Writer

James Robinson

Penciller

Mark Bagley

Inker

Rob Hunter, Scott Hanna, and Marlo Alquiza

Colourist

Pete Pantazis

Letterer

John J. Hill

Associate Editor

Adam Schlagman

Editor

Eddie Berganza

Cover Penciller

Mark Bagley

Cover Inker

Rob Hunter

Cover Colourist

Pete Pantazis

Previously: In Blackest Night: The Black Rings of Nekron have descended upon the universe, reanimating, recreating the dead as Black Lanterns. These are sick and twisted corruptions of the dead who taunt and bully the living to promote an extreme emotional response (hate, fear, terror, etc). When their target is taken to that emotional limit the Black Lantern rips out their heart in a ritual designed to aid Nekron’s journey into the living world. In JLA #39: A group of Black Lanterns are stalking the survivors of the Justice League in the blacked out Hall of Justice. Zatanna fights her undead father, Doctor Light (Kimiyo) faces Black Lantern Arthur Light, and Gypsy and Vixen face Black Lantern Vibe and Steel.

A Black Lantern ring downloads the memories of Hank Heywood III, the superhero Steel. The Heywood dynasty began with Hank’s grandfather. He was a WWII costumed hero, the prototype cyborg, called Commander Steel. After the war the senior Heywood patented the technology that had been used to create his cyborg body and became a wealthy industrialist. He wanted to push the technology further and cannibalized his grandson, Hank, as a test subject. Hank became a second Steel and joined the Detroit Justice League. He eventually forced to fight his grandfather for his independence. Hank was killed by Professor Ivo’s robots before he fulfilled his full potential. With the command of “Hank Heywood of Earth, Rise!” Black Lantern Steel rose from his grave.

Black Lantern Vibe, Steel’s team-mate in the Detroit League, had already revealed himself to the current League. He had blown apart the Red Tornado and seemingly killed Plastic Man, before turning his attention to Gypsy and Vixen (Steel and Vibe’s surviving colleagues from the Detroit League). The two women find themselves facing off against the two Black Lanterns. Vixen takes the offensive against Vibe, but he breaks her arm by throwing her against a replica of Rocket Red’s armour. Gypsy uses her illusion casting powers to play evade Steel, but he baits her by pointing out that she’s just a spoilt suburban-kid and not a real nomadic Gypsy.

Meanwhile, Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi, the Japanese superheroine) awakes to find herself being talked to by Black Lantern Doctor Light (Arthur Light, the deceased American villain). She repulses him with a blast of light, but Arthur takes his time slowly wearing her down with taunts about her being a cheap copy of himself, over her attitude to her father, her homeland, and her reserved attitude. She continues to fight back, but Arthur’s shadow powers seem stronger – particularly as she becomes increasingly exhausted. It’s only when he threatens her children that Kimiyo cuts loose with a devastating blast of white light that destroys the Black Ring animating Arthur Light’s corpse.

Black Lantern Vibe and Steel eventually corner Vixen and Gypsy. The nearly liquid Plastic Man tries helping them by magnify the light from Vixen’s Hatchetfish fish, but it isn’t strong enough. Fortunately, they’re saved by the sudden arrival of Doctor Light who blasts Vibe and Steel with white light, destroying the rings that had animated them. The exhausted Doctor Light then collapses into Gypsy’s arms. Vixen’s adrenalin wears off and she too passes out from her injuries. Seconds later, Zatanna teleports back after defeating the Black Lantern version of her father.

The Justice League have defeated the Black Lantern’s in the Hall of Justice, but the cost has been high. The Red Tornado was destroyed again. Plastic Man, Vixen, and Doctor Light are out of commission and Zatanna is exhausted. Only the weakest of them, Gypsy, survived without injury.

The Cover

The cover of this issue forms one half of a single picture when combined with last issues cover. The solicited covers have the backgrounds blacked out and only showed the foreground figures.

Hervé St-Louis at Comicbookbin appreciates the level to detail involved in this story,

Here Robinson pulls no punches and uses every hint written or perceived about the characters in this story to show their inner weaknesses.

However, Mart Gray from Too Dangerous For A Girl is worried about the cumulative effect on new readers.

