October is gone, and with it the joys of Halloween: ghouls, goblins, and sugar rushes! But thankfully, your favorite comics are still feeding off of our greatest nightmares: the return of our past in broken flesh. Last year, Marvel’s obsession with the dark and macabre boosted many of their titles. Marvel Zombies was a fan favorite that kept coming back for more, and Arthur Suydam’s exceptional cover art extended to almost every title… a fun twist on some of Marvel’s most famous covers.
DC dug in its heels and exposed us to ‘Blackest Night’, a solid universe-wide event, not entitled ‘Crisis’. Brilliantly handled by Johns and Reis, the event focuses not on the Holy Trinity of Superman/Batman/ Wonder Woman (who have separate off-shoot minis related to the title), but instead focuses on the Flash, the Atom, Mera (of Aquaman lore), Firestorm, and of course, the Green Lantern. A sort of housecleaning event as well, ‘Night’ has cleaned the clocks of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, the substitute Aquaman, Tempest, the newest Hawk (of Hawk and Dove), Firestorm’s girlfriend, Gehenna, and recently the JSA’s Damage. I will miss some of these characters (my friends are well aware of my obsession with all things avian); while other characters… good riddance.
Now finally we learn of Nekron, the central villain of this title and how he fits into the larger mythology of our ‘gone and back again’ heroes (Flash, Superman, etc). Call me morbid, but I just can’t wait to see who gets their lights permanently turned off in the remaining four chapters of ‘Blackest Night.’
Not to be outpaced, Marvel dove into mutant-land and found a villain complex enough to head their newest X-themed crossover, Necrosha. Selene, the immortal, self-proclaimed goddess with the power to drain life-forces, has corrupted the ubiquitous techno-organic (T.O.) virus and used it to revive former allies and enemies of mutants in her quest for immortality. Selene has her sights on the former mutant haven, Genosha, where she plans on reviving the decimated mutant population for her own purposes.
So here again, we have zombies, of the suped-up techno-magicky kind, doing damage on members of the New Mutants (yeah, their back!), X-Force, and X-Men. Oh, Warlock! Why did you return only to have your head ripped off by your former friend, Doug Ramsey? Kudos goes to the writers who somehow made Ramsey’s super “language-translator” power cool.
Time to crawl under the covers, kiddies, to read your comics old school with a flashlight in hand. That way, you have a weapon and a shield when the creepiest of the creepy return to the pages of your favorite titles.
With the winter holidays close at hand, might we lose Frosty or Rudolph as well? Ravenous Reindeer and Killer Frosty?
Oh happy days!
Don’t forget that Disney owns Marvel now. So ‘frogs msyteriously appearing in Marvel comics may not be so surprising with the upcoming release of the “PRINCESS AND THE FROG”!
I am thoroughly enjoying Blackest Night, Snake. I think they are pulling some cool ideas together. I hope that villain at the center of it all is as cool, otherwise, the whole thing might fizzle in the coming issues.
Haha! Jason “THE WING MAN” ROSAS!
I’m down for Killer Frosty. I mean they can do a lot of things with that pipe. And Rudolph “the ravenous” Reindeer would be pretty sick with that red nose of death. He’d be like the deer version of Cyclops. I don’t know about you but I’m already afraid.
I remember 2008’s (or 2007s) Zombie arc with The Black Panther (when he was randomly forced onto the Fantastic Four to keep him in America and not deported) and it was horrible. there were a bunch of magical frogs… I mean, really? Frogs?
I have to do some catching up on Blackest Night. But long live the Red Lanterns.
- I earned my ring.