Picking up right where Green Lantern #44 left off, this week we got our hands on Blackest Night #2. The dead are rising across the DC Universe, including many, many old friends who will be more than happy to spread their current state of affairs to their still-living loved ones. While Hal Jordan and Barry Allen face off against the Martian Manhunter in Gotham City, Tempest and Mera find themselves under assault by a contingent of risen Atlaneans, including Tula, Dolphin, and Aquaman himself. The Atom reaches out to the wrong people for a little understanding, and the magic users of the DCU see something horrible happen to one of their own.

While last issue was heavy on set-up, this issue is heavy on the action. The GL/Flash/J’onn fight doesn’t miss a beat and the repercussions at the end are pretty terrible for our heroes. Ivan Reis really nails the action scenes, and makes the horror of the Black Lanterns stand out. I particularly liked the battle with the Atlanteans — we see soldiers attacked by Black Lantern-led sharks with pretty gruesome results. T’ain’t no code approval on this book, friends.

This is not, however, a case where we just see an issue-long slugfest that does nothing for the plot. What happens with the Spectre here is very interesting, and there’s anothing surprising tidbit I’ll talk about in the Spoiler Section coming up.

I was really impressed with this issue — a strong action punch that keeps things moving forward.

Rating: 8/10

Okay, now getting into some spoilers and speculation. Geoff Johns has done a really great job working in the plot progression without sacrificing the action at all. In the midst of this, though, he gives us a few little bits that really make you wonder. One involves Deadman, but as that is developed further in Blackest Night: Batman, I’ll wait to discuss those elements in that review.

The transformation of the Spectre into a Black Lantern is also a point of real concern. Here we see a being who is, in fact, dead, but whose form has merged with that of God’s agent of vengeance. The sheer power of the Black Lanterns is what I find incredible here — to overwhelm and take over the Spectre is pretty intense, and the fact that he’s gunning specifically for Hal Jordan is telling. One has to wonder if Johns has been planning this ever since he wrote the stories where Hal lost his link to the Spectre (in Green Lantern: Rebirth) and when the Spectre bonded with its new host, Crispus Allen (in Infinite Crisis).

Finally, there’s a smaller moment that I think may turn out to be a bigger key than anything else. As the black rings continue to fall on Earth, two of them fall on the moral remains of Hank and Donald Hall, the two brothers who were the original Hawk and Dove. Hank, Hawk, rises just like everyone else, but the rings try several times to raise Don only to be met with failure. “Don Hall of Earth at peace,” the rings report, time and again. So evidently, not everyone the rings want can be raised?

What does that mean?

Two theories.

First, we know the Black Lanterns feed on emotion. The murders they’ve comitted so far have all been about absorbing the emotions of the victims to slowly charge their Lantern (until “He” rises). Don, Dove, was the embodiment of the lord of Order, just as Hawk is the embodiment of Chaos. Perhaps Don, a man truly, spiritually content, doesn’t carry with him the emotional turmoil necessary to raise a corpse.

Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s it.

Theory two. Because of what happens with Deadman, we’ve got confirmation that the rising of a Black Lantern does not raise the soul along with the corpse, but does that mean the soul itself is no longer necessary? Part of the idea behind this story is to redefine what death means in the DC Universe, and clearly, the various characters who have returned from the dead over the years are going to be a centerpiece of that theory. What if a body can only rise from the dead if the soul is still present on the Earthly plane? Part of my overall theory of Blackest Night is that, before the end of the story, we’ll see some of these Black Lanterns — the bodies of the dead manipulated by the Black Light — facing the souls that once inhabited the bodies they’ve corrupted. In other words, the ghost of Ralph Dibney vs. the Black Lantern Ralph Dibney. Perhaps the reason Dove can’t rise — and the reason he’s never risen in all the years since his death — is because his soul has moved on somewhere else, to some other plane, something Superman and Hal Jordan and all the other heroes who have risen from the dead have never been able to do?

Just speculation, of course, but I’d like to hear your thoughts.