Blackest Night: 10th Anniversary Omnibus

Blackest Night: Collected Editions

by Geoff Johns, Peter J. Tomasi, Ivan Reis (Illustrator)

The haunting epic that plunged the DC Universe into darkness collected in its entirety for the first time ever! The Blackest Night is now here. As black rings rain from the sky former, friends and loved ones rise from their graves as twisted monsters with only one mission: Death.

The Black Lanterns have arrived, and they're bringing death and destruction with them. Putting aside old vendettas, it's now up to Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps to marshal DC's greatest heroes (as well as their deadliest foes) in a huge, universe-spanning battle to save the DC Universe from an army of the dead. Their collective mission: to defend the light against the blackest night.

Now collected in sequential order and in one gigantic volume for the first time, Blackest Night Omnibus 10th Anniversary is written by critically acclaimed author Geoff Johns (Doomsday Clock) and illustrated by Ivan Reis (Superman), Patrick Gleason (Batman & Robin), Doug Mahnke (Green Lantern), Scott Kolins (The Flash) and Jerry Ordway (The Power of Shazam!).

Collects Adventure Comics #4-5,7, Blackest Night #0-8, Blackest Night: Batman #1-3, Blackest Night: The Flash #1-3, Blackest Night: JSA #1-3, Blackest Night: Superman #1-3, Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1-3, Blackest Night: Titans #1-3, Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1-3, Catwoman #83, Green Arrow #30, Green Lantern #43-53, Green Lantern Corps #39-47, Phantom Stranger #42, Starman #81, Suicide Squad #67, The Atom and Hawkman #46, The Power of Shazam! #48, The Question #37, Untold Tales of Blackest Night #1 and Weird Western Tales #71

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Batman, Fiction

1664 pages, Hardcover

Published June 11, 2019

About the author

Geoff Johns originally hails from Detroit, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University, where he earned a degree in Media Arts and Film. He moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s in search of work within the film industry. Through perseverance, Geoff ended up as the assistant to Richard Donner, working on Conspiracy Theory and Lethal Weapon 4. During that time, he also began his comics career writing Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. and JSA (co-written with David S. Goyer) for DC Comics. He worked with Richard Donner for four years, leaving the company to pursue writing full-time.

His first comics assignments led to a critically acclaimed five-year run on the The Flash. Since then, he has quickly become one of the most popular and prolific comics writers today, working on such titles including a highly successful re-imagining of Green Lantern, Action Comics (co-written with Richard Donner), Teen Titans, Justice Society of America, Infinite Crisis and the experimental breakout hit series 52 for DC with Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid. Geoff received the Wizard Fan Award for Breakout Talent of 2002 and Writer of the Year for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 as well as the CBG Writer of the Year 2003 thru 2005, 2007 and CBG Best Comic Book Series for JSA 2001 thru 2005. Geoff also developed BLADE: THE SERIES with David S. Goyer, as well as penned the acclaimed “Legion” episode of SMALLVILLE. He also served as staff writer for the fourth season of ROBOT CHICKEN.

Geoff recently became a New York Times Bestselling author with the graphic novel Superman: Brainiac with art by Gary Frank.

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read the main Blackest Night series a while back and really enjoyed it, reviewing it here on Goodreads. I'm in the middle of a big comprehensive Green Lantern re-read and decided to read the huge event in its (almost) entirety. It’s a fun, epic, well-crafted story that centers heavily on Green Lantern and the Green Lantern Corps and the rise of the Black Lanterns, the reanimated corpses of previously dead life forms bent on erasing all life. It was wide-reaching, taking over the entire DC universe, affecting nearly every title, even reviving defunct titles.

This huge tome is for completionists only. Not only does the main event itself requires knowledge of the stellar Green Lantern titles by Geoff Johns, Dave Gibbons, and Peter J. Tomasi up to that point as well as a general knowledge of big recent DC events like Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis, but the tie-in titles require passing knowledge of each of those titles and the characters as well. While some of the tie-ins are essential, there are some that are just extra-frosting but are not needed.

