Blackest Night #1

Across the United States heroes and villains are gathering together on the anniversary of Superman’s death. This day has become a day to remember those who died fighting for the cause of justice. In Smallville Superboy and Superman visit the grave of Jonathan Kent, in Pittsburgh Jason Rusch visits the grave of Ronnie Raymond (the original Firestorm), the Titans gather at their memorial in San Francisco, and in Chicago the Blue Beetle’s friends gather to remember him. However, the largest gathering is at the Valhalla Cemetery in Metropolis where the heroes with public identities are buried.

Later, Green Lantern Hal Jordan explains to the recently resurrected Flash (Barry Allen) that a huge number of their friends and enemies died in time between Barry’s own death and resurrection. Sometime before Batman’s murder by Darkseid, Nightwing busted a criminal enterprise building Frankenstein like super-soldiers out of meta-human corpses. It was decided that the remains of powerful meta-humans were too dangerous to be left unguarded so a  secure morgue was set up three stories beneath the JLA’s meeting room. The League could not keep an eye on the villains remains to guard against any more thefts or inadvertent resurrections.

An unfolding web of horror begins when Alfred Pennyworth discovers that somebody has stolen the Batman’s skull from his grave. Simultaneously a swarm of Black Rings spread out across the universe, they seeking out and invade the tombs and graves of great heroes. The rings bond with the corpses within animating them as vicious, undead perversions called Black Lanterns.

The Black Lantern Martian Manhunter attacks Hal and Barry at Batman’s grave side when they investigate the theft of Batman’s skull. In St Roch, the Black Lantern Elongated Man and Black Lantern Sue Dibny attack Hawkman and Hawkgirl. The Black Lanterns rip out the Hawk’s hearts releasing emotional power that is channelled elsewhere. Each death is accompanied by a mysterious voice from the Black Rings that enumerates how much emotional energy has been collected so far… 0.01%, 0.02%.

Blackest Night #2

The assault of the Black Lanterns is beginning. After their hearts are ripped out Hawkman and Hawkgirl are reanimated as Black Lanterns. The Black Lantern Hawks then lure their friend Ray Palmer to St Roch. In Amnesty Bay, Mera and Tempest arrive to exhume the body of Aquaman for reburial in Atlantis, but they find that it had already left its grave as a Black Lantern. Mera barely escapes, but Tempest is captured, killed, and raised as a Black Lantern. Zatanna and other magic users investigate the gave of Boston Brand, but are horrified to see the Spectre – one of the most powerful entities in creation – taken over by one of the Black Rings.

Black Lantern Martian Manhunter’s battle with Green Lantern and the Flash rages across Gotham City. For a moment it seems that they’re able to defeat him by dropping an exploding police car on him, but things get a lot worse when an entire undead Justice League emerges from the smoke.

Blackest Night #3

Mera managed to escape Black Lantern Aquaman and made her way to the Justice League’s Hall of Justice. She activates the League’s emergency signal, but Firestorm (Jason Rusch) is the only Leaguer to arrive.

The Atom (Ray Palmer) had escaped Black Lantern Hawkman by shrinking and hiding within the Black Ring. He emerges as they battle the Flash and Green Lantern and reports that the rings are channeling the emotional energy released when a Black Lantern rips out a person’s heart. The Black Lanterns prove almost unstoppable and regenerate any injury whilst connected to their Black Ring.

The heroes are suddenly helped by the arrival of Indigo-1, leader of the Indigo Tribe. By combining her indigo light of compassion with Hal Jordan’s green light of willpower she is able to destroy one of the Black Lanterns. Indigo-1 then teleports Hal Jordan, the Flash, and the Atom to the Hall of Justice where they meet Mera and Firestorm. Indigo-1 explains the difference between the various lantern corps and reveals that only by combining light from different corps can the Black Lantern’s be destroyed.

Their brief respite does not last and the Black Lantern Justice League bursts into the Hall. Indigo-1 and her ally Loro teleport away with Hal Jordan. She seeks to unite the leaders of the different corps into a single team and cannot become bogged down fighting Black Lanterns on Earth. The Flash, Mera, Ray, and Firestorm are left to fight the Black Lanterns on their own.

