Blackest Night: Batman #1

Blackest Night: Batman #1

By Peter Tomasi
Art by Arion Syaf, John Dell, and Vicente Cifuentes

Rating: a surprising 8/10

For those who aren't reading the "Blackest Night" arc, here's a brief summary:

The Green Lantern Abin Sur (Hal Jordan's predeccesor) told of a prophecy called Blackest Night where other colors of rings would emerge, do battle, and the universe would be extinguished. No one believed him, and now those other rings are beginning to be found. The colors are:



Green=Willpower

Yellow=Fear

Red=Rage

Orange=Avarice

Blue=Hope

Indigo=Compassion

Violet=Love

Black=Death

A villain called the Black Hand is chosen to be the herald of the black power rings. These rings are created and they seek out deceased superheroes, supervillians, and the heroes' dead family (including Jack and Janet Drake) to resurrected as the Black Corps. Black Hand goes to Bruce Wayne's grave, reaches into the ground, and pulls out a skull, saying "This is the one." He carries it with him, but never resurrects the body.

These black lanterns combat and kill superheroes (including Hawkman and Tempest) resurrecting them as more corps.

Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne go to the Wayne's grave site. They take Thomas and Martha's bodies back to the new batcave for safekeeping. This is where Blackest Night: Batman picks up.


Deadman comes and takes possession of both Dick and Damian, telling them of what is happening. They agree to help him combat it. We also see Jake and Janet Drake rise, as well as Dick's parents.

All in all, this was way better than I was expecting. It had perhaps the best post-RIP Damian writing I'd read. Major Kudos to Tomasi for that. It was a lot of explanation and story-setting-up, but that's why its 8/10 and not 9/10. I hope that next issue, when they finally start the fighting.

The other thing that I liked a lit about this story was that it brought the Batman world together with my second favorite character(s), Green Lantern. And it is done very well.

The art on this story is pretty good. Not Jim Lee, but solid. There's one scene where Deadman (in Damian's body) does this backflip onto a headstone that is illustrated very well, and its definitely in the top three panels of this issue.