Some Choice DC/Blackest Night Previews

First up, Blackest Night: Superman, which, so far, has been the most horror-like issue of the event. The dark coloring, the pace, the quiet, the unnoticed and increasingly violent murders in the town of Smallville, the helplessness of Superman and Superboy...it's all rather chilling. Apparently in the next issue Psycho Pirate shows up, though I'm not sure why. Kal-L and Lois from Earth 2 seem like plenty of trouble to me, especially if Pa Kent is gonna be resurrected.

They just better not kill Krypto (or Ma, for that matter.)


Continuing the Superboy trajectory, here's some art from Adventure Comics #2. Cannot wait to see Connor and Cassie reunite. I think this title just may be the best thing in either comic universe out there right now. It's Johns in full nostalgic and original glory, with a character he crafted and understands, and an independent purpose and goal for the title. And this Francis Manapul guy is frakkin fantastic. (He even makes Cassie's red-shirt costume thing look decent...by focusing on the sweet ass hair.) God I love Superboy, so glad he's back, and even more excited for his reunion with Tim Drake than with Cassie. But I'll wait.




Another reason to rejoice at Superboy's return, is his return to the Teen Titans, which will hopefully, somehow, make that title get back to when it was great (mostly under Johns). Lately, it's been horrible...mostly when McKeever took over, and then killed and crippled the genius twins by a crazy dog from ancient Greece. It just got worse from there. The new team Wonder Girl has assembled is boring and lame and whiny, and they just killed the one member who I had grown fond of (Kid Devil.) Still, with Superboy AND Kid Flash back in action, it could really return to its former glory. And this newest preview cover shows at least an interesting storyline, with Ravager and her evil sociopathic manipulative father reunite to fend off some Black Lanterns.




Lastly, a couple pages from Blackest Night: Batman, which was better than I expected. I'm most interested to see Tim's journey, and how it plays it for him to face his dead parents. (The fact that they're intelligent when reanimated is a big plus, and it is worth paying attention to how Jack and Janet Drake interact; they were having marital troubles they overcame right when Janet was killed, and Jack lived for years without her, even going so far as to remarry.) The posse of reanimated Bat-villains is less interesting. A couple of them I don't even seem to know, though I guess that's a good sign, meaning Bat-writers are less eager to kill their characters (like Titans writers) than reuse them. Ventriloquist and his Scarface Black Lantern construct is cool though, and Blockbuster is ripe with drama (since Dick Grayson is almost directly responsible for him being dead.) Anyway, I'm definitely checking it out--Deadman is pretty cool, and even Damian (God help me) is growing on me.