the comics.

Remember Crisis on Infinite Earths? Worlds lived, worlds died, the DC universe was never the same?

I started having a lot of issues with DC during Jeph Loeb's HUSH. I found it uneven (Bruce Wayne gets brain surgery, Batman gets knocked around with no ill effects days later, but the next time he's stunned,) I hated the midriff baring Huntress costume which blew her Catholic/Hardass backstory off (body armor trumps bare midriff anyday...duh,) and the wrap up...oh lordy, the last issue: The Riddler figures out Batman is Bruce Wayne cause he had an epiphany? The way I picture it happening, is the Riddler is on the crapper pinching out an almost stroke inducing load, and suddenly realizes that Bruce Wayne is Batman. Basically, the ending seemed rushed, as if they really needed 9 issues rather than 8 to make the story good...although I find most Jeph Loeb stories leave me feeling that way.

I did like Identity Crisis, though I hated seeing Sue Dibney die since I loved her adventuring with Ralph and the relationship between them (done so well in the 80s by Giffen and Maguire.) Final Crisis tried to do too much, Crisis on Infinite Earths did it right, it was a huge event that condensed a number of universes (universi?) at a point where confusion reigned. CoIE killed off some much loved characters (Barry Allen's Flash, Super Girl) and gave us some much loved characters (Wally West's Flash, the reborn Wonder Woman, more steeped in Greek Mythology.) The Final as people have already pointed out was/is a complete muddle.

As an aside, I thought the death of Super Girl in CoIE was a pretty heft and touching even, I was a little hesitant when Peter David brought her back, but it was such a different take, that I ultimately had no problem with it. However, when Jeph Loeb brought her back, once again he bared her midriff (Striper Super Girl FTL,) and (I could have this wrong since I gave up reading it once her back story and motivations got too stupid) a tramp stamp. I understand that sex sells and that teenagers are not really the target audience for comics, but come on...

But I digress.

Typewriter, I don't mean to diss Kyle Rayner, but for the 10 years that he was Green Lantern, no one knew how to write him...which isn't his fault. If one writer could have gotten the thought "he's not Hal" out of their heads (the statement "You're the real Green Lantern was in every other JLA comic for 10 years trying to convince us of that fact,) I think he could have been an amazing character. Also, they tried to make him a little too "Peter Parker", average guy with things going wrong (dead girl friend, missed deadlines, the works,) and that's not who DC's characters are, they're not a family like the Fantastic Four, they're not an oppressed "minority group" like the X-Men, they're these iconic god like figures, and Kyle just wasn't that guy...which is too bad.

Thanks for listening, it's nice to see that I'm not the only one maddened by the current state of DC, and I think that RuneKnight 3 makes a very good point when he points out that "the [DC] authors themselves are not very qualitative. They aren't well read, for lack of better description, and they increasingly rely on tropes without understanding the meaning of those tropes.", it is comics, but it doesn't have to be dumb.

Actually, you'd be better to look up the lengthy interview with Grant Morrison regarding Final Crisis on Newsarama. It covers a lot of the background to what he was trying to do and why there are such huge differences between Countdown/Death of the New Gods, and Final Crisis. There's another huge interview about All-Star Superman for those interested as well, although as note previously, that series doesn't leave as many blanks to be filled. Here's a quote from the FC interview that sums a lot of his themes up:



One thing that did throw me off when I was digging through interviews and Wikipieda, they mention that during the final issue as the Flashes are being chased by death, the regular human populace which is controlled by Darkseid collectively fires Omega Beams from their eyes at the Flashes, ultimately leading to one of the climaxes of the series. So I went "Wait.... Omega Beams? Where the hell were those?" So I went back and flipped through, and they are there..... CRAMMED INTO A SINGLE PANEL IN AN EASY-TO-MISS CORNER ON A BUSY PAGE WHERE YOU CAN BARELY SEE THE FACES OF THOSE FIRING THE BEAMS.

