History ComicBook / BlackestNight

*** That reminds me of [[{{Troll}} something...]]

* ItGotWorse: What's that? The dead are rising? The Spectre, quite possibly the most powerful being in the universe, was possessed by the Black Lanterns? Only one thing to do! Let the AnthropomorphicPersonification of fear out of its can and possess Hal Jordan! Yes, Parallax is back! [[KillEmAll Anyone remember the last time that happened?]]
** A zombie apocalypse? Shouldn't be too hard to get rid of Black Hand's {{Mooks}}... oh, hang on, he's backed by the personification of Death. No problem, we've got the Justice League -- oh, wait, no we don't, Nekron made them zombies, too. OK, the combined Lanterns have bolstered their ranks with new deputies, and... [[spoiler:Cool! A White Lantern... Sinestro. [[SarcasmMode I'm sure HE won't abuse such power.]]]]
** The Spectre himself says that the only being worse than Nekron is the Anti-Monitor, and the series ends [[spoiler:with Nekron defeated but the Anti-Monitor alive and well.]]

** What about Ma Kent and Krypto? Ma uses a ''fucking torch'' to take down Lois Kent, leaving Krypto to finish her off.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The Guardians of the GreenLanternCorps. Even without [[TheMole Scar]] manipulating things, the rest of the Guardians (sans Ganthet and Sayd) just couldn't stop screwing up. With the useless [[InternalAffairs Alpha-Lanterns]], [[MediaWatchdogs censoring of the prophecy of the Blackest Night]], [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner polarizing]] [[NoHuggingNoKissing new laws]] in the [[GreatBigBookOfEverything Book of Oa]], and their hand in fully igniting the War of Light by directing Larfleeze and his Orange Lantern Corps to the location of the Blue Lanterns, the Guardians almost seemed to be '''begging''' for the ZombieApocalypse!

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: A flashback in BN #1 to the TropeNamer. And again later when the girl appears as a Black Lantern.

-->'''TROPERS OF EARTH.''' '''''[+++RISE.+++]'''''

** In the sense that they spend all their time talking vague nonsensical bollocks that's utterly uninteresting to anyone who listens to it... oh my god they ARE stoners!

** At the end of the story, [[spoiler:Black Hand is kidnapped by the Indigo Tribe and is forced to feel compassion to counteract his natural sociopathic detachment from life.]] Considering [[CompleteMonster the actions]] which he had caused through out the arc, the reader is less inclined to feel sorry for this fate.

* CharacterDevelopment: Amazingly, [[CompleteMonster Superboy-Prime]] goes through a lot of this.

Largely focusing on the Comicbook/GreenLantern mythos, the [[BigBad villain]] is an EldritchAbomination named ''Nekron'' who represents the forces of death on a cosmic level, and wishes to consume all positive and negative life force in the universe. To take it, he needs to draw everyone into his realm... effectively making him an OmnicidalManiac.

* ADayInTheSpotlight: The event as a whole was one for the [[Characters/GreenLantern various Lantern Corps]], whilst the main series featured [[Comicbook/GreenLantern Hal Jordan]] and [[TheFlash Barry Allen]] as the primary characters, with Mera & The Atom as secondary characters.

* AnyoneCanDie: Seriously. They really aren't pulling punches with this one.

* BadassCreed: The Black Lantern Oath.

* CharacterDevelopment: Amazingly, [[{{Complete Monster}} Superboy-Prime]] goes through a lot of this.
* ChekhovsGunman - Lantern Ermey, Kilowog's old drill sergeant; he is introduced in "Tales of The Lanterns" as being responsible for Kilowog becoming the hard-nosed drill instructor he is today. So of course, he returns as a Black Lantern.
* ChestInsignia: This is done for maximum horrific effect. When a corpse rises as a Black Lantern, the Black Hand symbol is always incorporated into their new costume or clothes; sometimes in extremely imaginative ways (Tempest's, for example, is skewed in conformity to the diagonal pattern of his uniform - also, he has the symbol tattooed over his right eye, where those scars were before).
** [[spoiler:When Black Hand is imprisoned by the Indigo Tribe, his markings are replaced by that of the Indigo Lanterns.]]
* ComicBookDeath: This series is a deconstruction of this trope. It turns out that the resurrections of various heroes in the DC Universe were an EvilPlan on the part of Nekron to give him thralls to control. A character discussion at the end indicates that "death is death" from now on. We'll see if that holds.

* DeathIsCheap: It's not, or as Nekron puts it, "You owe me a life."
* DecoyProtagonist: Inverted with Deadman, who turns out to be the most important, non-Lantern Corps affiliated, character in the entire story. He's the one who figured out how to beat Nekron!

