Seriously the comic is amazing. I can't wait ti'l the last one comes out this month. But, DAMN, they kill heroes off like I eat popcorn(vicious and fast). When Kyle Rayner died I practically shat my pants! Luckily he was brought back to life so I won't have a grudge, like some people do with One More Day(Linkara reference). I do have a little bit of DGASS(Don't Give A Shat Syndrome, reference to Still Gaming) of a few deaths but it's overwhelming. What do you guys think?

PS I don't know if you people noticed but I like references :)

C'mon people! Does no one agree with me?!

Eh, death in superhero comicsis pointless. You know pretty well they'll bring these guys back anyway. Neither the death of batman nor captain america has moved me at all in the least bit as I knew pretty well (from the day one!) that they'll be brought back. And guess what, cap's back and bat is on his way :P

Thus, I did not bother with blackest night at all.

Aurora Borealis
Eh, death in superhero comicsis pointless. You know pretty well they'll bring these guys back anyway. Neither the death of batman nor captain america has moved me at all in the least bit as I knew pretty well (from the day one!) that they'll be brought back. And guess what, cap's back and bat is on his way :P

Thus, I did not bother with blackest night at all.

That is a good point but obviously not everybody will come back. Besides this was sort of secretly hinting at DC(not sure about Marvel) always killing off people. 'COUGH' TEEN TITANS 'COUGH'

lionman
That is a good point but obviously not everybody will come back.

Oh, I suspect they will. The editors at DC won't be able to resist it. No matter how long they manage to keep their grubby little hands off the plot lines, eventually some damn fool editor will decide they want to bring them back. Remember Jason Todd? Supergirl? They kept those dead for twenty years before succumbing to the temptation. Stephanie Brown? Somewhat shorter. And Kyle Rayner didn't even stay dead until the end of the series. The trend does not inspire confidence!

Gotta get caught up in my reading. I have a stack of comics waiting beside my desk, including the last few Blackest Nights.

Regarding superhero deaths . . . Yeah, you know they'll likely come back (even the Barry Allen law has been repealed), but it can make for some interesting stories. The emotional impact of Batman's death was put to good use in Blackest Night, as were the previous "deaths" of many of the other major heroes (Superman, Wonder Woman, GL, Barry Allen). That was the thing that I liked best about Blackest Night so far--Johns made the resurrections of the past 20 years a part of the story and gave the resurrections a darker reason for happening instead of just a triumphant return.

And I think the deaths in Blackest Night were handled a lot better than the superhero/villain genocide of Ultimatum--that series seemed to be violent and cruel more for shock value than anything else, in my opinion. The premise for the story was intriguing, and they could've done so much with it, but it basically boiled down to "let's see how many characters we can kill off." I loved what Bendis did with Ultimate Spider-Man (during Ultimatum) and having JJJ see Spidey being a hero and having to reevaluate his perception of the Wall-Crawler and the fear in MJ's and Kitty's hearts when Peter went off to do what he had to do, but all of that character introspection was sadly missing from the actual mini-series. Personally, in the face of a world-devastating tragedy, I'd like to see more from my heroes than just, "The bad guy did this. Now we gotta kill him." And, even worse, after the villain corrects what he's done and shows true remorse, the heroes show no compassion and execute him. House of M covered similar themes but was very good. But I'm getting way off topic. Sorry!

I'm going to have to chime in with the choir and add that I'm suffering from a massive dose of event fatigue.

I officially have stopped caring about who's dead, who's resurrected, who's turned evil, who is now a good guy, who's wielding which color of some magic ring, who's gay, and who's really a little green alien.

I want to read and understand a solitary comic book without being required to buy thirty fucking spin-offs and tie-ins.

EssayBee
The emotional impact of Batman's death was put to good use in Blackest Night, as were the previous "deaths" of many of the other major heroes (Superman, Wonder Woman, GL, Barry Allen).

WHAT emotional impact? Anybody with just a little bit idea of how superhero comics work KNEW that Batman will be back. Hell,I think it was even hinted at the end of (not-so-)Final Crisis.

EssayBee
And I think the deaths in Blackest Night were handled a lot better than the superhero/villain genocide of Ultimatum--that series seemed to be violent and cruel more for shock value than anything else, in my opinion. The premise for the story was intriguing, and they could've done so much with it, but it basically boiled down to "let's see how many characters we can kill off." I loved what Bendis did with Ultimate Spider-Man (during Ultimatum) and having JJJ see Spidey being a hero and having to reevaluate his perception of the Wall-Crawler and the fear in MJ's and Kitty's hearts when Peter went off to do what he had to do, but all of that character introspection was sadly missing from the actual mini-series. Personally, in the face of a world-devastating tragedy, I'd like to see more from my heroes than just, "The bad guy did this. Now we gotta kill him." And, even worse, after the villain corrects what he's done and shows true remorse, the heroes show no compassion and execute him. House of M covered similar themes but was very good. But I'm getting way off topic. Sorry!

Ultimatum...
*deletes the five miles long rant on it and decides to leave this part unanswered*

No point in getting angry over comics :)

Air Raid Robertson
I'm going to have to chime in with the choir and add that I'm suffering from a massive dose of event fatigue.

