Geoff Johns: Inside Blackest Night
The Green Lantern mastermind discusses the origins and components of the biggest storyline he's ever written.
- IGN's in-depth coverage of
Blackest Night continues. Yesterday we brought you our Black Lantern discussion with writer
Geoff Johns. Today we take a closer look at some of the elements of the first issue and the event itself.
But that's not all. Today we're bringing you a look at
Green Lantern #44, which features Barry Allen and Hal Jordan confronting a Black Lantern Martian Manhunter. We're also revealing the Blackest Night titles for October, which include the final issues of the Superman, Batman and Titans mini-series.
Think we're done there? Hardly. Though our Comic-Con International coverage from San Diego next week will take up much of our attention, we'll be scheming more and more exclusives focusing on this epic event. Stay tuned.
IGN Comics: You first mentioned Blackest Night around two years ago when we were first discussing The Sinestro Corps War. Can you talk about the genesis of the Blackest Night concept?
Johns: It started back in Rebirth with Parallax, which was kind of the key to it all. When I was writing in my notebooks for Green Lantern, I always just assumed the yellow impurity was yellow because it's the color of fear, though that was never stated. The core element of Green Lantern was the idea of overcoming fear. That's what it's all about, and I think it's a great theme for a book. And once I touched upon the idea that the impurity was alive, and that it was actually sentient fear, Parallax became a metaphor for a lot, including the fears Hal Jordan has faced, only in physical form. Once I had that lined up – I think I mentioned the emotional spectrum as early as issue #3 – once I started going through the idea that there is an emotional spectrum out there and green is will power -- i.e. courage, or the will to survive -- everything else kind of fell into place.
Throughout Blackest Night, I wanted to lead to a confrontation between all these different emotions, and it became clear that the antithesis of that was the color black. And then I started thinking about what a Black Ring could be, and I don't know the moment I was working on what Blackest Night would be – I know I was at my desk – the dead just popped into my mind. And that was it. It's light vs. death. But if you go back and read Green Lantern, you can see that all the bits and pieces were there. A lot of what the color Corps developed into was done in Green Lantern #25 when Ethan Van Sciver drew that spread and we introduced the concept then and there on the page.
IGN Comics: I've always assumed that when a writer arrives on a great idea like that, they want to get to it right away. Was it difficult at all for you to take the time and patience to build this story up and weave all these threads into the series over the past couple years?
Johns: Not really. I think the color corps are fascinating, and I could probably spend even more time exploring them. Once the idea started to formulate and I built to the Star Sapphires and started playing around with the violet, I got to the idea of the other lanterns. Then I got to the Sinestro Corps, and at the end of the Sinestro Corps I knew I wanted to just lay everything out within the story and say, "you know what – this is where I'm going. Here are the other corps, and here's what they are. It's Rage, Avarice, Fear, Compassion, etc." And then once people kind of digested that, we got to the climax of the book, and I wanted to throw one more thing in there by way of the Black Lantern, and the idea that the Black Rings will make the dead rise. I wanted to throw everything out there and at the same tell people, "This is where I'm going with Green Lantern, so stick around."
IGN Comics: Contrary to the way death works and has really always worked in comics, fans like to cling onto that mantra of "dead is dead" – that is, they like to believe that when a character dies, he or she is going to stay dead, so that their sacrifice or the impact of their death will still mean something. Blackest Night seems to be taking that notion head on – that nothing is sacred, and every character is going to come back from the dead in order to show you the emotional responses they elicit. Was there any fear going into this series that one or more character might be too sacred to dig up?
Johns: Death in superhero comics is cyclical in its nature, and that's for a lot of reasons, whether they are story reasons, copyright reasons, or fan reasons. But death doesn't exist the same way it does in our world, and thank god for that. I wish death existed in our world as it does in comics. I spoke with Grant about this in detail. Death has a different meaning in superhero comics, and it has a different power. That's part of what I wanted to explore – why death is the way it is in the DC Universe. Or why it has been.
IGN Comics: That idea seems to pop up in Green Lantern #43, when Black Hand and the Black Ring take special interest in the characters that have cheated death over the years. Without getting into spoilers, obviously, can you talk a little about how that idea will play into Blackest Night?
Johns: I'll say that death has been cheated in the DCU in the past, and it won't be cheated this time.
IGN Comics: But you're very much exploring exactly what a comic book death means?
Johns: Yes.
IGN Comics: Recently in much of your work, including Blackest Night #1 and Rebirth, Hal Jordan and Barry Allen's friendship has played a central role. Why is Hal and Barry's friendship important to Blackest Night?