* EldritchAbomination: The various alien entities that are incarnations of the various colors of the emotional spectrum, which has led to some fan speculating that these beasts may be like infant Chaos Gods from {{Warhammer 40k}} in training, all except for [[spoiler:The Entity, which was born on Earth]]. Nekron especially counts; born from the original darkness of the universe itself to consume life and the Emotional Spectrum it created, Nekron had been subtly been moving pieces to his advent since ''Hal Jordan'' first became Comicbook/GreenLantern, and it has tried on one or two occasions to expend it's realm into ours. Nekron is fits the bill of an E.A. so much, '''''it shouldn't be able to exist in the physical universe.''''' It is only able to do so through an avatar, a link to the Living World: Black Hand.

* EvilCostumeSwitch: Justified, it happens automatically when you get a power ring.

** In the sense that they spend all their time talking vague nonsensical bollocks that's utterly uninteresting to anyone who listens to it... oh my god they ARE stoners!

* HeroicDog: Krypto the Superdog saves Ma Kent and ''blasts the living hell'' out of a Black Lantern.

* HufflepuffHouse: The Indigo Tribe in relation to the six other more developed corps.

** It gets worse. In the next issue, [[http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/File:Black_Hand_049.jpg he licks it]].

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The Guardians of the GreenLanternCorps. Even without [[TheMole Scar]] manipulating things, the rest of the Guardians (sans Ganthet and Sayd) just couldn't stop screwing up. With the useless [[InternalAffairs Alpha-Lanterns]], [[MediaWatchdogs censoring of the prophecy of the Blackest Night]], [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner polarizing]] [[NoHuggingNoKissing new laws]] in the [[GreatBigBookOfEverything Book of Oa]], and their hand in fully igniting the War of Light by directing Larfleeze and his Orange Lantern Corps to the location of the Blue Lanterns, the Guardians almost seemed to be '''begging''' for the ZombieApocalypse!

** [[IncrediblyLamePun Strawman has a point]].

** There's even some internal variation of types: partway through the story Nekron manages to zombify all the heroes who have previously returned from the dead like Superman, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman etc. by forcing black rings onto their hands, thus instantaneously "killing" and transforming them into Black Lanterns. However, these "living" Black Lanterns are apparently not really dead so much as "possessed" by their black rings (as evidenced by returning to a living state upon their removal like Connor, rather than becoming an inanimate corpse as with regular vanquished BL's). Thus they effectively qualify as a different category of zombie within the larger zombie ranks. This is partly indicated by these possessed-BL's not looking like decaying reanimated corpses like all the other BL's, but instead just have pallid gray skin, although this varies slightly [[DependingOnTheArtist depending on the artist]].

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Most of the Black Lanterns did this to the heroes they were fighting, in order to damage them psychologically alongside the physically.

* {{Uncancelled}}: The black rings are even bringing back old canceled comics! In January, old comics that were canceled are being brought back for one issue for the Blackest Night. They include: ''The Atom & Hawkman'', ''Catwoman'', ''[[ThePhantomStranger Phantom Stranger]]'', ''The Power of {{Shazam}}!'', ''{{Suicide Squad}}'', ''TheQuestion'', ''Comicbook/{{Starman}}'', and ''Weird Western Tales''.

** Also his reaction to Hal getting the Parallax entity again instead of himself and the part around the end with his need to get the White Lantern battery.

* WhatTheHellHero: Superboy-Prime calls the writers at DC Comics out for continuing the story and giving the Black Lanterns the advantage even though he already proved that the comic book characters all exist and really are in serious danger. It doesn't work.

* WritingForTheTrade: While this crossover is not so bad on its own (the first few issues could've been condensed without missing much), this storyline lasted eight issues (nine months!) despite being only one night long. To make matters worse, Hal's storylines from ''FinalCrisis'' to ''Blackest Night'' led right into one another, so a week at most passed for Hal while everything else in the DCU took place in clearly longer segments of time, even the nominally parallel ''Green Lantern Corps'' book. It's not a bad read, but it's clearly written with an eye towards the collections, rather than allowing any breathing room between stories or accounting for characters' appearances elsewhere in the DCU.

-->'''TROPERS OF EARTH.''' '''''[+++RISE.+++]'''''
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* ComicBookDeath: This series is a deconstruction of this trope. It turns out that the resurrections of various heroes in the DC Universe were part of a XanatosGambit on the part of Nekron to give him thralls to control. A character discussion at the end indicates that "death is death" from now on. We'll see if that holds.

!!This series provides examples of:

* DeathByOriginStory: Brutally subverted, as these characters are back with a vengeance.

