History YMMV / BlackestNight

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: The first ''Adventure Comics'' tie-in did this with Superboy-Prime with CharacterDevelopment and delivering several {{Take That}}s.

* CrazyAwesome: Larfleeze, and how.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Oh God, Atrocitus...
** ''Adventure Comics'' #5 managed to make [[CompleteMonster Superboy-Prime]] into one of these.

* ContinuityPorn: It's a GeoffJohns story dealing with dead heroes and villains [[CameBackWrong Coming Back Wrong]]. What did you expect?

* CompleteMonster: BigBad Nekron manages to slip into Complete Monster territory. The deciding point is when he turns the resurrected heroes into Black Lanterns, which led to AndIMustScream: these Black Lanterns aren't truly dead, and instead are forced against their will to torment and kill those closest to them (unlike the other Black Lanterns, who are twisted mimics of the reanimated persons). As an EldritchAbomination, he would be AboveGoodAndEvil and thus exempt from Monsterdom, if it weren't for the fact that he actively schemed and plotted to increase his personal power at the expense of other beings. He's not as emotionless as he thinks... Interestingly, he seems to have become one of these by accident; ''Blackest Night'' writer Creator/GeoffJohns repeatedly stressed in interviews that Nekron is [[CosmicEntity a fundamental force of the universe]] [[BlueAndOrangeMorality too alien to define by human morality]]. Let's just say the fans disagree.

* CompleteMonster: BigBad Nekron manages to slip into Complete Monster territory. The deciding point is when he turns the resurrected heroes into Black Lanterns, which led to AndIMustScream: these Black Lanterns aren't truly dead, and instead are forced against their will to torment and kill those closest to them (unlike the other Black Lanterns, who are twisted mimics of the reanimated persons). As an EldritchAbomination, he would be AboveGoodAndEvil and thus exempt from Monsterdom, if it weren't for the fact that he actively schemed and plotted to increase his personal power at the expense of other beings. He's not as emotionless as he thinks... Interestingly, he seems to have become one of these by accident; ''Blackest Night'' writer Creator/GeoffJohns repeatedly stressed in interviews that Nekron is [[CosmicEntity a fundamental force of the universe]] [[BlueAndOrangeMorality too alien to define by human morality]]. Let's just say the fans disagree.* ContinuityPorn: It's a GeoffJohns story dealing with dead heroes and villains [[CameBackWrong Coming Back Wrong]]. What did you expect?

* ContinuityPorn: It's a GeoffJohns story dealing with dead heroes and villains [[CameBackWrong Coming Back Wrong]]. What did you expect?

* CompleteMonster: BigBad Nekron manages to slip into Complete Monster territory. The deciding point is when he turns the resurrected heroes into Black Lanterns, which led to AndIMustScream: these Black Lanterns aren't truly dead, and instead are forced against their will to torment and kill those closest to them (unlike the other Black Lanterns, who are twisted mimics of the reanimated persons). As an EldritchAbomination, he would be AboveGoodAndEvil and thus exempt from Monsterdom, if it weren't for the fact that he actively schemed and plotted to increase his personal power at the expense of other beings. He's not as emotionless as he thinks... Interestingly, he seems to have become one of these by accident; ''Blackest Night'' writer Creator/GeoffJohns repeatedly stressed in interviews that Nekron is [[CosmicEntity a fundamental force of the universe]] [[BlueAndOrangeMorality too alien to define by human morality]]. Let's just say the fans disagree.

* CompleteMonster: WordOfGod says that Nekron is AboveGoodAndEvil, but after ''Blackest Night'', most fans are unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt and consider him this.

* VillainDecay: While this could be considered literally true for all the zombied Black Lanterns, other villains like Larfleeze are getting this treatment. In his first appearance he ruled over an entire solar system, possessed the power of an entire corps, dictated terms to the Guardians of the Universe and commanded his own army of wrathful shades. Now he appears much diminished after his first confrontation with the Black Lanterns and his artwork has changed as a result. He is also drawn much smaller and less menacing and seems now to be more of a [[GoldfishPoopGang comic relief]] than anything.
** To be fair, this decay is at least explained: Larfleeze's Orange Constructs cannot harm a Black Lantern alone. The fact that his "corps" usually takes care of business by killing and assimilating someone, which cannot happen to a Black Lantern, means that spamming Coast City with constructs can't work unless a rival Corps member blasts the B.L. with the construct. Also, [[DependingOnTheArtist a different artist drew Larfleeze's origin story instead of Ivan Reis and Doug Mahnke, the artists of Blackest Night and Green Lantern respectively.]]
** Justified as well. Saint Walker offers to curb Larfleeze's hunger with his blue ring for as long as he helps in the fight. Not the most sane choice when the man's power directly stems from how hungry he is, but then again, he might have pretty much hampered if not outright ruined the entire shebang solely trying to steal the others' rings.
** Also, Larfleeze didn't rule much more than his swamp. The people native to the Vega System, including one of the GLs Larfleeze kills, don't seem to know much about him. Larfleeze COULD have ruled, but he was too busy eating.

