Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis
This is it! It’s the big finale for DC’s big event story Blackest Night. Did it end with a bang or a wimper? That’s the big question….
The Story
“Ganthet thinks there’s a bigger picture to it all. One we’ll eventually see…I don’t know.” – Hal Jordan wondering if his comics will ever have straight answers or conclusions.
The DC hero and villain pantheon rise up and take Nekron down for good with the power of the White Lantern light, seen on the cover wielded by Sinestro. Yeah, that lasts long. The Entity of the White Light does its cure all and everything is back as it should be. That’s that, ladies and gentlemen, except not really.
This issue ends the long-awaited Blackest Night event that had been built up ever since the end of 2007’s The Sinestro Corps War. The story presented an actually decent plot purpose for the constant resurrections prevalent in super hero comics, and this final issue adds a good, empowering “fight for life” element to both the not-actually-dying equation and the final fight.
The heroic final stand for all life and existence is climatic and entertaining, especially seeing the widely different corps try and work together through their own little quirks (even though no more Sinestro Corps Scarecrow is a shame). Too bad the last few pages of the fight are on auto pilot as the heroes all watch on the side lines.
As to be expected from the massive character deaths in this story and a main baddie who supposedly controls death, the finale sees a lot of resurrections. Bringing back people who have died during this arc makes sense. Some of the others, not so much. Some of the ones left out, even less. And no reason is given. The only one not brought back to life that we (and now the characters) actually know why is Batman (psst, he’s not really dead).
Of course, the seemingly-random resurrections aren’t the only thing left unsolved at the end. A couple of particularly intriguing come backs essentially disappear in the book, obviously to be dealt with later.
Blackest Night #8 is a fine conclusion for the most part, but it’s leaving several loose ends just to be expanded upon later, explained (if we’re lucky) in the follow-up Brightest Day event. Some unanswered questions aren’t bad, but too many (like I feel this has) leaves an empty, unfulfilled feeling. In successive events, that’s the kind of feeling that leads to reader burnout. Like Hal says, “there’s a bigger picture,” but too big with no breathing room and readers will lose any end in sight.
7.5/10
The Art
The art has upheld a generally good quality throughout the series, and this final issue stays pretty in line. There are three full double splash pages that look pretty good, especially the White Lantern Corps and the “Live” ones.
The fight scenes are well done, especially the White Lantern Sinestro versus Nekron ones. Characters and objects stay fairly well detailed, although that declines a bit sometimes when out of the focus or just there being a lot of characters in panel, which happens quite a few times.
There are some odd parts though, such as Hal’s family in their one panel looking like pupil-less zombies without the rotting corpse bodies the Black Lanterns have.
The colors stay pretty vibrant with all the corps and more so their energy projections, standing out in the dark, bleak setting of the fight. The light of the White Lantern energy obviously stands out the most, but it’s still almost a surprising brightness without straining the eyes. Once that wraps up though, the setting shifts to a hazy white and ending on a sunny day, doing a good job visually cuing the end of the Blackest Night.
8.5/10
It’s an overall good issue. The courageous battle at the end is what you’d expect from the story. It’s just stretching itself too thin with so many plot lines spilling out of the series that it may leave readers feeling kind of empty. Not like an entire epilogue event is necessary financially anyway, not with all the White Lantern variant figures that can be produced and sold off of this one issue.
The Review
Story 7.5/10
Art 8.5/10
Overall (Not an Average) 8/10