Blackest Night #8 (May, 2010)

White Lantern Thaal Sinestro wields significant power, but is not adept in playing host to the Life Entity, and is unable to fully reckon with what Nekron is capable of. The united Lantern Corps struggle to present a united front against the onslaught of the Black Lanterns. Larfleeze battered Lex Luthor and reclaimed his Orange Lantern. Martian Manhunter slugged Hal Jordan while seemingly leading the charge of the Black Lanterns. Hal ringed up a facsimile of the kinder, gentler J'Onn J'Onzz to find him... or rather it... off. Then Jordan makes a connection to the... er... White Power Battery, and uses it to sever the post-resurrected heroes' connection to Nekron, making of them a White Lantern Corps. Through this energy, they next resurrect William Hand, and then the Anti-Monitor, whose corpse had been serving as the Central Power Battery of the Black Lanterns.

White Lantern Power Rings began flying about, homing in on Nekron's lieutenants. "Let there be light." Twelve more were resurrected through its power: Osiris, Jade, Captain Boomerang, Firestorm, Hawk, Professor Zoom, Maxwell Lord, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, and Deadman... and J'Onn J'Onzz of Mars! Lovers are reunited, while Superman's reaction is more subdued. "J'Onn! You're alive!"
"It appears so," he confirmed with a grin.

Nekron had disintegrated, and various players made moves before dispersing. There was still a great mystery as to why this particular dozen had been returned to life, but that would be answered another day. For now, at least the blackest of nights passed into a new dawn. "Blackest Night" was by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert, & Joe Prado. These poor guys had to draw so many crowd scenes of dozens, if not hundreds. That they finished on time and at this level of quality is a minor miracle. The mini-series definitely ran too long and went several turnabouts more than it should have, but I love mixing super-heroes with horror. To keep an event of this scale broadly readable and consistently entertaining marks it as one of the greatest crossover events of all time.

As an aside, Joe Prado referenced coming up with fourteen different costume designs for the revived Martian Manhunter, involving notes from the entire creative crew, in a "commentary track" for the book. As longtime readers of the site know, I've tried dozens of variations my own self, so I feel his frustration, and then his suit gets pitched after a year or so. Cannopt win.