The book compiles all of the main Blackest Night trades below in correct reading order as well as single issues from revived titles, and supplemental specials, like the Book of the Black, fascinating journal musings by the Black Hand, showing how Geoff Johns skillfully took one of Green Lantern’s corniest villains and turned him into a goosebump-raising, creepy, mentally-unhinged, but tragic antagonist.



Among all this stuff, in my opinion, this is the material essential to the story and probably should be the only thing read if you’re reading Blackest Night for the first time:

The main Blackest Night Series

Green Lantern issues

Green Lantern Corps issues

And this is the stuff that’s really worth reading due to their effect on the story:

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman

Blackest Night: The Flash

Atom and the Hawkman #46

Green Arrow #30

Tales of the Corps issues

Sometimes it feels like there’s too much material here, and it slows the pace down a bit. For real completionists though, even then, this hardcover doesn't include EVERY tie-in, ignoring issues from Booster Gold, Doom Patrol, Justice League, and Outsiders. But for DC fans and fans of the Blackest Night event, this is a great expansion pack to the main story with some stuff that's really essential to your enjoyment.

[Joakim Ax · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Best DC Event right after Infinite Crisis on my personal top 10 List!
This is an event that simply works cause of one simple factor: Death.
Everyone and everything have and will experience death. Our favorite DC characters are no exception to that. And with Death, comes, anger, fear, compassion, will, hope and a score of emerald colors to fight it back into the ground!
It simply works cause every tie-in issue and characters that have to deal with this event has lost someone. And facing their past flashbacks is one thing. but when the persons they´ve actually lost is standing before them, not just like an empty husk, but as a walking talking, black ring-weilding Black Lantern Corps-member, the dish is served colder than most dishes. (good God did I just write that).

[Francisco Becerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was BIG, not only as an event, but being 74 comics collected in one volume. To be honest, things get really awesome in the last 30 comics or so, but the build up, how it affected almost everyone and every line throughout the DC universe, and the great twists along the line make this worth every page. The illustrations are outstanding throughout the series, and consistency is kept in check everytime. Of course, being something so big has its downward moments, specially at the beggining, but it's all a hell of a ride.

[Michael Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Death compels us because powerful or weak, loved or hated -- no one escapes death. That includes you.”

Blackest Night, is one of my favourite DC events of all time. Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern run builds up to this moment, and this is one of his finest works.

Black Hand and Nekron are terrifying villains who resurrect many previously dead DC heroes and villains, and use them to kill our heroes and add them to their roster. What follows is our heroes fighting of hordes of the dead who not only have their powers, but the powers granted to them by their black lantern rings. The enemies numbers are endless, the stakes are stupidly high, and our heroes face overwhelming odds. All ingredients for an epic event.

The dead bring moments of introspection to our heroes (and the readers) as the undead make our heroes go through losses all over again. For example, we have Ray Palmer facing off against the undead Jean Loring, who caused the events of Identity Crisis (causing turmoil in Ray’s life and the superhero community at large). The Titans, JSA, and JLA have to fight their former allies who have died in the line of duty, and torment with our heroes minds on how could they have let them die; Adding to this is the villains who return with vendettas for being killed. Heroes are forced to come face to face with their guilt, shame and heartaches all over again.

The battles themselves are brought to life by a group of fantastic artists, and the action is perfectly spaced out with those moments of introspection. With the odds being against them, every action scene feels desperate and is intense.

Overall, a perfect event for spooky season, and one of the best events DC has to offer.

[Cristhian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wild ride. Una de las mejores historias de Green Lantern jamás escritas y sin duda la mejor planeada de todas.

5/5

[Paganraul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is great it’s pretty a Crisis based on lanterns it has some emotional and dark moments I recommend it to any DC fan since pretty much most heroes alive AND dead appeared here.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blackest Night 10th Anniversary Omnibus (2009-2010), Geoff Johns. I'm not a huge comicbook fan, dove into books early as a child, but I like a good story if it's large enough. This cross-over collection was fun, though a bit hard to completely follow without the internet to look things up, and it had a few interesting/funny twists.

