PopSyndicate.com

When the Atom is your “Superman” and Mera, the wife of Aquaman, is your “Wonder Woman,” you may be in trouble.  Unfortunately for the Flash, that’s who he’s stuck with this issue as everyone else is off in their own Blackest Night crossovers, dealing with their own zombie troubles.

For a Green Lantern-centric event, there’s a distinct lack of Green Lanterns in Blackest Night #4.  The first three issues of this series were more of a buddy event, having Green Lantern and the Flash team up to fight zombified versions of their friends and teammates.  Geoff Johns started out this massive event with the comic book equivalent of a buddy cop film plot.  You almost expect the Flash, as he’s getting pummeled by an undead Martian Manhunter, to mumble “I’m getting too old for this *#$%.” even as Green Lantern is off dislocating his own shoulder all in the name of justice and impressing the women.  There were some other superheroes showing up but the Atom and Mera, Aquaman’s wife, are far from the headliners that Green Lantern and Flash are.  Add in a catchy guitar-driven soundtrack and possibly even Gary Busey and you’d have the makings of a classic comic book here.  Well, instead of going for Lethal Weapon, Geoff Johns and Ivan Reiss try to take their story to the more creepy side of superheroes.

At the halfway point of the series, this is the “rallying the troop” issue that most major crossovers have to sludge through.  There’s always the point in these things where the threats are identified, a handful of heroes try to fight them but soon realize that the problem is just bigger than themselves.  Marv Wolfman and George Perez pulled this issue off about two or three times during Crisis on Infinite Earths.  Geoff Johns had a bit of fun with it in Infinite Crisis where Nightwing puts out the call but no one answers.  I’m sure that even Millenium and Invasion had their version of “rallying the troop” issues.  Blackest Night #4 has Geoff Johns pulling out the trope again, as our heroes have been shown by the Indigo Lanterns how to defeat the Black Lanterns using the light of the Green Lanterns.

There are two concepts that you have to buy into to make this issue really work for you.  The first is that the JLA are either dumb enough or conceited enough to keep the corpses of their enemies in their basement.  That particular Chekovian gun was introduced in Blackest Night #1 and got fired as the cliffhanger to the third issue.  I have no idea why this idea was introduced other than to give the Flash, Atom and Mera an opponent to fight in the Justice League’s headquarters.  The silly part of this is that the fight that Johns set up last issue doesn’t even happen in this issue at all.  The heroes get away and the zombies running rampant in the JLA base are forgotten about for now.

The other thing you’ve really got to buy into is the divinity of Hal Jordan.  If not the divinity of Hal, you’ve got to buy into the idea that Barry holds Hal in pretty high, bordering on sycophantic, esteem.  Trying to encourage Atom and Mera right after they escape from the zombies, Barry basically tells them to be more like Hal.  “The only one of us who didn’t worry about fitting in was Hal… We need to act a little more like Hal.”  Inspiring words, indeed.  Of course, as has been pointed out a couple of times in Blackest Night as well as Flash: Rebirth (remember that series?) Barry wasn’t around to see Hal’s descent into the madness of Parallax or even to see how Hal has shirked his rightful duty to the Green Lantern Corps, most recently seen in The Sinestro Corp War where Hal didn’t want to be the one to lead the Corps.  The Flash’s speech is an odd one coming from a contemporary and equal of Hal Jordan; you’d expect that kind of speech to be coming from Wally West or Roy Harper.

Blackest Night has been its best when it’s been Green Lantern and the Flash versus the world.  Everything else was just a nice icing on the cake but the first three issues just sang when it was the two of them and a horde of zombies.  Last issue, Green Lantern was whisked away from the battle and now its just Flash, mopey Atom (it was fun though when Flash told the Atom to “grow up”) and Mera, who may just be the ultimate fish out of water here.  At least Hal gets to go over to his title and start verbally sparring with Sinestro, another combination that Johns always looks to have fun writing.  As a Flash spotlight, Blackest Night #4 suffers from the same thing that Flash: Rebirth has so far; Barry isn’t given anything major to do.  He doesn’t fight, he doesn’t figure out the mystery.  This issue features the equivalent story of Barry getting on the phone and calling all of his buddies to invite them to a little fight.  Hopefully sooner or later, Geoff Johns will actually get around to having Barry do something worthwhile.  If not that, hopefully Hal Jordan is back in this book pretty soon to liven things up a bit.  If he’s half as good as Barry makes him sound, Hal will save the day even as he whisks Mera off her feet and makes her forget all about Aquaman.

Blackest Night #4
Written by: Geoff Johns
Penciled by: Ivan Reis
Inked by: Oclair Albert and Joe Prado
Colored by: Alex Sinclair
Lettered by: Nick J. Napolitano

3