Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps

Blackest Night: Collected Editions

by Geoff Johns (Writer), Various (Illustrator)

The secrets behind the Lanterns of Blackest Night are revealed!
Bear witness to Blue Lantern Saint Walker's pilgrimage of hope, Star Sapphire Carol Ferris' sacrifice for love, Green Lantern Kilowog's courageous beginnings, Red Lantern Vice's source of rage, Orange Lantern Blume's bizarre creation, and the first appearance of the mysterious Indigo, leader of the Indigo Tribe!

Collecting: BLACKEST NIGHT: TALES OF THE CORPS #1-3 and stories from GREEN LANTERN #49 and ADVENTURE COMICS #4-5.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Comic Book, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Science Fiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published July 27, 2010

About the author

Geoff Johns originally hails from Detroit, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University, where he earned a degree in Media Arts and Film. He moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s in search of work within the film industry. Through perseverance, Geoff ended up as the assistant to Richard Donner, working on Conspiracy Theory and Lethal Weapon 4. During that time, he also began his comics career writing Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. and JSA (co-written with David S. Goyer) for DC Comics. He worked with Richard Donner for four years, leaving the company to pursue writing full-time.

His first comics assignments led to a critically acclaimed five-year run on the The Flash. Since then, he has quickly become one of the most popular and prolific comics writers today, working on such titles including a highly successful re-imagining of Green Lantern, Action Comics (co-written with Richard Donner), Teen Titans, Justice Society of America, Infinite Crisis and the experimental breakout hit series 52 for DC with Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid. Geoff received the Wizard Fan Award for Breakout Talent of 2002 and Writer of the Year for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 as well as the CBG Writer of the Year 2003 thru 2005, 2007 and CBG Best Comic Book Series for JSA 2001 thru 2005. Geoff also developed BLADE: THE SERIES with David S. Goyer, as well as penned the acclaimed “Legion” episode of SMALLVILLE. He also served as staff writer for the fourth season of ROBOT CHICKEN.

Geoff recently became a New York Times Bestselling author with the graphic novel Superman: Brainiac with art by Gary Frank.

Reviews

[Alejandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each character has a tale to tell!


I bought this in its single comic book issues, but I’ve chosen this TPB edition to be able of making a better overall review.


This TPB edition contains “Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps” #1-3. Featuring a part of the “Blackest Night” event.


Creative Team:

Writers: Geoff Johns & Peter J. Tomasi

Illustrators: Jerry Ordway, Chris Samnee, Rags Morales, Eddy Barrows, Gene Ha, Tom Mandrake, Mike Mayhew & Ivan Reis


HOW THEY BEGAN…

In this tie-in miniseries, part of the Blackest Night event, written by Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi, along with the artwork of several artists (see above), you find several tales of how began several of the pivotal characters in the event and in the Green Lantern universe; and also a section explaining the inspiration for the symbols of all the new corps; and finally a “commentary edition” of the first issue of Blackest Night giving insight comments on each of the scenes found on that issue and presented on sketched format.

You’ll learn how…

…Saint Walker got his unbreakable faith.

…Mongul Jr. got his first steps for his own future.

…Arisia got her willpower following her family legacy.

…Carol Ferris got inside her own heart to find her true path.

…Kilowog got his rookie butt kicked for the first time.

…Bleez got her merciless rage.

…Larfleeze got one of his avatars.

…The Indigo Tribe deal with those they meet.

The shocking tales of how all those characters learn about themselves and what they were capable to do…

…before of getting the call of their own respective rings.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a welcome series of side-stories featuring one member of each of the different corps, all of whom are adjacent to the MC's. I think it provides a bit of excellent depth into the series even if it does nothing to propel it.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a hodgepodge of different things, most of which I liked. The first half includes one story from a specific Lantern in each of the different corps. Some of the characters I was familiar with and some I was not, so it made for interesting reading.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This trade can easily be divided into two parts: the actual Tales of the Corps, and a Superboy-Prime story.

