Release Date: November 17, 2010
Cover Date: December 2010
Story: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Doug Mahnke
Inks: Christian Alamy, Keith Champagne, and Doug Mahnke
Cover: Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy
1:10 Variant Cover: Gene Ha
Paramedic Shane Thompson is involved in a terrible automobile accident while trying to save his patients, which makes him ripe for possession by Proselyte on behalf of the Indigo Tribe. Meanwhile, Barry Allen confronts Hal Jordan about working with the likes of Atrocitus and Sinestro, but Hal makes excuses for all of his actions to date. On Oa, Salaak reports his findings on Hal to the Guardians, and they agree that someone needs to keep tabs on the rogue Green Lantern. As the Flash continues to chew out his friend, the Indigo Tribe arrives to take custody of Adara. Hal is wary of their motives, as they have Black Hand working for them, but the Tribe tries to take what they want by force. They’re interrupted by the arrival of the entity thief and Parallax, and the fear entity possesses the Flash.
I’m starting to really get sick of the emotional entities, particularly Parallax. This has nothing to do with my dislike of the giant space bug concept itself, but the fact that it just keeps popping up over and over again to possess people. Even if you thought the fear entity was a great idea, you must admit that it’s becoming overused. I keep holding out hope that the entities will be gone for good or at least put on the far back burner after Brightest Day comes to a close, but sometimes I worry.
And whatever happened to the Hector Hammond/Ophidian hybrid? Hal and crew tried to head it off in Las Vegas, but it never showed up. Even when Saint Walker contacted them about Adara, you’d think that an extremely dangerous hybrid such as Hammond/Ophidian would have taken priority.
That aside, I did enjoy this issue. I loved that we got more nuggets of information on the Indigo Tribe; does that come as any surprise, given the title of this blog? It was obvious from the end of Blackest Night #8 that Black Hand was being mind-controlled by the Tribe, but the possibility that the rest of them may be clenched in the iron grip of Proselyte and the indigo power rings is eyebrow-raising, indeed. (Of course, this potentially causes a severe continuity problem when we consider the case of the Atom; he did become a temporary member of the Indigo Tribe at the end of Blackest Night #6, but the ring sure as hell wasn’t controlling him.) The next issue will expound upon this, hopefully; we also have yet to see what Abin Sur’s connection with the Tribe was.
Barry’s argument with Hal was fantastic, as well. For every bullshit excuse Hal came up with to defend his actions, Barry rightfully knocked it down like a house of cards. This honestly surprised me a bit, as Geoff Johns and DC editorial have positioned Hal to be the perfect Green Lantern, but we’re finally seeing him make some serious mistakes and possibly second-guess himself. That happened all of the time before his death, mind you, but all of that was retconned away as the result of Parallax’s influence. Barry does point out that perhaps some lingering Parallax influence is left in Hal, but the fact remains that the space bug is not possessing Hal right now, so he’s completely responsible for his actions. That kind of humanization makes superheroes a hell of a lot more interesting, and we can only hope this will continue in future issues.
