The Blackest Night Books

Overall, out of these 3 books, 1 is actually worth a damn, 1 is vaguely interesting, and another is utterly useless and makes me Hulk angry.

First, lets start with the big one, Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2. This story takes place between the page sof Blackest Night 6 as everyone in the story was wondering just what is up with Black Lantern Diana? Well here's the answer. This issue puts he rin a fever dream where she slaughters her friends and fellow black lanterns to her hearts content until batman descends form the mountain top, not on fire, and kisses her, thus putting I suppose some part of Wonder Woman's body in heat. All of this was orchestrated by Aphrodite who is assiting Wonder Woman in joining the Star Sapphire corps, which occurs back in Blackest night 6.

The negatives are: Wonder woman is essentially dependent on people to help her overcome this Green lantern menace, its dissapointing that Greg Rucka, who writes a great female lead character in Detective Comics, wrote Wonder Woman so incapable of defeating this ring that is possessing her body until she has a vision of being caught in Batman's hunky arms, she dresses like a tart, etc.

I'm in no way dismissing these arguments, its just that they have been discussed and elaborated on ad nauseum alreadty, so I do not need to further elaborate on these. Chris Sims does a better job of dismantling this thing like an Edsel over at http:www.the-isb.com

I'll just say that, yes, it is a shame how Wonder Woman is easily brushed aside under the power of a Green Lantern villain and depends on outside assistance (externally and internally) to help her overcome this condition she finds herself in. Its sad that she has to get the love ring when she really sometimes has compassion for most of the world. Of course, that's the BIG inconsistency of Geoff John's technicolor emotion rangers is that what represents compassion and love when the two inevitably blur?

My real anger is reserved for Weird Western Tales. By itself it is a good story. better than Wonder Woman's, but for me it does not meet expectations of enjoyment that it could have capitalized on. I do not think I'm lying when i say people would have prefered more zombie Johna Hex in this book. Hell, I'm certain people buy this book to see zombie Hex in it, besides jst collecting EVERY tie-in to Blackest night (ME!), but still, why does Didio have to hold back Hex so long? Really? He has to build suspense to reveal Hex in a book people know he's going to be in? Why not reward readers for spending their money by giving them Hex right from the start? Where are these charcaters from this one off even going to matter in the grand scheme of the whole event? I've seen the played out scene of "Oh noes! Zombies! How will people survive them!" This book, in my opinion, should have been the way to shine a light on a Black Lantern as the central figure and Didio blew it. I dont care about the Ray. Hell, I think the Ray is the only guy still alive after the attacks. Will the Ray come back at some point? Will he be the key to some other tie-in?

Now, the same could be aid to "Suicide Squad". Really, how will these figures matter? The key to this, though, is that we expect this book to be about Deadshot, and Simone and Ostrander are delivering a slow boiling story on Black Lanterns looking to exact revenge against Deadshot, with the Secret Six and Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad along for the ride. This book does what Western couldn't, deliver us a story with the expected main character being front and center, and Simone is also able to provide characterization for the rest of the six for the continuing book. Western was a one off. We dont need in depth characetizationw hen we want Hex roaming the desert using Black Lanter powers to tear some poor schlub's heart out. In Squad we need that charcaterizaton because when Blackest Night is over, the book goes right on.

So, how do I like the Blackest Night offering for this week? 1 great book (Squad), 1 "meh" book (Wonder Woman) and 1 F U Lemons! (Western Tales)