Tales of the Corps ties in to the Blackest Night storyline, but it obviously isn't essential. It's a series of short stories that serve to explain the different aspects of the emotional spectrum. Like I said, it's not essential to understanding Blackest Night, but it would certainly be helpful for somebody like me who hasn't kept up on Green Lantern and doesn't know a thing about the Orange Lanterns. Which is aside from the fact that the stories are all good. Some of them really good, in fact. This part is very much worth a read.

And then there's the two issue Superboy-Prime story. Probably the less said about this, the better. I think I've gotten over Superboy-Prime's amusement value, and he's starting to get a little overused as a Take That! to fanboys. But on the plus side, you could read the Tales of the Corps stories and completely ignore the Superboy-Prime story without missing a thing.

[Damon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 because the last story was very funny: the one about Superboy Prime.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty enjoyable. I liked learning about the different Lantern Corps. I think the best part, even though it was a little slow at first, was Geoff Johns' short story from the first-person perspective of William Hand pre-Black Hand. He was such a weird kid and that was written so well. The only part that really drug on for me was the inclusion of Superboy-Prime and Action Comics at the end. Some of the issues were a little dull, but the Action Comics part was my least favorite part. I really did forget the context of those issues because its been a few years since I read any Crises events or Blackest Night itself.

Still, this was good fun! I recommend it for fans of the Lantern Corps and/or Blackest Night.

[Eric Burton · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5

It's got a few interesting stories for various members of the lantern corps. The final story with Superboy Prime I wasn't a huge fan of.

[Desiree Brunelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blackest night tales of the corps, written by Geoff Johns and others. Is a tale how one's torcher, seeking for hope, anger of loss, lust for love, and death. can change even the strongest beings into something spectacular or make them a of evil and hatred. almost all lanterns had a loss that changed them into something good, or something terrible. Bleez is a beautiful angel that suffered a tremendous loss, her mother was killed by a yellow lantern, he keeps her captive for two days as a slave, he says to Bleez " on your world you would spit on me because I couldn't fly... yet I can fly now...but you? you will never fly again" he attempts to rip her wings off yet she brakes free and tries to escape, but she gets caught and he takes her and kisses her telling her that she is his and she can never leave unless he says so but while he kisses her, her rage anger and hatred consumes her and a red ring fly's to her finger and transform her from a beautiful creature to an evil monster that only wants revenge and to make people suffer. she kills the yellow lantern and now is completely reformed. in all honesty all of the lantern has reason for what they do either it being good or bad, people took there loved ones, hope, happiness, and desires. so for the actions like killing the people that hurt them and took there life away I feel it is justified in some aspects, also for the ones who only wanted to help there kind in dyer need is absolutely accepted as well, and lastly for anyone to try make there loved ones proud or finding there true love is amazing and having the power to fight for what's right or to show that your not weak anymore is what this comic is about. showing how anyone in any situation has the power to over come it no matter if its good or bad.

I would recommend this to anyone who loves the lanterns, who loves superhero's, and to anyone who wants to know why there are so many different types of lantern's and how they become something so different, so powerful, so full of life.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this tie-in to Blackest Night, though it's not nearly as essential as the rest of them. This pretty much tells tales of one member of each Corps and how they ended up where they are now: Kilowog, and how his training made him into who he is (and foreshadows at another event down the road); Bleez of the Red Lanterns, and how she ended up consumed by Rage; Mongul's son and his involvement with the Sinestro Corps, perhaps alluding to problems down the road for the DC Universe; Saint Walker of the Blue Lanterns, and his improbable road of Faith & Hope that made him the first of the Blue Lanterns; a story about the Indigo Tribe, Carol Ferris and her journeys with the Star Sapphires, as well as Ray Palmer and Mera getting a closer look at Nekron.

An interesting collection for background info, great for fleshing out the main story, but interesting enough on it's own to be enjoyable...to me at least.

[Jacob A. Mirallegro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tales of the Corps mini series was a pretty good anthology series. I enjoyed the variety in it and there was some pretty dark stuff that I didn't expect. The Adventure Comics issues with Superboy-Prime were great though and gave such a nice conclusion to his story. I think it goes as far as his character needed to and no more is needed. These are clearly separated from Blackest Night and feel like a divergent from that but I still liked them quite a bit.

[Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was a really good book. it has a lot of dialog and great graphics. i enjoyed it but it was not my kind of story. it had a lot of action in it also.
i gave it a 3 star rateing because it was a good book but not my kind of book. but i did like it. i reccomend this for anybody who like a super hero comic.

[Brandt · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I am usually not high on publisher "events", I am generally positive about Blackest Night because as I noted in my review of Blackest Night, the story just seemed to be an extended Green Lantern arc, so much so that I felt that it was best read alternately with Green Lantern: Blackest Night . While my prevailing attitude with these publisher events is that they effectively handcuff creative teams (see me bemoan Peter Tomasi's run on Green Lantern Corps for this), the fact is that in context, there are also opportunities for storytelling dealing with the event itself.

This is the driving force between Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps which features one off stories featuring some of the characters that appear in Blackest Night. Some of these stories feed directly into Blackest Night (how did Carol Ferris become Star Sapphire yet again?) but most of the stories involve side characters who have appeared in the varied Green Lantern related titles. Is it important for us to know how Bleez became a Red Lantern for us to enjoy Blackest Night? No, but again, the event allows for creative teams to fill in gaps in the story, even if the reader isn't really aware or care that they are there. The ride is sometimes fun and sometimes boring and sometimes strange (the Superboy-Prime story at the end of the collection is kind of a head scratcher) and as such, this collection really doesn't need to exist (I'm sure the stuff needed for Blackest Night like the Star Sapphire subplot could have been handled in the pages of that book or Green Lantern) and there isn't enough of that to justify this collection as anything other than an attempt to sell books thanks to yet another crossover.

If you're a hardcore Green Lantern fan you might enjoy this collection, but in the end it's superfluous. These sorts of side stories when collected always tend to be uneven, and the question you need to ask is if the good outweighs the bad. It is a superhero comic after all, so maybe turn off the brain a little and just enjoy.

[Rihards Husko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some solid, flavorful preamble to Blackest Night, but the book as a whole is held back by some odd filler and Kindle’s continued terrible formatting.

The core of Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps is a series of one-off short stories about a member from each of the Lantern Corps. Most of them deal with death and loss (kind of a recurring theme for the Blackest Night event), so I expect at least some of them to have additional payoff in the various Blackest Night books. I would not call any of them particularly outstanding or memorable, save the one about a God of hunger traversing the stars. It was a delicious, imaginative little tale of mild cosmic horror.

It also includes a series of musings by Black Hand, delving a little into his backstory, as well as of the world. They paint a fairly clear, gruesome image of a fairly minor character from Johns’ run on Green Lantern so far, but one who’s clearly coming to the forefront in Blackest Night.

The odd inclusion, however, is 2 issues of Adventure Comics. Where the aforementioned material is clearly table-setting for Blackest Night, the AC issues included clearly depict the event already in full swing, and how Superboy Prime is affected. I get what they were going for (or at least I *think* I do), not only is it out of place here, chronologically speaking, it also is just a very *weird* couple of issues. 2 in particular gets extremely meta, and while it does manage to wring some sympathy for “the most hated character in DC comics” and features a pretty great reveal it’s just... a bit much? It doesn’t help that his story isn’t resolved within this book.

And I cannot stress enough how terrible the Kindle version of the book is, when all of the books available on both Kindle and Comixology have a perfectly good, high-quality version on the latter.

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps is ok.

[Nico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah, wasn't a fan of this one.

The art was definitely not my style, and I just couldn't bring myself to care about most of the stories. We certainly jumped around enough, so you'd think I'd find something in here that would really catch my fancy either art-wise or story-wise, but not really. For the most part I was bored and just trying to push through to the end. The plots for the most parts were predictable and formulaic. I did enjoy Kilowog's story more than the others, because, duh, it's Kilowog, people, how could you not at least get a little into it? But even that had a very simple plot line. I will grant you that it's not like the author had much time and space to bring together anything too intricate, but they all just fell flat for me.