The two Firestorms fight each other, but the unique nature of their powers causes them to merge and Jason Rusch becomes a passenger inside Ronnie Raymond’s undead head. Rusch pleads to Raymond to leave Gen, his girlfriend, alone. He cries and screams inside Raymond’s head, but can do nothing to stop Gen being turned into a salt statue. A flurry of new Black Rings stream into the Justice League’s morgue creating new Black Lanterns out of the dead villains stored within.

The unrelenting accumulation of emotional energy continues… 56.67%, 56.58%, 56.59%…

Can I just say that Black Lantern Firestorm’s murder of Gen whilst Jason Rusch screams inside his head has to be one of the sickest, heart ponding moments I’ve ever read. It’s one of those times where you don’t want to turn the page because you just know that it’s going to get worse.

Blackest Night #4

The unleashed Black Lantern villains include Copperhead, Maxwell Lord, Alexander Luthor of Earth-Three, and Doctor Light. They are like a tidal wave against the Flash, Atom, and Mera. Jason manages to momentarily regain control of Firestorm and warns the Flash that they must evacuate the Earth. When Jason looses control again, the Atom dials 911 and transports the Flash and Mera down the telephone line with him. The Black Lanterns are left behind in the Hall of Justice.

The heroes split again. The Flash leaves on a superspeed mission to alert as many people as possible to the threat of the Black Lanterns while the Atom and Mera travel to Manhattan to help the Justice Society fight off their own Black Lanterns. The Atom stops Black Lantern Al Pratt, his predecessor, from killing Damage, but he is unable to stop Black Lantern Jean Loring – his own deceased wife – from ripping out Damage’s heart.

The emotion released by Damage’s murder tips the Black Lantern’s accumulated energy to 100%. The emotional power is being directed to a giant Black Lantern Battery on the planet Ryut in Space Sector 666. Now full, it teleports to Coast City on Earth where it is met by Black Hand – the herald of the Battery’s owner, the undead lord Nekron.

The Flash finds himself drawn to Coast City and arrives in time to see Nekron emerge into this dimension. Black Rings begin raining from the sky around him and plunge into the ground. The ground where seven million victims of Coast City’s destruction are buried.

Episode Credits

Synopsis

Crowds gather in Metropolis ahead of the “The Fastest Man Alive Race”, a charity race between Superman and the Flash. Superman is the first to arrive, neatly and quietly descending on to the start line from the skies above. The Flash, by contrast, arrives is a blur of speed and loops around the plaza before joining Superman on the start line. The cocky, young speedster tries to upstage the older hero, but the Man of Steel refuses to rise to his antics. The rules of the race are simple, the winner will be the man who first circles the Earth one hundred times. The progress of the racers will be monitored by satellite tracking bands attached to each contestant’s arm.

Red and blue blurs race away from the starting line the instant the starting gun is fired. They zig zag through Metropolis, past the Daily Planet building, across the toll bridge and then away across the middle of America. The blurs continue out over the ocean, moving so fast that they’re able to run on the surface of the water. The two heroes are evenly matched and by the fifteenth lap the Flash has only a narrow lead.

Unknown to either hero the seemingly anonymous official who gave them their tracking bands was actually the disguised extortionist Mark Mardon. His mild-mannered scientist brother, Ben Mardon, had been experimenting with weather manipulation, but he had never generated enough “high velocity ionic energy” to power his equipment. However, the Flash and Superman’s race is creating a massive reservoir that he can tap into using devices hidden in the heroes tracking armbands. Mark is annoyed to find that Ben has already made it snow outside their house as he has more ambitious plans for their technology and does not want to draw attention to their  hideout.

Mark Mardon adopts another disguise and announces himself to the authorities as the Weather Wizard. He demonstrates the power of his new weapon by creating a violent storm off of the northern coast of Australia. Luckily for the sailors caught in the storm, it is directly in the path of the super-speed race. Superman and the Flash are soon on hand to save a stranded oil tanker that is leaking below the waterline. Superman seals the ship’s hull with his superstrength and heat vision, while the Flash uses his super-speed to create a vortex to suck up the escaping oil. The Weather Wizard’s storm then passes as quickly as it was created.

When the heroes watch the Weather Wizard’s latest communication the Flash recognises him as Mark Mardon. The Flash and Superman divert their race to look for Mardon. He is ready to kill them, but Ben intercedes and argues that killing is going to far. Ben had agreed to let Mark use his machine first as he had paid for its development with proceeds from his last extortion, but he had never agreed to using it as a murder weapon. Mark brushes his arguments aside and throws a blizzard into the heroes path. The Flash is barely able to stand upright and even Superman is held in place by the accumulated ice. Superman melts the ice with his heat vision while the Flash vibrates his molecules until the ice melts around him. Once they’re free the heroes realise that the Weather Wizard has been targeting them via their tracking arm bands. They ditch the armbands and restart the hunt for Mardon.

The Australian storm had been just a demonstration to prove the Weather Wizard’s power. He now demands that ransom of a billion dollars otherwise he will unleash a massive hurricane against Metropolis. Ben pleas with his brother again and refuses to go along with threatening an entire city. Mark pretends to let Ben leave, but then tries to kill him with a storm of boulder sized hailstones. The weather anomaly is spotted by the   weather satellites and pin points the Weather Wizard’s hideout. Superman and the Flash arrive in the nick of time to save Ben, but he warms them that his brother has gone mad and will kill them all.

Savage winds lash Metropolis as the impetuous Flash races ahead of Superman to the Weather Wizard’s hideout. He’s stunned by bolt after bolt of lightning until Superman pulls him clear. Superman circumvents the lightening shield surrounding the hideout by tunnelling under it, but even he isn’t immune to a point blank blast from the Weather Wizard’s hand held controller. The Flash follows the Man of Steel into the hideout. He knocks the controller from the Wizard’s grasp, but in going so creates a feedback that causes the weather control equipment to release all its stolen energy. The feedback destroys the hideout, but Superman manages to fly the Flash and the Weather Wizard to safety.

The Weather Wizard is deposited at the Metropolis prison. His scheme had interrupted the heroes race and had left the outcome unresolved. In a more friendly manner than before, Superman and the Flash line themselves up on the prison threshold to start a friendly race just between themselves.

Commentary

The Flash

The Flash, or more correctly the second Flash, is usually seen as the foundation hero of the DC Comics Silver Age. The first Flash appeared in FLASH COMICS #1 (Jan 1940) and was created by writer Gardner Fox (co-creator of the Justice League) and artist Harry Lampert . This was Jay Garrick, a university student who gained superpowers after inadvertently inhaling the fumes from heavy water. Jay lasted until 1949 when his own title was cancelled and 1951 when his adventures with the Justice Society were curtailed in ALL-STAR COMICS #51. Superhero comics had passed out of fashion, but by the middle of the 1950s there was a feeling that it might be time to have a second go. Under editor Julius Schwartz, writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino relaunched the Flash as a try out in SHOWCASE #4 (Oct 1956). The only things they retained were the name and the super-speed concept. Underneath this they introduced a new costume and a new secret identity. The second Flash was Barry Allen, a police scientist (the forerunner of a crime scene investigator), who gained his powers when he was struck by a cabinet of electrified chemicals.

All good heroes have a sidekick and Barry Allen was no exception. His sidekick was his girlfriend’s nephew, Wally West, a fan of the Flash who received his powers in an identical accident to the one that gave Barry his powers. Wally used the name Kid Flash and was a founding member of the Teen Titans. Barry was the cleanest, squarest, straight-arrow in DC’s stable. His fans saw that as part of the charm, but it also meant that he lacked “relevancy” in the post-Marvel business. Barry remained the Flash until 1985 when the publishers finally decided that he was too old fashioned. An attempt had been made to modernise him, but it hadn’t worked. So he was killed off in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (1985-86) and his sidekick was promoted into his identity.

When Wally West became the third Flash he became the first of the sidekicks to properly graduate and succeed his mentor. Wally’s own comic book was launched with THE FLASH #1 in 1987 and he developed into a rather more down to Earth hero than Barry. He was still a young man, he had money problems, and he was easily distracted by beautiful women. Wally could appear quite shallow at times and he hid his fear that he wasn’t worthy of following in his uncle’s footsteps. In time Wally matured as a character. He made the role his own, he married journalist Linda Park, and they had twins. In many ways Wally had evolved into the mature married hero that Barry had been when he had been killed off.