"Blackest Night is a major DC event/crossover that involves the entire DC Universe, and primarily the Green Lantern Corps and the various other "spectrum of light" Corps that have sprung up around the mythos. All major players in DC were involved in this large scale event, including but not limited to: Batman, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, JSA, JLA, Teen Titans, Outsiders, Secret Six, Suicide Squad, and assorted other groups and individuals. The main plot revolves around events foreshadowed long ago in the Oa Book of Prophecy, and specifically the existence of a Black Lantern Battery whose power is unleashed by Black Hand, in the service of Nekron - and these BL rings can more or less raise the dead and control them! Suffice to say, there are a LOT of dead heroes and villains from the past that spring up the past to haunt and taunt the primary cast. Blackest Night's main story was a huge commercial and critical success which built on the previous Sinestro Corps War."

Over 100 heroes and villains cycle through this epic. So many in fact it's just about impossible to identify them all but by the most dedicated DC Comic fan.

It's got both Batman and Man-Bat. And Superman & Bizarro. At one point I thought I saw Plastic Man (not to be confused with: Rubberman James Hollis, Rubberman Philippines, Ping the Elastic Man Quality, Thin Man Marvel, Mr. Fantastic Marvel, OR any other stretching heroes or villains.) But it was actually Elongated Man. But later Plastic Man does appear. Another confusing issue is multiple heroes with the same hero name (inherited, re-claimed, or just plain re-booted), for example:

Wonder Girl is the alias of multiple superheroines featured in comic books published by DC Comics. Donna Troy, the original Wonder Girl, was created by Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani and first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #60 (June/July 1965). The second Wonder Girl, Cassie Sandsmark, was created by John Byrne and first appeared in Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #105 (January 1996). Both are protégées of Wonder Woman and members of different incarnations of the Teen Titans. The alias has also been used in reference to a younger version of Wonder Woman as a teenager. In the 2020s, DC introduced a third Wonder Girl in Yara Flor, who hails from a Brazilian tribe of Amazons and was shown in a flashforward to one day succeed Diana as Wonder Woman. An original version of Wonder Girl named Drusilla appeared in the Wonder Woman television series, played by Debra Winger.

Which leads me to another issue, most heroes have aliases: Halo (a gestalt of a human woman named Violet Harper and an Aurakle, an ancient energy-being resembling a sphere of iridescent light) has the following additional alias: Gabrielle Doe, Marissa Baron, and Spectrum. In addition, according to the internet, the Halo character received a new TV re-boot that's too weird for me to fully explain, so I'll just quote it directly:
"Halo is the spirit of a New Genesis Mother Box inhabiting the body of the dead Quraci war refugee to Markovia, Gabrielle Daou. Yes, you read that right. The writers thought it was ok to take a refugee from a country that is clearly a stand-in for Syria, kill her off, and use her corpse to make a new [genderless] character who refuses connections to Gabrielle’s culture, except for continuing to wear a hijab. I know that this version has largely the same origin of the white Halo character in the comics but that still doesn’t make it okay to kill off a dark-skinned Arab Muslim refugee and use her body in this way." - Young Justice’s Failed Promise of Middle Eastern Representation, Swara Salih, 9/26/2019.

Wouldn't it have been better to write an entirely new character than just do a tired old re-tread to placate us "liberals"? Guess I'll save that rant for another day.

Collects Adventure Comics #4-5,7, Blackest Night #0-8, Blackest Night: Batman #1-3, Blackest Night: The Flash #1-3, Blackest Night: JSA #1-3, Blackest Night: Superman #1-3, Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1-3, Blackest Night: Titans #1-3, Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1-3, Catwoman #83, Green Arrow #30, Green Lantern #43-53, Green Lantern Corps #39-47, Phantom Stranger #42, Starman #81, Suicide Squad #67, The Atom and Hawkman #46, The Power of Shazam! #48, The Question #37, Untold Tales of Blackest Night #1 and Weird Western Tales #71 [and more for background].