The Earth-Prime Superboy story could've been cool since I always enjoy the breaking of the fourth wall, but I guess I just don't know enough about what went on with him to really appreciate the story? We got a little bit of backstory at the beginning to help orient the reader, but honestly I was still lost and I didn't care enough to go digging on the internet to attempt to understand. What're ya gonna do?

I also didn't expect all that text with 'The Book of Black' being thrown in there between the comics. It took me a bit to adjust, but Johns, as always, has a way of getting all dark and creepy and more than a little disturbing. Personally, I live for shit like that, so that section was an obvious plus. The Black Hand is one messed-up dude, jeez.

Anyways, this is the first thing I've read from the Blackest Night event that I haven't been totally drooling over, so I'm not that upset. They can't all be 5 star reads. *shrugs*

[Jordan Brantley · Rating 4 out of 5]

ComicWorm Speaks!

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps

by Geoff Johns, Peter J. Tomasi, and Sterling Gates

Acquired: Barnes & Noble
Series: Blackest Night
Paperback: 176 Pages
Publisher: DC Comics

****
The Story: In this 3-issue miniseries, the secrets behind the Lanterns of BLACKEST NIGHT are revealed! Bear witness to Blue Lantern Saint Walker's pilgrimage of hope, Star Sapphire Carol Ferris' sacrifice for love, Green Lantern Kilowog's courageous beginnings, Red Lantern Vice's source of rage, Orange Lantern Blume's bizarre creation, and the first appearance of the mysterious Indigo, leader of the Indigo Tribe!

Written by Blackest Night author Geoff Johns and fan favorite Pete Tomasi, BLACKEST NIGHT: TALES OF THE CORPS is an essential part of the Blackest Night storyline.

The Review: Green Lantern is one of Bookworm’s Favorite Superheroes, and thanks in large part to the Green Lantern Animated Series, he has begun to devour the mythology as is standard procedure when something sparks his interest. So this volume was an immediate candidate for purchase and It delivers.

Like a lot of anthologies, this volume is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the stories are good, some are bad, and some are just mediocre.

This is illustrated by the selections made for the Green Lantern stories. The tale of Kilowog is excellent and little bit funny too. It tells the story of Kilowog’s training when he first became a Green Lantern. No spoilers but it tells the reader the power of Will and does so excellently.

The next one is the story of Arisia and her recruitment. This is a very sweet tale but it is not much else. It leaves more questions than answers.

The Blue Lantern story is one of the best in the whole volume. It displays the power of faith no matter the context. Something that still needs to be said even in a world where religious power is seen more as a negative influence.

The Orange Lantern Corps story is something of a disappointment. Some may have been hoping for more of a story about the corps, specifically Larfleeze but it does show the interesting manner in which avatars of the Orange Light are “recruited.” That is pretty much it though. The journey of the character is pretty repetitive and we don’t see the main character of the Orange Light, Larfleeze until the very end. What get when we finally do see him it is pretty over and done with in two pages. The Orange Lanterns are kind of interesting and would be nice to see more of it’s history in later volumes.

Another confusing story is the Yellow Lantern story. It tells the story of Mongol’s son and his attempts at being a conqueror like his father. Since the Yellow Lanterns don’t appear the point is a little confusing but it does come through in the end. Yellow is the light of fear and Mongol Jr embodies fear in two main ways. He is afraid of his father, who commands absolute obedience and he wishes to be feared, to be a conqueror. An ideal recruit for the Corps of Fear.

Finally we get to final corps, the corps of death, The Black Lanterns.

Let’s get this out of the way. The Black Hand is one of the most insufferable villains that ComicWorm has ever encountered. That may not have been the intention but ComicWorm cannot stand him. He is supposed to be a necrophiliac nihilist but he just comes off as such a whiner that ComicWorm just wants to slap him every time he opens his mouth. The Book of the Black is part of the Black Lantern section of this book and it is interesting in how it details his mental state but at the same time is a reflection of a whiner. No one likes a whiner.