Johns: Because, for me, Hal and Barry have the most experience with death and resurrection, and they come at it from very different angles. I think Blackest Night #0 summed it up pretty well when it said Hal died a sinner and Barry died a saint. Those two characters are very different, and I just love their interaction in Blackest Night #1 when Hal shows Barry all the people that have died. Their interaction through Blackest Night, first of all it's very fun to write, but also they both represent opposites. Hal's an extrovert and Barry's an introvert, they have very different lifestyles and make very different choices. They also anchor the DC Universe in ways that Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman don't. Hal and Barry's experiences make them central figures to this story.
IGN Comics: This will be the second major DCU event you're masterminding. Were there any specific lessons learned from Infinite Crisis that you're bringing to Blackest Night?
Johns: I just have a lot more control over this one. That's the biggest difference. It's also a different kind of story. It's more character driven than it is plot driven. There are a lot of plot elements to it, obviously, but it is a different kind of story.
IGN Comics: A fundamental difference between this and Infinite Crisis seems to be that where the latter was driven by an external force in the Crisis on Infinite Earths survivors, Blackest Night seems more internally driven by character and everything you set up over the past few years.
Johns: Again, the difference is that I've had this story in my head for a long, long time. I'm working with Eddie Berganza, Adam Schlagman, Peter Tomasi, and a small group of guys, but it's a much more contained story and event.
There are certain things in Infinite Crisis that really worked for me that I took away and things that I look at and say, "Maybe I can try this a little differently." But I like writing big stories. I really enjoy the challenge of it and the epic scope of it. Because you can't do this kind of story anywhere else. If I wanted to tell a cop story, I'd probably go write a television show. This type of story you can only do in comics. You can't tell it anyplace else. You can try.
IGN Comics: The War of Light is a huge part of Blackest Night, but it sounds like the specifics of the war will mostly play out in Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps?
Johns: Yes. Like I've said before, my focus here is making sure that you can read Blackest Night on its own, but if you're reading Green Lantern, you need to read Blackest Night. If you're reading Green Lantern Corps, you need to read Blackest Night. I assume everyone reading Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps is already going to want to read Blackest Night. But I'm structuring it in a way and doing my best to make sure if you want to only read Blackest Night, you can. At the same time, I think all the books are terrific, and it adds up to a much bigger story.
But yes, the War of Light will be the main focus of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. As you've seen in the solicits, we'll see Sinestro vs. Star Sapphire, we see Mongol, Hal and Sinestro. Blackest Night is very Green Lantern/DCU centric. It's very much DC Universe. Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps are very much about the Green Lantern universe and the emotional spectrum universe, and Green Lantern Corps is centered on the Green Lantern Corps.
IGN Comics: To go back to my question about Infinite Crisis for a bit – each of these mega events seem like massive undertakings from a planning standpoint, and a ton of thought must go into breaking down the story over individual issues and the various series and miniseries taking part. I know you recently spent a lot of time in New York coordinating everything. Was it difficult to lay out the blueprint for how Blackest Night would play out across the line?
Johns: Not for me. It always takes a lot of discussion, but that's why I went to New York. I really love planning this kind of stuff out. It's really fun. So no. This is what I do. I like the epic scale. I like working on this giant canvas. On the other hand, I also like the small scale. Adventure Comics is a very, very different book than Blackest Night, but that's purposefully so. I like flexing different muscles, and that's a very different type of book. Same with Superman: Secret Origins. They're very different books, because I don't want to write the same tone over and over again.
Everyone wants to put people in a box and say, "This guy's a dark superhero writer, this guy's a funny writer, or this guy's this type of writer." No, writers are writers. Writers should be able to write every kind of tone and every kind of book. But in this case I love doing the big, epic, huge event. I like events. They're fun. They're supposed to be fun. Unless you don't have a fun gene. That's why I work on Robot Chicken and why I twitter about the most ridiculous things that happen to me on off-hours. From super-hero horror to teenage Americana on the files of Smallville.
IGN Comics: Obviously events are a staple in superhero comics, but as much as each new one takes a cue from the previous event, most seem to in some way break new ground from both a story and publishing standpoint. Did you look at any past events for inspiration on what to do or what not to do with Blackest Night?
Johns: Not really. Again I want to focus on specific characters instead of a million characters. There are very specific characters that get the spotlight.
IGN Comics: We went over some Black Lanterns earlier. Can you name any other characters that fans should look to play a huge role in this story?
Johns: They're all pretty much in issue #1, so you can pick and choose from everyone who shows up there.
IGN Comics: Finally, can you leave us with a tease for issue #2?
Johns: How about this cover?
Green Lantern #44 hits next week, July 22, 2009. Blackest Night #2 hits stores on August 12, 2009. Stay tuned to IGN for the latest exclusives, news and interviews on the entire event.
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