Review:
Green Lantern #49 Blackest Night

One of the two Blackest Night entries this week, Green Lantern #49 was just downright disappointing. The previous Blackest Night issues have been superb but this issue bordered on terrible. It was obvious unnecessary filler and with an event this big and with so many tie-ins, the creators really need to be wary as not overwhelm the fan’s patience and pocketbooks.

This issue stars John Stewart on the now Black Lantern planet Xanshi. Xanshi is the planet that John failed to save from destruction, which has haunted him ever since. I’ve never enjoyed John Stewart as a character. My favorite Lanterns have always been Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, Kilowog and G’nort --yes I said it, I love G’nort. I’m still holding out hope that Geoff Johns will bring G’nort back at the end of Blackest Night as their ultimate savior!

(the savior of Blackest Night?)

But back to the point, I don’t think any writer has done anything interesting with John Stewart (besides the issue of Mosaic where he fails to save Green Lantern squirrel Ch’p from being run over by a yellow truck, but I like that for the laughs). It’s like they don’t know what to do with him. Recently, he’s been the JLA Green Lantern so the regular Green Lantern writers haven’t done much with him. He hasn’t been given a purpose in the Green Lantern universe as Guy and Kyle have over in the Green Lantern Corps title, besides the Green Lantern on the JLA. But alas, back to the issue. See I want to talk about other things than the boredom of this issue.

From pretty much page one we see John Stewart haunted by the Black Lanterns of Xanshi. The problem here is that Geoff Johns and the other Blackest Night writers have established very well what the Black Lanterns do, they dredge up emotions using painful memories and then go for your heart. We know this, there is no need to show it happening to every super hero in the DC Universe. Know what that’s called? Padding. And as I said before, we already have enough to buy and read.