I realise there’s a difference between the writer’s own views of a character and what he has someone in a story say about them. But intention or not – and I suspect there is some deliberate diminishment going on here – the cumulative effect of page after page of characters being torn down is that newer readers could begin to think the dissers have a point.

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice (which has their own rather nice annotations) takes issue with why Kimiyo ends up naked,

But why the hell does Kimiyo need to lose her clothing so that she’s totally naked by the time the issue’s over? Why? What purpose does it serve? Is it a metaphor about how she’s “stripped bare” and “naked to the world”? Does it show her vulnerability? Make her more of a target? Do we relate to her more?

Yeah, I just don’t buy it. I’m all for Black Lantern Doctor Light doing and saying what he needs to in order to wear her down, but the pointless nudity? Not necessary for the story. Sorry.

I think I agree with them. The Arthur Light, super-rapist, angle has been beaten-to-death. The confrontation was excellently handled, but I can’t shake the feeling that it was just a little too much.

It wasn’t so much each slur used by Steel and Arthur Light (which really fired some people up) that wore me down, but it was the sheer unrelenting barrage. Black Lanterns are meant to be vile, but the emotional attacks on Vixen and Kimiyo got really nasty here. James Robinson manages to find a new level of nastiness that leaves the reader as drained as the characters in the story.

Greg McElhatton @ CBR is probably one of the least appreciative of those who have reviewed this issue. He doesn’t like the change in Mark Bagley’s art,

Mark Bagley’s pencils here look rushed, and with three inkers assigned that’s almost certainly the case. His art on “Trinity” and “Batman” looked much nicer than this; it’s jagged in places and cluttered, something I’m not used to seeing with Bagley.

This issue is very claustrophobic and I’m not so sure it’s the best fit for a traditional superhero artist like Mark Bagley, but there are some brilliantly rendered scenes. The intense battles between the two Doctor Lights are my favourite.

It’s hard to place these last two issues. If they’d been put out as a Blackest Night: Justice League of America mini-series they’d probably have been regarded differently or accepted as filler material. However, they’re in the main-JLA book and they are launching the new creative team. That could make you expect some sort of wide-screen, big-bang adventure, but these issues are claustrophobic, very dark and quite edgy.

The story will stand-up quite well if Vixen and co’s experiences are followed-up, but I get the feeling that many reviewers just expect these characters to be thrown away as if this story is just house cleaning. Personally I hope that isn’t so, but only time will tell.

The Verdict

Featuring

• Doctor Light IV (Kimiyo Hoshi, appeared last issue)
• Plastic Man (Eel O’Brien, appeared last issue)
• Red Tornado (John Smith, appeared last issue)
• Vixen (Mari Jiwe McCabe, appeared last issue)
• Zatanna Zatara (appeared last issue)

Guest-Stars

• Gypsy (Cindy Reynolds, appeared last issue)

Villains

• Black Lantern Doctor Light III (Arthur Light, cameoed last issue, destroyed this issue)
• Black Lantern Steel (Hank Heywood, cameoed last issue, this the grandson of the WWII Commander Steel and the cousin of the JSA’s Citizen Steel, destroyed this issue)
• Black Lantern Vibe (Paco Ramone, appeared last issue, destroyed this issue)

Annotations: Steel’s Flashback

Numbers count for page dot panel.

• 1.1: The happy Heywood Family, however, this is only Hank’s wish of what it had been like. Hank’s father, Henry Heywood II, and his unnamed mother both died before he was one-year old and he was raised by Dale Gunn, his father’s best friend (Justice League of America v1 #235, Feb 1985).
• 1.3: The elder Steel, later known as Commander Steel, first appeared in  Steel, The Indestructible Man written by Gerry Conway with art by Don Heck and Joe Giella. It started in 1978, but was cancelled after 5 issues, a casualty of the DC Implosion. The character was later folded into the All-Star Squadron series by Roy Thomas.
• 2-3.1: The origin of Steel as recounted in Justice League of America v1 #235 (Feb 1985). When Gerry Conway needed to remodel the 1980s Justice League he used the character concept from his cancelled Steel, The Indestructible Man series and updated the alter ego to be the grandson of the original.
• 2-3.2: The Detroit League versus Shatterfist  and Blackmass from Justice League of America v1 #236 (Mar 1985).
• 2-3.3: Steel versus Commander Steel from Justice League of America v1 #244 (Nov 1985). The easiest way to tell them apart is that Commander Steel has a fin on his head.
• 2-3.4: The death of Steel from Justice League of America v1 #260 (Mar 1987) at the hands of Professor Ivo’s androids. It was later revealed that some part of Steel survived on a life support machine, but that was destroyed by Despero in Justice League America #38 (May 1990).