I liked Final Crisis, and I respect Grant Morrison's attempt to bring more right-brain ideas into left-brain dominated mainstream comics (as mentioned in his interview, and shown in other works), but something that important to the plot could have been made a whole lot more clear.

I tried getting into Final Crisis after buying the black and white director's cut for 1$ (best deal ever), but anytime I scanned through a regular FC, I just couldn't bring myself to buying it. I tried quickly flipping through the hardcover collection before buying it, but I put the book back on the rack as I got lost after several pages. Frankly, I probably don't know enough about the DCU to care anyhow.

I guess I just preffer my DC characters out of the "hardcore/true" DC continuity, as I started out with the Batman Millerverse and quite recently enjoyed watching several DC animated series and reading Allstar Superman and Allstar Batman & Robin (I know, most people hate it, they can shove R.I.P up their ass).

A couple these don't sit right with me. Hawkeye was killed before House of M. Professor X was revealed to be alive before the end of Messiah Complex.

Ok, now that I got tha out of the way. I completely agree. I think part of the problem with Final Crisis was that it was written by Grant Morrison, whose style of writing has never made sense. I tried reading his entire run on Batman that lead up to and through RIP and it just is painful to try to get through. The elements that he introduced seemed forced (every new character, villain, characterization, etc.) and the dialogue never seemed natural.

One of the biggest problems that I have with Final Crisis is the time jumps that are made between issues. I think one issue takes place several months after the one before it but I'm not sure because the passage of time seems to mean nothing to Morrison. There were several times where I actually picked up the newest issue and had to reread every issue before it just to make sure I hadn't missed one.

I picked up the first issue of the new Batman and Robin series and felt disgusted that I had actually paid money for this. The writing is still awful and the art does not help. While some seem to like Quitely's art, I find it to look very unnatural. His Robin (how old is Damian, anyway?) does not look like a person in their mid to late teens. He looks more like a wooden, old man puppet that had his head run over. I think he got the look for his Robin from a box of LemonHeads...

Now, I like the DC (despite letting Grant Morrison right anything), mostly for the current GL stuff. Superman's World of New Krypton isn't my thing. Thankfully, Blackest Night just kicked off, so I'll have something to read. Now, if only DC would stop ripping off Marvel for their stories.

In all fairness to Grant, part of it was also that big reveals he had planned (and shared with other writers so they knew what was going on) ended up getting scooped by other writers. But, they still came out with enough time for him to know and adjust, which just made everything a jumbled mess.

Though, if all any of you have read of Grant is his super stuff, you are doing yourself a disservice. Personally, I think his super stuff is the weakest in his portfolio (with the exception of New X-Men which wasn't a perfect run). But things like his Doom Patrol (which was practically a Vertigo title at the time and not really a super book), the Invisibles, etc. is really some of the best stuff out there.

He just needs to stay away from supers (or editorial needs to let him run loose). Putting a writer like him in middle gear gives us this stuff.

Another thing that Morrison has stated is that he doesn't write the characters as they are. He first comes up with a story and then just tries to shove whatever character into the story for whatever company he's working for at the moment.

The best thing that came from him being DC exclusive. He stopped writing for Marvel.

Hi evreyone!
I too am brand new to LFG Forums, despite reading LFG for ages.
Finally decided to write a forum topic, so I may just end up covering things that everyone else has forgotten and dosen't care about. And I'm going to focus mainly on superman, because he is my favourite. I know generic, but I dont care what he does, I just like to debate how he does it.
First off; Kryptonite.
I have long pondered it and poked around, and have found a few explanations.
My favourite is that it is like the core of the planet, and we know how many Earthlings get close to superheated magma or unrefined uranium. So Kryptonians didnt get sick day to day. I mean, is it really to hard to believe that on a planet orbiting a sun which has lived millions of years longer than Sol (cause thats all a red sun is, not magic or anything) could have a higher concentration of radioactive metals in it's crust?

