Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Blackest Night Tales Of The Corps #3

Blackest Night Tales of the Corps #3 of 3
DC Comics
Johns, Tomasi, Reis, Samnee & Mayhew

The final installment of the Tales of the Corps three issue mini series fizzles out with the biggest dud in the bunch. Instead of getting three short stories about mostly new characters (as we've seen in the previous issues) we get two short stories about characters well established and a penciled version of Blackest Night #0 with some notes from the creators. It's not worth $2.99 let alone the $3.99 price tag it carries. The comic not only doesn't hold with the previous Tales of the Sinestro Corps stories we saw in the build up to the Sinestro Corps War, but it barely holds with the watered down standard of the previous two issues in this mini series.

Two years when the Sinestro Corps War began we were introduced to various players from the Sinestro Corps with a series of four to five pages short stories about the characters and their entrance into the Corps placed in the back of the Green Lantern title. This series has attempted to hold to that same standard but has definitely deviated from it. Instead, each issue has attempted at gathering up short stories about characters participating in the Blackest Night event. They don't have be origin stories or even new characters. They are literally a collection of random stories. In this issue, the first story is about Kilowog, one of the most established of the B-list characters in the Green Lantern Corps.

The Kilowog story takes place when he is a rookie still earning his keep. He and his recruiting class are put through the rigors of the training regiment by a hard hosed drill sergeant. It's a cute story as it shows some little details about Kilowog like where he got his phrase "poozer". It also shows his coming of age as he quickly turns from rookie to leader.

It's a decent story giving some depth to Kilowog. The art is very cartoon-like but serves the story well. It's certainly nothing essential that we learn about Kilowog. However, I suspect one of the characters in the story will come back to life in the Blackest Night series.

The second story is about Arisia. Her story is one of lineage as her father was a Green Lantern and then her Uncle. She was born and bred to be a Green Lantern. The story also involves a number of characters who seem to be eligible for the Black Corps. It's an okay story that really doesn't do much for the character of Arisia other than give some background about her family.

Then is the full Blackest Night #0 black and white reprint. It has some notes from the creative team scattered around some of the pages but they certainly don't add much to the story creation. At times they read like Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary.

It's extremely disappointing to find that every single page of the previous free Blackest Night #0 has now been placed into three separate $3.99 comics as new material. This comic has exactly eighteen pages of new material for $3.99. Unless you really love Kilowog or Arisia this comic is not at all required reading. The two stories might be decent enough but that isn't enough to make up for the massive money grab that's going on here. This might be the most ripped off I've felt paying for a comic book.

2 out of 5 geek goggles