That’s nothing compared to the final story in the volume. This one deals with the Black Lanterns but it also deals with Superboy-Prime. This one is just a mess. While reading it, ComicWorm had no idea what was going on. Further research has concluded that Superboy-Prime is a character from the Infinite Crisis, a crossover event from DC history, and now he has somehow ended up in the prime universe. The Prime Universe is the “real world” where comic book characters are fictional creations. This admittedly is kind of fascinating but honestly that’s all it has going for it. The storyline requires so much prior knowledge that it’s barely worth the bother of reading it. It is confusing, and really what prevented this volume from receiving five stars.

The other stories of the Black Lanterns are much better. The Black Lanterns are interesting in a moribund sort of way. There is something rather poetic about the way they talk and what they talk about. This could be surmised about all the colors of the emotional spectrum. Death, hope, will, rage, all of these are fundamental forces of life. The writers of these stories recognize this and all of these stories know what they are about. They are about fear, about greed, and about compassion. They are simple tales about simple things.

All of this being said, while the stories by themselves can be a little off, this book really is greater than the sum of its parts. They are exactly what they say on the cover: Tales of Corps. They are not sprawling and deep epics and they don’t have to be. They are little snapshots of the various colors of the light spectrum.

Final Verdict: Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps, is a critical edition for any fan of Green Lantern or any fan of comic books. It is a volume as colorful on the inside as it is on the outside. It is probably not the best place to start for a newbie but good for anyone who want’s more.

Four out Five Stars

thecultureworm.blogspot.com

[Graham Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a nice collection of stories and just covers some extra tales from the Blackest Night Event. Worth a read, lovely art.
I especially loved the Superboy Prime tale (Adventure Comics 4 & 5) as I like tales that are inceptioniny when you read it you'll understand.
Would have loved to see more stories of the other corps but I guess there are other comics for those 😁
Good tie in, would recommend for people reading the entire event.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might have been my favorite volume of Blackest Night (at least from what I've read so far.) We get an assortment of short stories starring the various members of the Lantern Corps, with each Corps getting at least one story. The Adventure Comic issues weren't my favorite, but they weren't bad enough to hurt the rest of the book. This wasn't really an integral part of the story, but it was interesting to learn more about the characters.

[Jsrott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent collection of side stories and origin tales, but it still suffers from the need to track down other tie-ins just to make sure nothing was missed. As it is, I don't seem to be able to find out when and how all the various Lantern Corps were actually founded, so I have no idea what is just background and what is referring to previous stories.

[Russell Pearce of Sector 2814 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan on the Tales of the Corps books. It's always great to meet and learn about lesser lanterns. My huge gripe with this book though is the fact ot recycled stories from previous books such as Tales of the Sinestro Corps.

[c wylie misselhorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this would be a great way to start into the lanternverse? Maybe? I've read a lot of this so maybe I'm off but it's kind of an origin story for each color, plus a character featurette. It's a lot of fun.

[Sotofunkdamental · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contiene historias de complemento de varios personajes que conforman los diversos Cuerpos de Lanterns y sus espectros emocionales, entretenidas pero excesivamente breves. Es una lectura opcional y poco relevante, especialmente indicada para los seguidores de toda la larga etapa de Geoff Johns en Green Lantern. Bien escritas, dibujadas y entretenidas, pero anecdóticas al fin y al cabo.

[Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not going to lie, this was way better than I thought for a tie in.

[Zachary Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was largely an introduction to the different rings, with a few pages into the mind of Black Hand, and an introduction (for me) to Superboy-Prime. Not mad it, but not overly blown away either.

[Tracy Dickens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This arc is so good.

[Nathan Grozan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Adam Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're completely unfamiliar with the Green Lantern/DCU mythos, and intend to read The Blackest night event, this collection of origin stories is a perfectly fine place to start. If not, this is just a collection of short stories connected to the various corps. None of them are terrible. None of them are great. None of them are really necessary for understanding the event. And if you've read the Geoff Johns Green Lantern series that lead up to this, it's a bit of a disappointment.

It's completely skippable if you've ever read the main Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps series.

[Adam Cole]

Backlog.

[Sebastian Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Algunas historias muy buenas, otras no tanto, lo que pasa en cada antologia, mi favorita fue la de saint walker

[Lulu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review of Blackest Night event/storyline

[Spring Dugger · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok