Green Lantern #49

Tales of the Black Lantern Corps: The Birth of Nekron

Writer: Geoff Johns
Art: Jerry Ordway
Color: Hi-Fi
Letters: Rob Leigh
Assoc. Editor: Adam Schlagman
Editor: Eddie Berganza

Our main cover by Ed Benes shows John Stewart drowning in a sea of bones and corpses. These aren't Black Lantern zombies —they're just skeletons, pure death. It's a pretty creepy, grotesque cover.

Our variant cover by Rodolfo Migliari shows a scene from this issue — John falling back on his old Army skills to battle the Black Lanterns. But while he sets up a sniper shot, a handful of zombies sneak up behind him. It's a rather interesting concept, but one we won't get into today. These covers show images from the main story, but Black Lantern Kid Flash only makes his cameo in the backup story.

Our story picks up with the Zombie Jean Loring dragging Mera and the Atom into a Black Lantern ring. Jean sees the compassion in Ray's heart, but instead of trying to rip his heart out, Jean has chosen to try to educate Ray and turn his compassion toward the Black Lanterns. As our trio continues to shrink inside the molecules of the ring, they reach a point where Jean is somehow able to show Mera and Ray visual aids to accompany her lesson.

Jean explains that darkness existed before light and life. She claims the Guardians of the Universe waged war against the universe, not for it. So in response to this threat, the darkness spent eons creating its own guardian — Nekron. Jean says Nekron isn't death, but peace. She says if she understood this truth when she was alive, she wouldn't have killed Sue Dibny, but instead would have killed Ray to grant him the gift of death. Jean adds that both Ray and Mera are special, and would have been saved by Nekron had they died, like many other heroes. She then shows Ray and Mera how the Zombie Batman spat out a bunch of Black Lantern rings that turned those heroes into Black Lanterns.

Jean says Nekron is now using those heroes to destroy the light and return the universe to its rightful tenants. As she boasts that no one is going to stop them, Deadman sneaks into the ring to save our heroes.




I really don't understand the point of this side story. It really didn't teach us anything new, and it kind of contradicted the main purpose of the Black Lanterns. Yes, these zombies do like to try to manipulate their targets a bit, but ultimately, all they want to do is spark a strong emotion in their hearts, which they then remove to convert the target into another drone in their army. So it doesn't make any sense for Jean to refuse to do that when Ray is so full of compassion right now. Basically, what this side story boils down to is a lazy excuse by Geoff Johns to get Ray and Mera from Point A to Point B, as we'll see next time in Blackest Night #6.