I officially have stopped caring about who's dead, who's resurrected, who's turned evil, who is now a good guy, who's wielding which color of some magic ring, who's gay, and who's really a little green alien.

I want to read and understand a solitary comic book without being required to buy thirty fucking spin-offs and tie-ins.

AMEN!

Nicely put :D

Aurora Borealis
WHAT emotional impact? Anybody with just a little bit idea of how superhero comics work KNEW that Batman will be back. Hell,I think it was even hinted at the end of (not-so-)Final Crisis.

Minor spoiler--I was talking about the other characters' reactions to seeing poor Bruce's remains desecrated. Whether he'll be back is irrelevant. That moment of horror was a highlight of the series (as it was meant to be).

Air Raid Robertson--I have to agree with you. I hate it when the tie-ins are necessary to understanding the main story. I want a story that feels complete and fully developed. Then, if I wanna read more, the tie-ins should be a nice look at the story from another perspective (or a means to show how the story's impacting other characters not featured in the main arc). So far, Blackest Night seems to be adhering to this, unlike Final Crisis, which I thought was just a mess (almost like a highlight reel instead of a developed story).

I must say I agree with Aurora, but not Air Raid. I, myself, care about the who's dead, who's resurrected, who's turned evil, who is now a good guy, who's wielding which color of some magic ring, who's gay, and who's really a little green alien. Thats just how I roll.

I have a couple of Green Lantern graphic novels and read a bunch of the comic books at the store. Blackest Night is pretty cool but I'm starting to stray from DC/Marvel Superhero comic books because stories are starting to get a little predictable.

That and superheros never really stay dead. Give Batman a couple more weeks and he'll be back lol.

GameCargo
DC/Marvel Superhero comic books because stories are starting to get a little predictable.

That and superheros never really stay dead. Give Batman a couple more weeks and he'll be back lol.

Hey, ya never know. Ah, who am I kidding! Though myself I can't stray from DC/Marvel(even if I did want too). I have grown way too attached to the characters.

To tell you the truth, I don't think very many of the big events were all that good. The plot is generally convoluted yet also somehow dumb at the same time. Putting eighty characters in one story at once is usually a total clusterfuck, and nobody gets killed except a couple of D-Listers that nobody cares about. And, when they bump off a main guy, they're usually back within a year or so.

And, of course, the endings to these things never give me much satisfaction. The build-up is always much, much better than the payoff.

Big event books also age very poorly. Have you tried reading Secret Wars, Zero Hour, DC vs. Marvel, or Infinity Crusade lately? Blech!

The worst offender of all was Crisis on Infinite Earths. That one rubs me the wrong way because it was supposedly created in order to clean-up and simplify DC's continuity. And, well, it accomplished the exact opposite of its stated intentions.

To tell you the truth, the only real big event comic that I enjoyed thoroughly was JLA/Avengers by Kurt Busiek and George Perez. That one didn't act like it was going to "permanently change the status quo". It was a big, loud fight comic and didn't pretend that it was anything else. It hit all the marks it aimed for, gave the reader a plethora of geek-out moments, and on top of everything else looked fantastic. (George Perez draws like a crazy person)

But yeah, I consider JLA/Avengers to be a lucky fluke. Event books don't do anything for me, and that's why I don't bother with them anymore.

Air Raid Robertson--Sadly, I have to agree with you. Of the event comics I've read in the past few years, very few were very good. As I said earlier, Ultimatum was an exercise in sadism, Final Crisis was a mess with no emotion and suffered from the D-list major role/death of major hero syndrome you mentioned, Infinite Crisis was just blah (I'll have to read it again, but I remember it didn't leave much of an impression on me).

I did like Identity Crisis, although I still can't decide how I liked the answer to the whodunit, but at least it made some sense. It was packed with emotion and character, though, so was good in my book.

House of M was another that I really enjoyed.

And Blackest Night (the first 5 issues, anyway--gotta read the others) is a lot of fun. Not as dramatic as the two good ones I mentioned, but a fun superhero romp, with some great ideas.

Air Raid Robertson
The worst offender of all was Crisis on Infinite Earths. That one rubs me the wrong way because it was supposedly created in order to clean-up and simplify DC's continuity. And, well, it accomplished the exact opposite of its stated intentions.

Heh - I only read that a couple of years ago and that's exactly how it struck me! To fail to streamline the DCU and its continuity would have been bad enough, but to make it even more jumbled and weighed down by unnecessary baggage? That's failure on a whole new level!

EssayBee
I did like Identity Crisis, although I still can't decide how I liked the answer to the whodunit, but at least it made some sense. It was packed with emotion and character, though, so was good in my book.

Agreed. There were a number of holes in the plot but the characters were written so well that somehow the plot holes didn't seem to matter so much. One of the few recent series to be worth the price of admission!

To me, this entire comic arc was a bunch of heroes/teams struggling to fight against zombies. It all results in them fighting a losing battle until they all group together and destroy the zombie using fire/light/overwhelming force. The only interesting group were the green lanterns story line, which was kinda of a last stand kind of thing for most of it. I did like the main story line though. Also, I enjoyed the random people being given rings, like Guy Gardner with his red ring and Sinestro with the god ring.