The Flash that appears in Superman The Animated Series Speed Demons is not specifically identified, but by character he most closely resembles an early career Wally West Flash. This is after he’s become the Flash, but before he’s settled down into a relationship with his future wife, Linda Park. It appears to be the same character with little alteration that appears in Justice League Secret Origins. His secret identity isn’t confirmed until the final story of the second season when we are shown that, as suspected, he is Wally West. Although it isn’t shown whether there was ever a Barry Allen in the Animated Universe, West’s day job it shown as a CSI (Barry’s actual job) in a final season episode of Justice League Unlimited.

The Flash is voiced by Charlie Schlatter also provides the voice of the Flash for The Batman cartoon (the one that started after JL Unlimited ended). He also who played Ferris Bueller in the sitcom that was spun-off the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and he is the voice of Ace Bunny in WB’s Lunatics relaunch of the Looney Tune characters. Schlatter didn’t voice the Flash in the JL, that voice was provided by Michael Rosenbaum).

The Weather Wizard

The Weather Wizard first appeared in THE FLASH #110 (Dec 1959) and was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino. He was a petty criminal called Mark Mardon who stolen a weather control wand from his brother’s laboratory. In the comic books the Weather Wizard, like many of the Flash’s Rogues Gallery, has a rather low level of ambition. The general pattern of the Flash Rogues are petty criminals who stumble into fantastic advanced weaponry (heat guns, cold guns, weather wands, inter-dimensional mirrors) which they then use to commit rather small scale crimes. They’d use a billion dollars of stolen technology to rob a few hundred thousand dollars from a bank while causing millions of dollars of properly damage.

The idea of the Weather Wizard as a blackmailer was also used as the plot of the Justice League TV movie. It collapses down the two brothers Mardon into a single character, called Dr Eno, an apparently successful businessman and scientist, and forgoes the more theatrical elements. In both appearances, TV movie and cartoon, the character is played/voiced by Miguel Ferrer. He went on to voice Aquaman in the Superman episode Fish Story and J’onn J’onzz in the New Frontier. When the Weather Wizard reappeared in JL he was voiced by Corey Burton.

In the comics the Weather Wizard uses a slender wand-like device to control the weather – hence the name “Wizard” – but the cartoon shies away from that level of miniaturisation. Instead we have an entirely laboratory full of equipment and the big visual device of the holographic globe. The idea of a wand-like controller is retained in the dumb-bell like device Mark Mardon uses.

Misc.

The Flash is often shown being about to run on the surface of the water. The idea is that his foot falls are so fast that the water appears as a solid surface to him. This isn’t entirely as implausible as it sounds, there is a Central/South American lizard called the Common Basilisk or the Basilisk Lizard which is able to exactly the same thing, albeit over a relatively short distance.

“Fastest Man Alive”, the name of the charity race, is one of the descriptions of the Flash just as Superman is the “Man of Steel.”

Nimbus Tracking Station – Nimbus is a type of cloud, despite being a military post this is just a fancy weather station.

I’m not sure that accent those sailor’s are meant to be speaking, but its not Australian.

The Mayor of Metropolis is voiced by Carl Lumbly – the Martian Manhunter from the Justice League.

Highlights

For me, the highlight of this episode is the banter between the Flash and Superman. Especially Superman’s calm versus the Flash’s showboating. It foreshadows the relationship between Green Lantern and the Flash in the cartoon Justice League.

Oddities

It’s not really something that is unique to this episode, but the rate of ice accumulation in superhero cartoons is rather ridiculous. The Flash and Superman are nearly instantaneously encased in a large block of ice, but one would have thought that the Flash should have been fast enough to out race a growing ice crystal.

My Thoughts

The Flash is one of the first guest stars in the Superman cartoon. He is brash and over confident and their race pretty much opens as the classic Tortoise and the Hare set-up. In the comics the Flash and Superman have raced several times, but it surprising how few of the those races actually go the distance without some supervillain or other interfering. I must admit its not one of the classic storylines that I particularly like and it has been some what over done. However, the animated series does manages to make it feel fresh and dynamic. I think I prefer the Green Lantern guest appearance as they do more with the character’s mythology, but this episode doesn’t do too badly.