Annotations: The rest of the book

• 8.5: Gypsy’s real name is Cindy Reynolds. Her parents were killed by Despero in Justice League America#38 (May 1990).
• 9.1: Firestorm’s girlfriend is Gehenna. She was transformed into a salt statue in Blackest Night #3. Black Lantern Doctor Light (Arthur) was found nibbling on her remains last issue.
• 11.3: The armour of Rocket Red #4. This is a suit of armour from the Russian super-soldier team that was designed by Green Lantern Kilowog. This particular suit is a replica (the original was destroyed by Lobo) of that worn by Dimitri Pushkin, the Rocket Red who was a member of the Justice League International. Pushkin was killed fighting OMACs during the OMAC Project #5 (Oct 2005) and reappeared as a Black Lantern in Blackest Night #4 (Nov 2009) although he doesn’t appear in this issue.
• 14.2: Vixen is clutching her arm. She broke it being thrown against the Rocket Red armour.
• 14.4: The Black Rings are the antithesis of the emotional spectrum. The combined power from two different coloured power rings can weaken a Black Ring, but they can only be destroyed if one of the two rings is a Green Lantern ring. Alternatively, the black rings can be destroyed by white light, incredibly powerful or spiritually pure white light.
• 15.2: Kimiyo first appeared as Doctor Light in Crisis on Infinite Earths #4 (July 1985). At the time no explanation was given about why she adopted a villain’s costume.
• 15.3: It was revealed in Secret Origins #37 (Feb 1989) that Arthur Light’s costume had been designed by a co-worker called Jacob Finlay, but it wasn’t until DC Universe Holiday Special #1 (Feb 2009), twenty years later, that Finlay was revealed to also have worked with Kimiyo’s father (thus explaining why Kimiyo wore the same costume as the villain). Whether Arthur actually murdered Jacob is debatable in the original story, but it suits his retconned post-Identity Crisis personality. Kimiyo’s father’s collaborator is called Jacob Findley, but he was called Jacob Finlay in Secret Origins and the DC Universe Holiday Special.
• 15.4: In her first appearance Kimiyo berates her father and his scientists as cowards for not continuing to work through the red skies and chaos of the Crisis. He dies off-scene soon afterwards, and she is later (Showcase ‘96 #9, Oct 1996) shown finding solace by talking to his grave.
• 16-17.2: Arthur Light is lying. Kimiyo returned to Japan after her brief time in the Justice League. Only later, after he stole her powers, did she take a job at STAR Labs in Metropolis. She hated having to leave Japan (Justice League of America #27, Jan 2009), but it wasn’t until she’d regained her powers that she let her self enjoy her new job (DC Universe Holiday Special).
• 16-17.5: This is the first sign of what happened when Kimiyo divorced her husband. We know nothing about him except that he’s still living in Japan (she took the kids back to visit him in Superman #689, Aug 2009).
• 19.1: Doctor Lights swapping bodies. It took me ages to remember this. Arthur Light has been dead before. He was first “killed” way back in the page of Suicide Squad and made a deal with a demon to escape Hell. That involved his spirit possessing Kimiyo whilst she was experimenting with astral projection. Needless to say, Arthur is over-remembering his experiences to torture Kimiyo.
• 19.4: “invented by your august father” Kimiyo’s powers weren’t invented by her father. The original Doctor Light suit developed by Kimiyo’s father and used by Jacob Finlay and Arthur Light did indeed grant the wearer light based powers (which Arthur Light later internalized due to a deal with a different demon). However, Kimiyo got her powers from the Monitor and was a meta-human from the start. She only wore the suit because it coincidentally matched her new set of powers.
• 20-21.3: Negative Woman was a permutation of the Negative Man from the Doom Patrol. She was killed in the Final Crisis and returned as a Black Lantern in Doom Patrol v5 #4 (Jan 2010). Triumph was a hero from the same generation as Barry Allen and Hal Jordan and should have been a founding member of the Justice League, but he slipped through time and emerged, still of rookie, ten years later. He’s rather bitter about that and is currently hanging out as a statue somewhere in the JLA trophy room. Bloodpack are, well, a bit useless really. A group of new heroes that were created out of the same 1990s crossover that created Hitman.
• 22.1: We assume here that Black Lantern Doctor Light was destroyed, but there is no caption saying “Connection Severed” which usually accompanies a Black Lantern’s destruction.
• 24.1: Vixen’s JLA defeated the Royal Flush Gang in Justice League of America v2 #35-37 (Sept-Nov 2009), the story immediately before Robinson and Bagley took over. She was principal in defeating Amazo in Justice League of America v2 #7 (April 2007).
• 24.2: General Maksai was Vixen’s uncle, he murdered her father and later tried to steal the Tantu Totem that gives her superpowers. He died in Justice League of America #239 (June 1984). Abu Kwesi was an Intergang thug that threatened the village where Vixen had grown up in the 2009 Vixen mini-series.
• 24.5: Plastic Man’s alive. Bummer… no Black Lantern Plastic Man.
• 27.3: Zatanna has seen her father die at least three times. The first time was during the Crisis when he melted in front of her, the second time was when she destroyed his soul in hell, and this third time is when she has been forced to destroy Black Lantern Zatara.