And as for it landing on Earth, the TV show Smallville handled that quite well (except all the damn meteor freaks. Season 1 was like X-Files. Repulsed shiver.) The ship that carried superman used some sort of gravity drive or something to go FTL, and the force pulled the rocks like a magnet. And in Season 4/5 a similar thing happend with the crystal that makes the Fortress of Solitude.

(Personally, I think that helps strengthen my argument that Krypton's crust was different to Earths. More crystals and kryptonite, less iron, tin and gold.)

I personally found the idea of superman being the 'Last Son of Krypton' amusing. Even before New Krypton storylines there were enough Kryptonians running around to be endangered, not extinct. They even had dogs and cats on Earth!
But then I hear some stories talking about the Prophecy of Rao, and I read about it on a smallville wiki. Basically, superman is kryptons jesus or mohammed, a near god who will remake a kryptonian paradise.

I confess I havent read any of th New Krypton stories, but I figure that it fits. It would also help explain everything from why a kryptonian with nothing but farm boy training can defeat Kryptonian Generals and soldiers, super intelligent robots from Colu (although I prefer that Brainiac be Kryptonian, like in Smallville and some other non canonical works) and Doomsday. He can't die because he is blessed or whatever.

Anyway, enough man of steel.

I agree that comic book deaths are to common, and am counting the weeks until Batman returns (maybe months. Not years) Barry Allen should stay dead, and maybe even Bart Allen.

Superboy (Kon El) should stay dead. FOR EVER. Dont get me wrong, I loved that guy. I just think it would have fit, what with the whole Crisis, saving the universe, and the fact that he was supermans sidekick.

Hi... my name is Kyle and I'm a recovering DCU reader.... it's been over a year since I bought my last DCU title.....

Ok I'm not about to say Marvel is perfect (Bland New Day, Ultimatum) but my god Dan Didio seems hell bent of tearing down and killing off as much of the main DCU as possable before someone takes him out. in some bizzare need to make things "dark and edegy" he's drained the fun from the DCU. and in doing so I can't shake the feeling that it's all leading up to that clasic of the DCU the COSMIC RESET BUTTON!!! so why should I care about the stories if it's all going to kapiffle anyway.

Marvel has for the most part appeared to allow their events to evolve the story while DC has allowed the events to wind down the stories.

But again I'm not saying Marvel is perfect. Quesada could easily tank the whole thing if he's not carefull.

Not to hijack the thread, but after reading all the doom and gloom about the state of two of the major comic universes, would anyone suggest a starting place for someone who has never seriously picked one up?

I've always been interested but never had the time nor been able to discern a viable place to start (its really quite over whelming). Last time I picked up a comic was "Groo the Wanderer" back in the early 90s, and some time after that flipping through a black hardcover of Superman (Doomsday?) at the bookstore but it didn't seem right to jump into the series then. I've enjoyed a majority of the super movies that have been released to date, though I am a bit tired of the X-Men/Wolverine line. (though perhaps the actual comic is better?)

Anyways, sorry for the tangent, but I couldn't resist with the plethora of well versed connoisseurs posting here.

I've been reading all of the Green Lantern series lately, and I jumped in shortly before Sinestro Corps Wars. My brother, also a comic nerd (and wannabe comic artist website found here http://herouniversecomics.com) also jumped in on SCW and we've had no problems following the story since. A good arc to pick up for that is the Secret Origins arc since it does give a slightly updated and abbreviated origin of Hal Jordan (and was a pretty good read).

For Marvel, hmmm, they've had a lot of huge events the last couple of years, which makes it difficult to suggest a jumping on point for them, and same with the rest of the DCU.

On a side note, I've been collecting the trades for Image's Invincible and Walking Dead (coincidentally written by the same guy) and have really enjoyed both.

I'd say it all comes down to preference as well. What do you like to read?