The last time I posted I was I hunting down background material for Justice League: The New Frontier (JL:NF), now I’ve had a chance to watch it fully. JL:NF is the second direct-to-DVD movie released under Warner Brother Animation’s new DC Universe line. The first, the Superman: Doomsday, felt like something that WB had to get out of their system, so for me JL:NF is the real start of the line. It is based on a graphic novel called DC: The New Frontier by writer/artist Darwyn Cooke. Cooke has worked in animation before and was involved with the movie as a consultant and a storyboard artist. His most recognisable animation work is probably the title sequence for Batman Beyond. The New Frontier is certainly Cooke’s most famous comic-book work. More recently he wrote the first arc of Superman: Confidential (illustrated by Tim Sale) and DC’s post-Will Einser Spirit book. Cooke’s involvement with the movie and the painstaking work of the animators brings a true sense of pathos and primacy that is often lacking in other adaptations.

The official blurb describes the material as:

Inspired by the best-selling graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke and produced by the multiple Emmy award winning animation legend, Bruce Timm, The New Frontier is the epic tale of the founding of the Justice League. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are all here of course, and so are Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Flash – whose incredible origins will be told for the very first time. Strangers at first, these very different heroes must overcome fear and suspicion to forge an alliance against a monster so formidable, even the mighty Superman can not stop it. If they fail, our entire planet will be “cleansed” of humanity.

JL:NF is set during the 1950s. It follows the heroes of the future Justice League as they struggle against the prejudices of the time and the hidden threat that will eventually bring them together. The first act of the film follows the heroes individually as they go about their lives. The second act brings these plots together, but  this continues well into the third act (which is otherwise dominated by the ultimate confrontation with the threat). If there is a weakness to the plot then it is that switch from the character driven, and ultimately more fulfilling first half, to the more action dominated second half. That isn’t something that is inherent to the movie, but is an artefact of the original material.

The original mini-series belongs to a small, but artistically influential superhero sub-genre that revisits characters within their original historical context. These stories are period pieces that juxtapose the heroes against real world events and prejudices that, at the time, would have been too political or contentious to be included in their fictional universes. The prime example of this is James Robinson and Paul Smith’s The Golden Age which features the DC mystery men as they try to find a place as an America that is degenerating into the post-WWII whitewashed veneer that hid the fears and uncertainties of the early atomic age.

There is of course Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’s Marvels which is more of a travelogue of existing stories than a brand new story. Other examples include John Byrne’s under-rated Generations which intriguingly conjectures what would have happened if the superheroes had aged at the same rate as the rest of us. It is even possible to add Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen to this genre as its milieu is so fixed to the bleakness of the late Cold War. Watchmen is currently undergoing its own adaptation into a live action movie and I think its makers could learn a thing or two from this adaptation.

Fans with long memories may remember that there was talk about a sequel to The Golden Age called The Silver Age. Robinson’s sequel never appeared, but Cooke’s The New Frontier must surely rate as its successor in spirit, if not in strict continuity. Both books bridge a gap in the 1950s when there were very few superhero comics. The documentary on the DVD does an excellent job on explaining the history, but the capsule version is that the popularity of superhero comics plummeted following WWII and by the start of the 1950s they were almost extinct. Then ten years later an enterprising DC editor called Julius Schwartz revived the genre priming the explosion of superhero interest in the 1960s. Comic book historians call these two periods The Golden Age and the Silver Age – ergo the titles of Robinson’s projects.

The Golden Age examined the twilight of the old superheroes, whereas the The New Frontier examines the new heroes as they emerged from the shadows and started to change the world. The title is an allusion to John F. Kennedy’s acceptance speech to the Democratic 1960 Presidential Nomination. He rallied his supporters with the cry that:

“We stand at the edge of a New Frontier – the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. It will deal with unsolved problems of war and peace, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.”

