Review : Evil infests itself in the idyllic farm country of Superman's hometown of Smallville. Just as Conner Kent/Superboy has started building his new life there as part of the Kent family, a horror unlike any he's faced before attacks in the form of Kal-L: The dead Superman of Earth 2. Luckily he doesn't have to face it alone since Clark is visiting from New Krypton, but even with the Earth's greatest hero alongside him, the Kent family (and all of Smallville) are in very big trouble. Superboy made his way back from the dead recently, intact and ready to begin his life anew, and that's not a fact that's been lost to the new Black Lantern Superman. There still remains death among the Kents, but how long the dead will stay buried seems to be in question as the Black Lanterns continue to take hold in the DC Universe.
My feelings on the art is a bit mixed...mainly for some of the faces depicted--there are a couple times where the grimace, sneer, whatever--just seems to really not fit the characters. However, overall....the art's quite good. Offhand I don't recall being that familiar with Barrows' work prior to this series...but being exposed to the style for three issues now, I can say that I would really enjoy seeing this art in at least one of the main Superman books. There's a certain realism at points where the imagery works extremely well. The "Black-Lantern-Vision" is starting to get just a bit old, though...but it's still interesting to have an idea where the BLs are coming from. It does take one out of the story a bit, if one (like me) stops to start tallying which emotions are being seen, to figure out if anyone's displaying the entire emotional spectrum all at once.
Robinson takes characters readers have come to care about, and places them in fairly probable physical danger, which isn't often quite this rough. The Super-characters are not only physically hurt here, but forced to face situations that hurt them emotionally as well. The development on New Krypton as a result of the battle with Black Lantern Zor-El seems likely to be the largest "fallout" bit of this series...assuming it's followed up on. The trouble with such a lengthy event as this is in the time-line, and where this is set in relation to the ongoing titles and general DC Universe. It's not exactly a total "wowzer" of a tale, in fact it's fairly simple. James Robinson goes more than a little cliche by giving us some pages that go out of their way to show us how sweet and untainted the town of Smallville is. I'm confident that most readers already know this, so it's not like it gives you the jarring contrast he went overboard on establishing.
The story is pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, as with the conclusion of the Blackest Night: Batman mini, this feels like it gets an ending only in that it's a breaking point heading directly into the "core" event. The mini gives a complete story in terms of an "episode" within the event, but doesn't entirely shake the feel of being only part of the picture in something bigger. The one major shortcoming of Blackest Night: Superman is that its resident Black Lanterns don't inflict the same amount of devastating emotional impact on Superman as, say, undead versions of The Flying Graysons do to the new Batman. Despite the character's sacrifice in Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis, Earth-2 Superman is, when it comes down to it, merely a doppelganger from a parallel universe, and his appearance as a Black Lantern doesn't bring much to the table in terms of dramatic conflict other than the sheer coolness factor of seeing the Man of Steel battle his zombie counterpart. As for Earth-2 Lois Lane, she brings even less to the table.
For whatever negatives I can pick out on these issues ...I still really enjoyed it. I'd definitely enjoy seeing Barrows illustrating Robinson on the main book, as the visuals seem to work very well for the character.
Story : 8.6
Art : 8.8
Yeah Ma, Good Luck.
Next In Blackest Night: Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Indigo and Carol face off against Abin and Arin Sur in a shocking battle. Atroctious faces his fellow "survivors" of Sector 666 and Larfleeze realizes that wanting a Black Lantern Ring is not very smart.
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