Review: Blackest Night #1

So, I’m feeling pretty stupid right now.

I mean, for quite a while I’ve been writing in this blog about my excitement about the upcoming Blackest Night event. It’s been on the horizon for some time, and I gotta say, the dark theme really appealed to me.

And, to be sure, the recent lead-in in Green Lantern #43 and, truthfully, the first several pages of Blackest Night #1 set a tempting scene that promised to meditate on death in the comics (and, in so doing, death in real life).

So imagine my chagrin when I reached the end of Blackest Night #1 and find out that this seemingly innovative, depth-plumbing series is, in actuality…

…that’s right: it’s DC Zombies.

Quick recap for the newcomers: Marvel Zombies was a five-issue limited series published from 2005 to 2006. Written by Robert Kirkman with art by Sean Phillips and Arthur Suydam, it spawned a series of non-continuity stories around the concept of all superpowered beings on Earth becoming flesh-eating zombies after being infected by an alien virus.

I lack the gene that makes me fascinated by zombies. I cringe at the Marvel Zombies covers. I… I just don’t get it. I don’t like zombies and I suspect they don’t like me.

But, I’m in the minority. These books sell very well for the House of Ideas.

So, silly me for not seeing it sooner. In this atmosphere of watching the Big Two chase each other’s tails (Marvel’s Lethal Legion mirroring DC’s Secret Six, for example) DC’s brave new concept is merely a re-tread of one of its competitor’s successful concepts.

A bunch of dead DC heroes and villains are being resurrected by the Black Lantern and reanimated, zombielike, to do battle with the living.

Sigh. And I didn’t even see it coming.

No wonder zombies don’t like me. No brains.