The Blackest Night

So this latest Green Lantern arc is taking ages to come here to Britain, and from people who actually have experience with it, I need some advice.

I'm buying the paperbacks of the Sinestro Corps War and its aftermath. I've already bought Volumes 1 and 2, Tales Of the Sinestro Corps, and Ring Quest.

I need to know which of the following I should buy and in which order:

Sins of the Star Sapphire
Rage of the Red Lanterns
Agent Orange

Also I need to know if there's anything between Ring Quest and whichever of those comes first, so that I don't miss out on anything vital.

On top of this, if anyone knows when/if the "Green Lantern: First Flight" animated movie DVD is coming out in Europe, I'd be grateful if they could tell me so I know whether or not I should bother keeping my hopes up.

This can also be a discussion on Green Lantern relating to events preceding or involving The Blackest Night, but I'd rather that anything from the anything after the Sinestro Corps War story arc be written in spoiler tags, please.

Green Lantern is a pretty heavily hyped book, especially in recent months with the lead-up to Blackest Night. So I thought I'd try to get into the series and see what the fuss was about.

I picked up Rebirth a couple months ago, but since then haven't gone anywhere, because there are just so many different books and series that involve Jordan and the rest of the Corps, and I really have no idea which ones are essential and what order to approach them in and whatever.

So I can't really help with any of your questions, other than to say that as far as I know there's no release date slated for First Flight in Europe, unless it was an international release back when it came out on Tuesday.

Apparently Rebirth, Sinestro Corps War, and The Blackest Night are a "trilogy" of sorts, so the only things in between are stuff like the various Crises (which I've not bothered with). The thing is, each installment of the trilogy is made up of more than one book (apart from Rebirth), which is annoying as hell in the way you described really.

And it doesn't seem to be an international release, but I need to head into town soon to actually look at the DVD sections there since Amazon don't have it. Sucks a bit.

Ah, so it really comes down to finding out how they collected the Sinestro Corps War, including all the one-shots and tie-ins. I'd assume they'd collect it into two or three trades, which they must have. I might have to do research into that.

But at the same time I'm not sure if it is necessary to read the surrounding Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps books and such to get a grasp of what has been happening in the main continuity of the universe. I know when reading Rebirth (my first Green Lantern book) I didn't know much about the DC Universe, or the Green Lantern mythology beyond general knowledge about major characters and origins. But I managed to pick things up quite easily (probably a credit to Geoff Johns' writing). Don't know if it'll be so easy when its an event that is essentially taking place in the middle of continuity, rather than a new beginning of sorts that Rebirth was.

Originally Posted by nolan

Ah, so it really comes down to finding out how they collected the Sinestro Corps War, including all the one-shots and tie-ins. I'd assume they'd collect it into two or three trades, which they must have. I might have to do research into that.

Well for the Sinestro Corps War, you've basically got two volumes of "The Sinestro Corps War", and then a "Tales of the Sinestro Corps" for stuff relating to individual members of the Sinestro Corps, and then "Ring Quest" for the aftermath. But at the end of SCW they reveal some more of the prophecy of "The Blackest Night", and in between SCW and TBN, you have the introduction of the various other Colour Corps, which I'd like to see before TBN comes out.

But at the same time I'm not sure if it is necessary to read the surrounding Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps books and such to get a grasp of what has been happening in the main continuity of the universe. I know when reading Rebirth (my first Green Lantern book) I didn't know much about the DC Universe, or the Green Lantern mythology beyond general knowledge about major characters and origins. But I managed to pick things up quite easily (probably a credit to Geoff Johns' writing). Don't know if it'll be so easy when its an event that is essentially taking place in the middle of continuity, rather than a new beginning of sorts that Rebirth was.

Yeah I felt the same when reading Rebirth, and I've read up on some other stuff since then, but only enough to get the gist of what's happened since Rebirth so that I can understand what exactly has changed before SCW started. Sinestro Corps War is pretty good in some regards, but it doesn't do a very good job of explaining some other stuff (although Tales as far as I've read seems to be filling in the gaps, such as explaining who Hank Henshaw/Cyborg Superman is and how he came to be).

Originally posted by Lord Zero
Also I need to know if there's anything between Ring Quest and whichever of those comes first, so that I don't miss out on anything vital.

Have you read Secret Origin?

Anyways, buy all three of the trades you mentioned, and read them in any order that includes Rage of the Red Lanterns, and then Agent Orange. The Corps series doesn't really connect with the primary volume until the events role around. It feels like it's own seperate story, and then when a Sinestro Corps War or Blackest Night haeppns, the links start being made. It'll make things clearer for you to read the books of the main volume in order, then worry about Corps later.

Great to see another GL fan on here.

Originally Posted by Jeff

Have you read Secret Origin?

I haven't actually, I was thinking of getting it just out of interest. Isn't it just another rehash of the Hal Jordan origin story?

Anyways, buy all three of the trades you mentioned, and read them in any order that includes Rage of the Red Lanterns, and then Agent Orange. The Corps series doesn't really connect with the primary volume until the events role around. It feels like it's own seperate story, and then when a Sinestro Corps War or Blackest Night haeppns, the links start being made. It'll make things clearer for you to read the books of the main volume in order, then worry about Corps later.

So Sins of the Star Sapphire won't include anything from the other two that I'd need to know then?

Great to see another GL fan on here.

Probably the most interesting DC licence next to Batman as far as I'm concerned.

I picked up Blackest Night #1 today, and am currently reading it; now, I haven't really had any experience with Green Lantern/DC crossover works in the past, but I've heard this event is supposed to be real good. In addition, I've been enjoying Batman stuff lately, and wanted to get in to other DC Universe stuff like the Green Lantern, so this looks like a nice place to start. So far, it's confusing, but fun.

So I finished Secret Origins the other day, and I have to say as a re-imagining of the Hal Jordan origin story, and in incorporating elements from later Green Lantern mythos and setting the scene for the Blackest Night, it's pretty damn good.

I've still some catching up to do before I ever touch Blackest Night material, between both the regular Green Lantern series and the Corps.

It's probably for the better, though. As it is I spend over $20 a month on comics. Add in two more ongoing series, a bunch of tie-ins, one big miniseries, and I'd be broke.

When I say I spend over $20 a month on comics, that's just single issues. I also tend to buy 1-2 trades every month as well.

If you buy the Sinestro Corps War and Tales of the Sinestro Corps trade paperbacks you should be up to speed on the Blackest Night material, since it incorporates both Green Lantern Corps and regular Green Lantern issues I believe.

I was referring to Rage of the Red Laterns, Agent Orange, Sins of the Star Sapphire and Emerald Eclipse. The various Lantern colors seem to be pretty important now and I've heard good things about all three of those arcs. I especially look forward to seeing Larfleeze.

That, and I'm a Green Lantern nut, so I like to read whatever comes out.

So from further reading what I seem to have gathered is that to get a perfect picture, you need to (once familiar with what exactly Green Lantern is) read Secret Origins (to understand how it all fits into Hal Jordan's origin story since some aspects of the War of Light have been retconned into it), Green Lantern Rebirth (to understand what exactly Parallax is), then Sinestro Corps War vols 1 and 2, Tales of the Sinestro Corps, Ring Quest, Sins of the Star Sapphire, Rage of the Red Lanterns, Emerald Eclipse, and then Agent Orange. I'm not sure where to go from there.

I've read up to Sins of the Star Sapphire, and going from the order of release on Amazon on top of the fact that everything seems to have made perfect sense up until now (and a quick look at Sinestro's article on Wikipedia), I can confirm that this order is correct so far. And that the Star Sapphires are horribly cheesy.