For the past few months, DC's Green Lantern titles have featured events deemed the Prelude to the Blackest Night. In truth, we've been experiencing build-up to the event since first learning of the eventual Blackest Night way back at the end of 2007, upon the conclusion of the Sinestro Corps War.Here on the Infinite Wars we determined the event kinda began with the rising of Scar on Oa in Green Lantern Corps #37, but Blackest Night officially begins in the coming weeks of July! To prepare you for the coming darkness, this special Cover to Cover reveals some of the storylines that will have repercussions as the dead rise and the DC Universe is confronted with the skeletons in every hero and villain's closet!
In October last year, the Infinite Wars speculated what might be in store when Blackest Night finally arrived. Updates include new information and speculation, and can be found right here. Future entries in the Infinite Wars will confirm or deny all predictions and map the spread of darkness as the dead rise!
Green Lantern: Rebirth #1 (December 2004)"Blackest Night" Johns/Van Sciver
When the space-villain Mongul would attempt to capitalize on the apparent death of Earth's Superman by joining forces with the villainous Cyborg-Superman; the ever-courageous Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, would be there to confront them.
Though Jordan would win the battle and save Earth from a fate of decimation, his home of Coast City and all it's citizens would be obliterated. Thus would begin the legendary fall from grace of one of the greatest Green Lantern's in the Corps history. It would begin with an attempt to resurrect the city with his ring, and end with the destruction of Oa and the entire Corps as he becomes -- Parallax!
Jordan would eventually die in a final act of nobility, using the power he amassed as Parallax to reignite the Earth's depleted sun. This act of redemption would be recognised in the after-life, seeing Jordan become the new human-host of the spirit of vengeance, the Spectre. As the Spectre Jordan would attempt to use his powers for redemption, but he deals with forces beyond his control...
Green Lantern #25 (January 2008)"Birth of the Black Lantern" Johns/Reis
The Anti-Monitor - a creature of immense power that once sought to destroy the multiverse - joins Sinestro in creating a new Corps of agents, with the intent to use them as heralds of his conquest over the positive realm. Harnessing the yellow power rings of Qward, the Sinestro Corps operate on a design of fear, using it to control their yellow energy the same way the Lanterns us willpower.
Tricked into believing the Sinestro Corps were to attack Oa, the designates of Sector 2814 soon find themselves four against an army, as the Anti-Monitor and his heralds emerge in the Milky Way. They launch their attack on Earth, but the rest of the Green Lanterns, along with heroes native to the planet, soon join the war. The Justice League, Justice Society, Titans, and more, rally to join the Green Lantern Corps in a stand against a force determined to seek the destruction of all.
Final Crisis: Requiem #1 (September 2008)"Caretakers of Mars" Tomasi/Mahnke
When an abusive childhood ended with his father's accidental death, Justin Ballantine accepted the value of balance in all things across the universe.
His cosmic philosophy, and aspirations of godhood, would lead him to accept employment as an adult to form a group called the Injustice Gang, and attempt to construct a weapon based upon the cosmic rod of Ted Knight.
His resulting "Transmortifier" proved capable of stealing a portion of energy from it's target, making a valuable weapon when turned against the superhuman might of the Justice League. As Libra, Ballantine received the powers of the combined JLA, before turning his weapon on the cosmos itself. The resulting influx of power seemingly destroyed his physical form, but Libra was reconceived on the planet Apokolips by his mystery benefactor, Glorious Godfrey.
As a prophet of Darkseid; Libra returned to Earth after the Death of the New Gods, promising to lead evil to salvation if The Society would entrust in him their leadership. Requiring the organized hordes for his own malicious ends, Libra set about bringing doom to the Earth as part of Darkseid's plot to create the Fifth World upon his resurrection as man. To distract the Society from the detail of his goals, he offers an act of good faith to one of their lowliest number. Thus, at the request of the Human Flame, Libra promises the death of Martian Manhunter...
Faces of Evil: Solomon Grundy #1 (March 2009)"The Curse!" Johns/Kolins
Solomon Grundy... Born on a Monday...
The chalk-skinned behemoth that rose from Slaughter Swamp is a creature of many lives. His existence, as if a curse, sees him rise forevermore, no matter how often he might be slain by the well meaning, or evil, of this world. Stories say he was once Cyrus Gold - a wealthy man of few scruples who lived in Gotham in the eighteen hundreds.
One fateful night, Cyrus Gold's sins came back to bite him, leaving him sinking in the bog of Slaughter Swamp with a knife buried in his heart. There he was said to have sunk, becoming one with the marsh, only to rise again decades later as Solomon Grundy -- the lumbering beast who battled Green Lantern!
Something changed, however. Something brought Cyrus back.
Though he tries desperately to cling to life, Gold's first breath in a hundred years is cut short. Once again he rises as Solmon Grundy, confused and trapped by the lights of Gotham. For a week, Grundy wreaks havoc across the city, only to seek refuge in the sewers on a Saturday night, where he faces the wrath of a Killer!
Flash: Rebirth #1 (June 2009)"Lightning Strikes Twice" Johns/Van Sciver
Once, he made the supreme sacrifice to save the multiverse from annihilation at the hands of the Anti-Monitor. Barry Allen, the second hero to call himself The Flash, was the fastest man alive. So fast that he actually managed to outrun death itself, to return when the Earth needed him the most during a moment of final crisis!
When the evil New Gods walked the Earth reborn as men, it was the powers of those in tune with the speed force that could undermine the endless reach of Libra's Society and Darkseid, evading their plague of the Anti-Life Equation. Running alongside his predecessor and junior, Jay Garrick and Wally West, the returned Flash was able to hatch a plot to direct death toward Darkseid during a fated confrontation!
With the world restored from the horrors of that day that evil won; Barry Allen finds himself effectively resurrected in a world he had long since left behind. Reunited with his loved ones and friends, Allen takes on a cursed sense of forboding as elements of his past, present, and future reach out to haunt him. With forces conspiring behind the scenes, the Flash must run again to make use of the borrowed time he feels he's living on, even at the cost of alienating his friends.
This man out of time may have escaped death, but when the sinister speed cultist called Savitar uses Barry Allen to piggyback his way out of his prison in the Speed Force, the Flash may yet discover that death is closer than he thinks.
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