Writer

James Robinson

Penciller

Mark Bagley

Inker

Rob Hunter

Colourist

Pete Pantazis

Letterer

Rob Leigh

Associate Editor

Adam Schlagman

Editor

Eddie Berganza

Cover Penciller

Mark Bagley

Cover Inker

Rob Hunter

Cover Colourist

Pete Pantazis

Blackest Night Catch-Up

On the anniversary of Superman’s death, mysterious black rings descended from the sky. The rings reanimate dead bodies turning them into Black Lanterns – cunning and vicious perversions of the corpses’ original identities. These are not created at random, each Black Lantern is chosen to create the greatest emotional distress in a targeted person or group. The Black Lanterns taunt you until they elicit a strong emotional response (fear, hate, love, anger, etc) and then they rip out your heart. Each heart adds incrementally to the power that the Nekron, Lord of the Dead, needs to enter the living world (Blackest Night #1-4).

More more details see my Blackest Night #1-4 catch-up.

Last Issue

In Justice League of America #38: At the time of the attack on the Hall of Justice, the current roster of the Justice League had been meeting in the Secret Sanctuary, the League’s original headquarters. They had suffered a series of crises that had depleted their roster and left them dangerously under resourced. Furthermore, attacks by the villain Promethius had left bones and wills broken. Their deliberations were cut short by a sudden attack by Despero, but he vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared. Zatanna arrived to alert Vixen and the League of the threat of the Black Lanterns and to bring them back to the Hall of Justice.

Reunion Part One: By My Black Hand The Dead Shall Rise (30-page)

The convention that DC uses when introducing Black Lanterns – particularly old, obscure characters that newer readers won’t have heard of – is to include a prologue wherein that character’s memories are downloaded into the Black Lantern. In this issue we see the life story of Vibe – a nineteen-year old Hispanic meta-human wannabe-gangbanger/superhero who was inducted into the Justice League after Aquaman just happened to move the League’s headquarters into his neighbourhood. Vibe ran with the League for a while, but ended up dead on the streets of Brooklyn, strangled by a pair of disembodied robotic hands. With the command of “Paco Ramone of Earth. Rise!”, Black Lantern Vibe bursts out of his grave.

Zatanna returns to the Hall of Justice with Vixen, Gypsy, Doctor Light, Plastic Man, and the Red Tornado. They find the Hall in darkness, the power out, the doors broken open, and wreckage strewn through the corridors. Their biggest concern is the Morgue buried beneath the central Meeting Room. It contained the bodies of deceased supervillains whose remains had been moved there after Nightwing discovered an illegal laboratory that was using meta-human remains to create Frankenstein-like super soldiers.