[Evan]

This was my first time reading a crossover event omnibus… and oh boy, what a doozy. Let’s start with the scope: this event is SO expansive that reading it in the proper order often left me a bit distracted and disoriented by the time I got back to the main story. There’s just /so much/ going on here that it’s hard to keep track of it all in your head, especially given the length (1600 pages!!!) and overwhelming number of characters.

But the core story here is fantastic. I’m in it for the Lanterns, and they remain the backbone of everything here, but the way it expands out into the rest of the universe (and its revelations about why Earth is the center of everything) are extremely satisfying. And the emotions this made me feel! Both for long-beloved characters revived and challenges, as well as those you’d never expect (I’m having FEELING about Red Lantern Bleez!?). It justifies the team-up between the Corps so well, too - there’s the right balance of infighting before the chips are down and they have to come together to save the universe.

I truly have so many thoughts. There's just SO MUCH STORY here. I love how important Black Hand was to all this. I loathe what ends up happening with Hawkgirl at the end. I love that Sinestro’s destiny is finally fulfilled. I love Arisia not being able to take the Guardians' bullshit anymore.

I will say, though… I think the gimmick of reviving a bunch of long-dead comic series is truly excellent. A+ idea. But most of the issues themselves were completely unnecessary. Curios, perhaps, for the truly dedicated who want to pay off ideas from The Question and Starman, sure… but totally unnecessary to the overarching story. The worst was the meta goofballery of Adventure Comics, which I didn’t care for whatsoever. And I found some of the art in those revived ongoings quite bad, to be honest with you. Some of them work (Green Arrow and The Atom and Hawkman, for example) because they’re actually well-integrated into the goings-on, but most were completely missable.

But that’s small potatoes. And frankly, I’m the one who chose to read this in omnibus format, so I only have myself to blame that I had to trudge through so many tie-ins.

There were just so many little things in this I loved - the Mogo Ex Machina, Larfleeze (MY KINGDOM FOR LARFLEEZE), everything coming back to Abin Sur’s quest, Vath and Isamot, Kyle’s mural and Guy’s bar, Stel taking over as drill instructor… Blue Lantern Flash! Red Lantern Guy! Sinestro Scarecrow finally gets paid off from the Sinestro Corps War!

An excellent journey. It feels pretty clear that the Green Lantern corner of the universe will never be the same… you can’t put all these rings back in the bottle, as it were. Very excited to see how this proceeds.

[Jacob Shaffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blackest Night is such a gargantuan event, if you want to read the full storyline you’ll have to go outside of the omnibus
AND if you’re reading on Infinite, the “full storyline” is actually missing some issues that are in the omnibus, so you definitely have to seek out the full full storyline

Here’s MY list on Infinite that has the full Blackest Night event compiled in order (The Real Full Blackest Night
https://www.dcuniverseinfinite.com/li...)

I think the premise of Blackest Night boils down to: the dead are coming back and targeting who you think they would, just to talk shit and fight. That’s it. If you think Terra would be raised from the dead to torment Garth, beastie boy, endlessly, you’re right!

I didn’t feel sucked in and fully enthralled until about 13-17 issues in, there’s a lot of world building to get the story rolling

Honorable Mentions and Favorite Moments:
-Power of Shazam 48: Osiris and Sobek get to have more back and forth, and fans of 52 will love that

-Adventure Comics 4 & 5: Prime goes to the comic shop and black lantern Alexander Luthor roasts him to pieces

OUTSIDE OF THE OMNIBUS

-Doom Patrol 4 & 5, Cliff’s hand selected black lantern is a smart piece of writing I loved it

-Justice League of America 39 & 40, it’s worth stating how much I hated Black Lantern Dr Light being as creepy creep as you can imagine
But while we’re talking Identity Crisis

-The Atom & Hawkman 46 is a prime example of the good stuff we get between The Atom Ray Palmer and Jean

[Cory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blackest Night is my all time favorite comics crossover event. Green Lantern is the central character, zombie DC superheroes/villains rise from the dead as Black Lanterns to instill peace and order in the form of universal death...what's not to like?