PS If you like the X-Men, then I'd suggest a good starting point is when the adjectiveless X-Men book (written by Mike Carey) switched to X-Men Legacy since it was the start of a new direction on the book and it does an OK job of setting up the characters.
Someone else would have to get the issue number for you, but whenever Ed Brubaker's Uncanny X-Men switched to San Francisco is a good place to jump on.
Depending on how much you like Captain America, I'd suggest picking up Brubaker's run on that in trade form.

Hope this helped.

It depends on what you like to see. If theres any specific characters you'd like then go with that character. Start as early as you can in their history so that you get as much of the history as you can. If you dont like any specific characters you could go for more general things that look 'universe focused' like "House of M" or "Crisis on infinite earths", but those could take a bit of getting used to.

If you're more interested in comics themselves than any specific story I'd recommend looking for one shot adventures. Whether it be 'elseworld' type stories, or independant comics a lot of flavor is found there. Kingdom Come is an amazing alternate reality that features Superman, Batman, WW, GL, etc. etc, but since it's not part of the 'main continuity' they're able to do whatever they want with the characters. Kill them off, make them mature, make them change. It's amazing.

Then you have things like Wanted(the graphic novel is 100 times better than the movie), or Y: The last man.

My recommendations for someone who might not want to get sucked into the madness of comics, but still wants some enjoyment out of the medium would be thus:

(Top to bottom by preference)
Secret Identity - A 'superman' story that's not about Superman....ridiculously good, and hard to explain quickly
Kingdom Come - Metropolis chooses a violent hero over superman, and superman turns his back on them. Jump forward 10 years.
Identity Crisis - Part of DC continuity, but perfectly acceptable as a standalone. AMAZING.
Lex Luthor: Man of Steel - See things from LL's point of view. Very tragic, adds a lot to Lex
Wanted - This world = DC universe after villains won and made us all think that our memories of heroes are just comics. WIN
Y: The Last Man - Something kills off all men except one. His journey is 60 issues long, and is pretty much a book in comic form
Sandman - A whole lot of WTF, ranging from amazing to hard to read. Worth mentioning just for the amazing parts.
Marvels(I think that's what it's called) - Introduction of superheroes to a previously heroless world. Well written.

Oh yeah, dumb me! The actual Wolverine: Origin graphic novel is a very good read. They did wolverine right in that story

Like Typewriter above said, it depends on what you're interested in. Are you interested in specific characters, companies, or genres? Do you want distinct beginnings and ends or are you interested in jumping into the never ending adventure that is superhero comics?
If you're interested in stories with definite beginnings and endings like it seems you are then I'd recommend sticking mainly to books outside of Marvel or DC. Invincible and Walking Dead are two great stories by Robert Kirkman that are currently going on (though I'd recommend buying the trade paper backs at the beginning.) There is a lot of great manga coming out and I'd recommend anything by Naoki Urasawa as he is a master of suspense.
Hellboy is another great title I nearly forgot to mention (better than the movie) if you're interested in action/the occult.
If you can't find any of these titles at your local Barnes and Noble or Hastings or whatever bookstore in your area, Amazon has some good deals, I've heard dcbservice.com has some good deals, and my site of choice heavyink.com has some good deals and excellent customer service.
As much as I love Marvel (and some of DC) don't feel as if those are the only companies available.

I agree with a lot of people's opinions regarding Batwoman and, on some levels, The Question.
Final Crisis was incredibly confusing and in some points, a godly waste of time! Darkseid's life long ambition was to unlock the Anti-Life Equation and look how crap it turned out! Honestly what a kick in the nads!

But as surprising as it is: Some good things came out of it. What good things are these? Well although it was at best mediocre, Batman The Battle for the Cowl. It helped bring the new Red Robin, Streets of Gotham, and Batman and Robin which right now are very good reads!
Also due to the deaths of some major heroes, Final Crisis has not only added some more characters to revive in Blackest Night, it has also helped kick start the promising storyline of 'Justice League: Cry for Justice'. For those who used to read comics, but have now long abandoned them: Pick this up!

I think that's all I've got to say for now, except that Blackest Night is and is going to continue to be: AWESOME!