Doctor Light illuminates the darkness as the heroes make their way deeper into the Hall. They fully expect to meet the villains resurrected as Black Lanterns, but it’s Black Lantern Zatara – Zatanna’s father – who actually blocks their way. Zatanna rejects BL Zatara’s assertion that he is her father (she witnessed the destruction of the real Zatara’s immortal soul). He keeps up a steady stream of offensive spells which lock Zatanna into a magical duel. He almost tears out her heart before she manages to repel him. A weakened Zatanna then teleports herself and BL Zatara away from the Hall.

Doctor Light races a head of her team-mates, leaving them on their own. As the remaining heroes pass through the Trophy Room they discuss how the Black Lanterns are emotionally tied to their victims. Vixen and Gypsy are about to mention Vibe and Steel’s names when Black Lantern Vibe reveals himself. The Red Tornado and Plastic Man immediately attack. The Tornado’s winds rips BL Vibe’s corpse to pieces, but the Black Lantern ring almost instantly pulls its pieces back together again. BL Vibe lunges at Plastic Man ripping out his heart while simultaneously shattering the Tornado with a blast of solid sound. With the Tornado and Plastic Man dead Vixen and Gypsy are cornered by Black Lantern Vibe and the newly arrived Black Lantern Steel.

Doctor Light (Kimiyo) had raced away from the other heroes as she had sensed the presence of a particular Black Lantern – the villainous Doctor Light (Arthur Light). She finds him hunched over the remains of Firestorm’s girlfriend licking the salt. He then turns his attention on Kimiyo knocking her back with a blast of darkness.

Format

This issue is longer than normal and as such has a higher cover price. It has 40-pages and with a cover price of $3.99 whereas last issue had 32-pages and a cover price of $2.99. The solicitations for the next two issues show the cover price remaining, but the number of pages bouncing between 32 and 40.

Rings

DC produced a series of promotional giveaway coloured rings to tie-in to the Blackest Night event. Each ring featured the emblem on one of the multi-colour Corps from the Green Lantern comics (Green Lantern Corps, Red Lanterns, Sinestro Corps, etc). Retailers could order the different rings in numbers based on the quantity of certain issues they ordered. Justice League of America #39 was one of the issues tied to this promotion. For every 50 issues of the comic they ordered the retailer could order a bag of 50 Red Lantern rings.

This is the second issue of James Robinson and Mark Bagley’s JLA run. The first issue wasn’t anything too special. It set up a few plots and bridged a couple of stories, but otherwise wasn’t very engaging in its own right. This second issue is definitely stronger as the League actually have something to do whilst chatting. There is no disguising that this story, maybe more than most other Blackest Night tie-ins, is following the classic horror/zombie movie tropes – there is a darkened mansion illuminated by lightning, zombies in the shadows, a troop of kids who get picked off one by one, etc. It’s great fun to see the horror clichés used so unreservedly.

Doug Zawisza’s review for Comic Book Resources begins by saying that his review of Robinson and Bagley’s first issue may have “seemed a little harsh.” It’s an admission that could be at home in almost any of the reviews of this issue. The first issue wasn’t as good as people expected it to be and that led to some pretty heavily pelting from the gallery. This second issue is a lot better and is forcing people to reevaluated their earlier opinions.

There are a surprising number of Vibe fans out there – as Gerry Conway, the character’s creator, once remarked, “Vibe has fans???” – and it seems that Doug is one of them:

The issue starts off with what my cohort, Jeffrey Renaud, affectionately refers to as “Vibe: Rebirth” -– a tale very few comic fans would have requested. As a fan of the Motor City Justice League (or Justice League Detroit) from the days of fueling my comic habits with lawn-mowing money, I was quite pleased to see Vibe get some page time

Mart Gray was also impressed that Robinson is respectful of Vibe’s League,

writer James Robinson doesn’t take the opportunity to knock the Detroit League, they’re presented as nothing less than a valid incarnation of the team.

Comic Reviews by Walt comments on the Zatanna versus Black Lantern Zatara where they were both using spells announced in reverse english

Though it got incredibly annoying trying to read the backwards-speak of Zatanna and Zatarra and I was taken out of the story entirely by the thought, I had a good chuckle when I realized their battle had all but come down to a “yo mamma” spitting contest, their magic given power by what they said: “Disregard what she said!” “No, disregard what HE said!” “No, disregard what SHE said!”

