Green Lantern at forefront of DC Blackest Night event
The media spotlight turned intensely on Green Lantern in the past week, as Ryan Reynolds was announced as the star of the upcoming film “Green 
Lantern,” set for release in 2011. In a bit of good timing, DC Comics this week released its high profile “Green Lantern” miniseries, “Blackest Night.” Hal Jordan, who will be played by Reynolds in the film, stars in “Blackest Night,” an event that features the dead returning to life and facing off against DC’s heroes.
The title “Blackest Night” comes from the oath of the Green Lanterns, an intergalactic peacekeeping force. It begins, “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight.”
At the ComicsPRO annual meeting in March in Memphis, DC executive editor Dan DiDio talked about the behind-the-scenes effort that went into making the “Blackest Night” event run smoothly. ComicsPRO is a nonprofit organization of direct-market comic store retailers.
To keep the “Blackest Night” series and tie-in issues seamless, “Green Lantern” writer Geoff Johns relocated from Los Angeles to New York to work from the offices of DC Comics.
Johns made the transcontinental journey to replicate the plan the company used on “Infinite Crisis,” a previous Johns-written event that topped sales charts.
“This is the formula we used when we created Countdown to Infinite Crisis,” DiDio said. DiDio said Johns working in the offices with editors and writers kept everyone in the loop, and improved the sense of flow with the tie-ins.
“What Geoff’s been able to do is work with a group of writers who will be working on ‘Blackest Night,’ working with them directly to make sure everybody’s on the same page, and working on the same model so we will have a story that feels very natural in its development,” DiDio said.
DiDio said that it’s paramount to keep the focus on the characters, and that’s what they are trying to do with “Blackest Night.”
“We’ve heard the momentum, we’ve heard the excitement about ‘Blackest Night,’ and this is our one chance to take advantage of it all,” DiDio said.
“I can sit here and face anybody … because I know how good the stuff is ahead of us. I know how big ‘Blackest Night’ could be.”
- by Matthew Price
From Friday’s The Oklahoman
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