Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1 (DC Comics)
by Geoff Johns, Peter J. Tomasi, Jerry Ordway, Rags Morales & Chris Samnee

This is far from required reading for the Blackest Night event, and like other anthology books, it’s something of a mixed bag. The editors wisely opt to start off with the strongest of the three stories. Johns’s story of the origin of Blue Lantern Saint Walker may be predictable, but it’s ballsy too in that it’s a story about religion, faith and hope. It’s not often you see a super-hero yarn from one of the big two genre publishers that so embraces a religious theme. Wisely, Johns’s script isn’t preachy even though the alien faith mirrors Judeo-Christian tenets in several ways. I wish that Johns’s other contribution — “Tales of the Indigo Tribe” — had been as satisfying. The story tells the audience nothing about this mysterious Indigo corps; the reader is left as frustrated and confused as the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps member in the story. Mongul was an odd choice of subject for the Sinestro Corps story sandwiched in between Johns’s contributions. Tomasi tells us nothing new about the character; he doesn’t even portray the young Mongul II as pitiable, as he’s as heartless and cruel as his father.