This is the definitive collected volume of Blackest Night. I already owned the hardcover of the core central series by Johns and Reis, but I had not yet experienced the additional ~80 tie-in issues across DC's other titles at the time. These tie-in issues set up rich context for characters that find themselves involved in the final showdown between Life and Death.

Every DC comics fan should experience Final Crisis (that omnibus is on my list as well after having read the core storyline) and Blackest Night. I'm so glad I got to experience the full story in this magnificent tome rather than seeking out all of the trade paperbacks in this comics market.

[Kalil Zaidan · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4,5) caralho, tudo pra mim essa saga. a mitologia dos Lanternas sempre foi algo q me fascina demaaaais e nessa grandiosa história vamos a fundo nas explicações sobre cada uma das cores do espectro dos sentimentos, realmente um trabalho primoroso. valeu muito a pena ter lido cada edição relacionada à saga, mesmo as mensais de alguns personagens não tão centrais pro conflito adicionaram muito à mitologia dos Lanternas Negros e das diferentes tentativas de acabar com eles, por todo o universo DC. não leio mensais há muitos anos, e lia apenas as da Marvel, porém não me senti nem um pouco perdido nessa história, certamente graças ao desenho da Liga da Justiça kakaka (inclusive muitas saudades). agora o esquema é guardar um dinheiro só pra ter esse omnibus lindão na estante

[Omnibuster · Rating 4 out of 5]

A big event worth the price of admission!

Superheroes, “zombies”, emotional spectrum, and lots of action.

If you aren’t familiar with other big DC events like Crisis, Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis, several of the tie-ins might be confusing but the writers do a good job of summarizing things. The confusion makes me want to find out how certain characters became the way they are and also how some characters are already dead when this event starts.

The Green Lantern Corps is the heart of the story proving DC doesn’t need to use Batman, Superman, Flash, Aquaman or Wonder Woman to carry our interest.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my third read through of this Geoff Johns,Green Lantern epic. This go around based (with all connected series) 0n a issue-by-issue reading order. Still an overwhelming, confusing and fun romp through the DC Universe pre New 52.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mains story is easily 4 stars- GL, GLC and Blsckest night issues. All great writers and artists involved. There are too many tie ins. The multi issue series' could have been condensed down to one issue each. I'd really like to read again with just the three main series'.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beast!

[Ignacio Marquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.8/5

[Jainam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tie ins can get a bit boring but this event is fkin awesome!!!

[Vincent Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Included too much crap that wasn’t really even a tie in. Story kinda convoluted with some of the writers contradicting others. Epic though

[Hayden · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book did an amazing job of combining different storylines. The only thing I wish was done differently is how some of the characters' backstories were explained after you met them.

[Richard Schaefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is, I believe, the thickest omnibus I’ve read, and one that fully takes advantage of the format; not only does it include the Blackest Night miniseries and the Green Lantern titles running through it, but almost every tie-in issue as well. It would be a huge pain to track down all those tie-ins in single issue or trade form (I suspect more than a few aren’t in trades at all), let alone figuring out when to read which ones. This omnibus solves both problems in a book so heavy it could probably knock Mogo out of orbit.
Blackest Night is both the culmination of Geoff Johns’ long Green Lantern run, but it’s also an epic crossover event that really justifies the appearances from every single superhero in the DC universe, give or take. So while not every tie-in issue is great, most are very good and few are bad (and none so much so that they detract from the overall fun). Plus, it’s just exciting to see zombie versions of every dead superhero you can name.
Both as a justification of the omnibus format and as a story in its own right, Blackest Night is a major success.

[Bane Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grade: A+
Worth the more than 1600 pages? Hell YES!!! Maybe the best DC crossover event ever! The middle of the Omni can get a little bogged down, but overall a genuinely great read.

[Carly · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much better the second time around. DC doesn't do events like this anymore.