Within the book itself the New Frontier is an allusion to the Justice League – the bright future of the 1960s that awaits the heroes – but to get there they must survive their own genesis, the authoritarian 1950s crackdowns, and ultimately the crisis that brings them together.

The plot unfolds over several years with the characters being introduced – or at least gaining their superpowers – roughly in step with their real world publishing history. J’onn J’onzz is transported to earth in 1955 in step with Detective Comics #225, Barry Allen gains his powers in 1956 just in time for Showcase #4, and we follow the non-superpowered adventures of Hal Jordan until 1959, close to the conclusion of the story, when he finally gets his ring in Showcase #22. The movie retains this, but it isn’t overstated and may even go unnoticed by the casual viewer.

JL:NF is such a successful adaptation of the original The New Frontier graphic novel that it is almost impossible to consider it in isolation. They frequently match scenes panel-for-panel from the original and Cooke served as a creative consultant, character designer, and one of the storyboard artists on the movie. That it not to say that the movie contains every element of the graphic novel. The cast of the graphic novel is at least twice the size of that presented in the movie. The characters that we’ve lost are the non-superhero DC characters – the soldiers, the reporters, and spies – many of them still appear in the movie, albeit with a dramatically reduced presence. Almost every incidental character we encounter once had their own 1950s or 1960s comic book and all are well known characters in their own right. However, the movie chooses to focus purely on the members of the future Justice League.

The classic DC trinity – Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman – are included, but they are not the true focus. That is given to Korean vet, turned test-pilot Hal Jordan, forensic scientist Barry Allen, and alien immigrant J’onn J’onzz. In their own way they each represent an idealised aspect of the 1950s male. Jordan is the fearless, handsome man of adventure, Allen is the solid, dependable white collar worker, and J’onzz is the outsider with a secret (a clear parallel to communists who lived in fear of exposure by a society unwilling understand them). Even the enemy, the mysterious Center, can be read as a version or the cause of the social ills and parinia that characterise the times.The voice acting in the JL:NF is of the highest order – no corners have been cut to provide a believable range of voices that fit the period. Each of the male characters is well acted, but the differences between them is subtler, less exaggerated than you would get in Justice League Unlimited or a Saturday morning show. And while there were big names involved I certainly didn’t feel like I was listening to stunt casting.

The animation itself is spectacular. This doesn’t feel like an animated movie as much as a movie that just happens to be animated. The colour palette feels sophisticated and there are other tricks they use – many of which go unnoticed until you listen to the commentary – which together create something quite special. One visual element that was missing from that was in the original graphic novel was the characters smoking – its not an important omission, but a revealing one. They may have a slightly more adult rating than the normal Justice League cartoon, but they were never going to abandon the need to protect younger viewers. On a purely technical note, I watched this back through Window Vista and its DVD decoder did have problems at times deinterlacing the picture during the supplemental material – the trailers and JLA documentary. However, the movie itself was perfect.

I loved DC: The New Frontier, so I have found it very hard to be objective about the movie adaptation. And I suspect that other fans will have the same conflict – we love the authenticity of the adaptation, but at the same time we also know what hasn’t been included. There is a lovely sequence with a young Hal Jordan and Chuck Yeager that we’ve lost and a deeper look at the John Henry character who is only mentioned in a news report. I liked the way these missing materials were acknowledged as references scattered throughout the fictional world as headlines, news reports, and other allusions.

Yes there have been changes, most for reasons of time, others to patch the narratives that have been lost, but I don’t think there is any other way that it could have been done and have still kept to the set running time. Steve Fritz at Animation Shorts takes a harder line with the DC Universe line’s relatively short running times and he has a good point about other animation houses having longer running times. I find it interesting that the running time is three and one third times the running time of an individual JLA episode, but that may be nothing.

Ultimately, Justice League: The New Frontier is fantastic adaptation of those parts of DC: The New Frontier which feature the Jusitce League. Timm’s animation squad (TAS?) have really upped their game compared to the previous Superman: Doomsday DVD and even their earlier TV work. It is probably they’re best work since Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. This movie is so good that a limited theatrical release shouldn’t have been out of the question. I liked it, I’ll watch it again. And given that the screener I got from WB was the single disc DVD version I may well have to invest in the Blueray version.

22.5