DC Universe

Blackest Night #3 marks a critical turn for DC's latest blockbuster event, as Geoff Johns moves past the set-up of his story and pushes it towards its second act, revealing a few important plot details along the way. With the miniseries' first two issues and the events' tie-ins all hitting similar notes over the past two months, this is the exact type of issue the event needed – one that slowed things down a bit to ask certain questions, answer other ones and shift the story's focus ever so slightly away from the visceral creep show that's dominated the event thus far. Blackest Night #3 is definitely the least action oriented and most talky Blackest Night comic to date, but it also might prove to be the crucial moment in which the series began striving for more than its central "The Dead Shall Rise" gimmick.

Sticking to his commitment to showcase underutilized characters in this story, Johns features the new Firestorm, Jason Rusch, in a significant capacity alongside stars Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, Mera and Ray Palmer. And although the character doesn't enjoy the same sort of scene stealing moments as Mera did last issue, Firestorm still comes as a welcome addition to this eclectic cast, which is quickly becoming one of the series' most appealing aspects. Rather than throw every big gun in the DCU into these pages like he did with Infinite Crisis, Johns is showing a far more deliberate and tempered approach to Blackest Night's casting, and the results have paid off well and made this story feel wholly different than every other tale in which Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman lead the heroes of the DCU against some big bad.

Read the full review of BLACKEST NIGHT #3!