*** Lex spend every single moment trying to steal the Orange Lantern and a random Red Ring, or lusting over shiny things. It's completely useless to everyone, keeps other heroes from fighting the actual antagonist, and in the end is put down by Larfleeze. It's not YMMV, the only positive result in the Lex Luthor Orange Lantern case is saving his sore ass from a multitude of Black Lanterns in his own lair.

-->--'''[[TheAntichrist Black Hand]] states the [[BadassCreed Black Lantern oath]]'''

* BatmanGambit: To no one's surprise, Hal unites the seven corps, beaming the White Light of Creation at Nekron. It makes him stronger. There is no way he did not plan this. In addition, the whole thing ends with Black Lantern Batman. So... Lampshading?
** Turns out Nekron ''allowed'' people to come BackFromTheDead. All so that he could eventually use them for his own purposes. See Kick The Dog.

* HannibalLecture: As they feed on the emotions of their victims, the Black Lanterns give these pretty much '''nonstop''' trying to draw a reaction from their former loved ones. Gets ''really'' old after a while for both the characters and reader, the former of which get annoyed [[ShutUpHannibal and react accordingly]].
** It still works as, when people get fed up about it, they get angry, which still gets a reaction they desire (i.e. rage).
*** That reminds me of [[{{Troll}} something...]]
** As Damage puts it: "For the last time, '''shut your rotten face!'''" He nearly has his heart torn out for his trouble.
*** And then Damage gets his heart completely torn out when the Atom inspires him to fight on. It doesn't really matter what emotion you are feeling for the Black Lanterns to steal your heart. Just as long as it is a strong one. Damned if you do.....

* PeoplePuppets: Most Black Lanterns are puppeteered corpses. The handful that aren't are still puppeteered, just not quite dead yet - [[http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/5588/konbltrapped.jpg A "living" Black Lantern's soul is quite literally trapped]]; they can feel their body moving and hear the {{Hannibal Lecture}}s the ring spouts out, but cannot do anything to stop it.

* [[ArcFatigue Climax Fatigue]]: There is an epic climactic moment on every single page of of this crossover, especially the main storyline. Some readers have often claimed that while it IS impressive, all the big, showey, massive things that happen over and over again right after another kind of loose a some of their impressiveness when piled on top of one another so quickly without any room for breathing.

** ... DeathIsCheap remains in effect, however, so they don't really punch that hard, either. Half of the onscreen deaths turn out to be negated by the powers of the characters involved one way or another, and most of the others are undone at the end of the arc. The death scenes themselves remain incredible, however.

** Guy Gardner admits his plan to stop the bulk of the Black Lantern forces was something he saw in ''Franchise/StarTrek''.

** Carol lampshades this, saying "I think I saw this on a Saturday morning cartoon."

* AndIMustScream: The resurrected heroes who are made into Black Lanterns are forced to watch their bodies kill and operate out of their control. All the while, they are slowly dying as the Black Rings are completely killing them.

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** What is really important is that the Black Lanterns only kill specific victims, namely those feeling strong levels of one or more of the seven emotions; they do not kill without abandon. A Black Lantern will not harm (or even detect) someone who feels no emotion at all (i.e. Jonathan Crane AKA Scarecrow) or who can empty themselves of emotion (i.e. Shiva and Renee Montoya), nor will they initially go after someone who doesn't have a heart to take (i.e. [[TheFlash Tarpit]] and [[DoomPatrol Robotman]]).

** Guy Gardner admits his plan to stop the bulk of the Black Lantern forces was something he saw in ''StarTrek''.

* HeelFaceMole: Black Lanterns do this sometimes to provoke a HopeSpot, but when Damage and Lois Lane pull this on Atom Smasher and Power Girl, [[IdiotBall it works.]]

* NeverMessWithGranny: In ''Blackest Night: Superman'' #3, Black Lantern Lois Lane from Earth-2 (died of old age in ''InfiniteCrisis'') gives a HannibalLecture to Ma Kent. Ma Kent makes a torch and ''burns her'' and then sics ''Krypto'' on her.

** What about Ma Kent and Krypto? Ma uses a ''fucking torch'' to take down Lois Lane, leaving Krypto to finish her off.

'''Blackest Night''' is the big CrisisCrossover event for the [[TheDCU DC Universe]] in 2009, written by GeoffJohns, intended to take a serious look at death in comics. It's a gigantic ZombieApocalypse featuring superheroes and supervillains being forced to fight against their loved ones risen from the grave. This involves plenty of HighOctaneNightmareFuel and [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome crowning moments of awesome]] for everybody involved. The whole series is a detailed examination on what the ComicBookDeath actually means for the character involved, mixed with a nonstop intense thrill ride of action and kickass personal battles, fueled by a cosmic terror.