Personally I thought this was a great issue. As I said before it’s a lot stronger than the first issue. Not only that, but it has several fun moments including the reverse speak magic battle.

The Verdict

Characters

Featuring

• Doctor Light IV (Kimiyo Hoshi, appeared last issue)
• Plastic Man (Eel O’Brien, appeared last issue)
• Red Tornado (John Smith, appeared last issue)
• Vixen (Mari Jiwe McCabe, appeared last issue)
• Zatanna Zatara (appeared last issue)

Guest-Stars

• Gypsy (Cindy Reynolds, appeared last issue)

Villains

• Black Lantern Doctor Light III (Arthur Light, cameoed last issue)
• Black Lantern Giovanni Zatara (first appearance as a Black Lantern)
• Black Lantern Steel (Hank Heywood, first appearance as a Black Lantern, this the grandson of the WWII Commander Steel and the cousin of the JSA’s Citizen Steel)
• Black Lantern Vibe (Paco Ramone, first appearance as a Black Lantern)

Supporting Cast

• Gehenna’s corpse (Firestorm’s girlfriend, killed in Blackest Night #3)

Vibe’s Flashback

Numbers count for page dot panel.

• 1.1-1.2: I have a hard time believing that Vibe was ever the Los Lobos’s actual leader. The only note of him previously running the gang is a line from an elderly supporting character who says “I remember as you ran those Lobos all the time you should’ve been schoolin’ yourself.” Seems fairly conclusive, but his older brother, Armando, was presented as the gang’s leader in their original appearance in Justice League of America vol. 1 #233 (Dec 1984). Paco could have run the gang before Armando, but I just can’t imagine the an older brother being part of his younger brother’s gang.
• 1.2, 2.1: Vibe – in his original costume – and the Detroit Justice League saving Superman, the Flash, and Wonder Woman from the Maestro. This is from Justice League of America vol 1. #237-238 (April-May 1985).
• 3.1: The Detroit League fought Amazo in Justice League of America vol 1. #241-243 (Aug-Oct 1985). This particular scene is a recreation of the cover of #241 which featured Vibe’s original costume (yellow pants), but the interior art of that issue featured the début of Vibe’s second costume (black pants).
• 3.2: This is really how Vibe died in Justice League of America vol. 1 #258 (Jan 1987).  He thought he’d defeated one of Professor Ivo’s androids, but he let his guard down and it strangled him with its detachable hands.
• Missing fuzz: When Vibe was drawn by Chuck Patton, the original Detroit League artist, he had one of those tiny, tufty soul patch beards, but its missing in this flashback. George Tuska, the second regular penciler on the Detroit League, doesn’t seem to have bothered with it or he eliminated it when he redesigned Vibe’s costume.

The rest of the book

• 8-9.4: Gypsy says her people bury their dead upright. This is probably an allusion to a Gypsy proverb which states “Bury me standing, as I’ve been on my knees my whole life.” It gave title to the book “Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey” by Isabel Fonseca.
• 15.2 Zatanna says that Giovanni Zatara’s soul was destroyed by Lobo. This was during the Reign in Hell mini-series in which Neron and Lord Satanus/Blaze battled for the kingdom of Hell. Zatara had Zatanna destroy his soul – casting it into the abyss – to make sure that it wouldn’t remain in Hell.
• 18-19.2 Vixen creates light by calling on the powers of a Hatchetfish. The Deep Sea Hatchetfishs live at a depth where no daylight reaches. In common with many species at that depth, the Hatchetfish is capable of producing light via bio-luminescence in much the same way as a Firefly. What they use this light for is not precisely known, but ideas include courtship, confusing predators, or luring prey.
• 18-19.6 Spotted in the Trophy Room: Metron’s Chair.
• 26.1 Black Lantern Steel standing in front of the Trophy Room statue of Aquaman, Vibe, and himself. The statue was shown on page 15 of Blackest Night #3 (Nov 2009) foreshadowing the return of Vibe and Steel.
• 27.1 Doctor Light: “I hear you, Curry.” Who does Doctor Light mean? The evil Doctor Light’s name is/was Arthur Light. Arthur Curry would be Aquaman.
• 28-29.2 Interesting twist to Doctor Light. Whilst alive he could control light, but now a Black Lantern he appears to control darkness instead.