* TheWoobie: Osiris had it bad enough in ''FiftyTwo''. Now, not only is he the only Black Lantern to retain his humanity, but his sister and brother are dead. And everyone is afraid of him. And Sobek is murdering people just to get to him. The poor kid just [[HeroicSacrifice can't catch a break.]] Although in the end, [[spoiler:he is given a true second chance at life thanks to the White Rings. Which gets subverted in ''Titans'' when he participates in the murder of Ryan Choi and gradually becomes the killer everyone accused him of being.]].

* [[ArcFatigue Climax Fatigue]]: There is an epic climactic moment on every single page of of this crossover, especially the main storyline. Some readers have often claimed that while it IS impressive, all the big, showy, massive things that happen over and over again right after another kind of loose a some of their impressiveness when piled on top of one another so quickly without any room for breathing.

* MarySue: Early on, there were criticisms of Indigo-1 being this, but they died down relatively quickly.

* {{Narm}}: The Black Lantern fridge. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Just a fridge with the Black Lantern's symbol on it]].
* {{Padding}}: The Parallax vs. Spectre fight: while providing an emotional callback to ''Rebirth'', it comes off as this when both were promptly dismissed once the fight was over. Arguably, the deputy Lanterns also don't end up contributing that much to the storyline beyond fighting Nekron's Mooks (and, in the case of the Agents Orange, each other); it can feel like they (with the exception of Ganthet, who joins the Green Lanterns permanently) were RuleOfCool-inspired {{Padding}} tacked on in the attempt to expand the original [[BatFamilyCrossover Lantern Family Crossover]] into a CrisisCrossover.
* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: It looks like ''Adventure Comics'' tie-in is trying to do this with Superboy-Prime with CharacterDevelopment and delivering several {{Take That}}s. We'll see if this will be successful.
* UnfortunateImplications: Several fans, especially female fans, were known to have dropped this series with the third issue, thanks to that issue's death which was played disturbingly like a rape. This was not helped at all by a later tie-in issue in which a Black Lantern who had actually, canonically been a rapist in life was discovered ''eating'' the body of the issue 3 victim.

* CompleteMonster: WordOFGod says that Nekron is AboveGoodAndEvil, but after ''Blackest Night'', most fans are unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt and consider him this.

*** Seconded.

* TheWoobie: Osiris had it bad enough in ''FiftyTwo''. Now, not only is he the only Black Lantern to retain his humanity, but his sister and brother are dead. And everyone is afraid of him. And Sobek is murdering people just to get to him. The poor kid just [[HeroicSacrifice can't catch a break.]] Although in the end, [[spoiler:he is given a true second chance at life thanks to the White Rings]].

* MissedMomentOfAwesome: A confrontation between Mogo and Black Lantern Xanshi never happened.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: It looks like ''Adventure Comics'' tie-in is trying to do this with Superboy-Prime with CharacterDevelopment and delivering several {{Take That}}s (and {{lampshade}}s) to his {{Hatedom}}. We'll see if this will be successful.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Oh God, Atrocitus...
** ''Adventure Comics'' #5 managed to make [[CompleteMonster Superboy-Prime]] into one of these.

* CharacterDerailment: ''Very'' arguable, and depends almost entirely on your individual perception of exactly how good at emotional manipulation the Black Lanterns are, but some fans found Captain Boomerang Jr. [[spoiler:feeding innocent bystanders to his undead father in hopes of bringing him back, a la ''Hellraiser'']] a bit much.
** Considering Owen's being caught in the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor and being loyal to anyone who gives him the time of day, this is actually kinda fits the character in that he would be willing to do anything to get his father (with whom Owen actually had a very good, albeit short father-son relationship) back.

* IKnewIt: When the initial idea of the emotional spectrum was floated, with the Orange Ring belonging to "The greediest being in the universe," fans everywhere surmised "Lex Luthor". Then ''Agent Orange'' rolled around, and we met Larfleeze. Then came the end of issue #6.
** [[spoiler:Subverted when [[TwistEnding Sinestro]] became the first White Lantern. Played straight when Hal did it, too.]]
** [[spoiler:The two-page double spread in issue 8 has about a dozen of these, with Martian Manhunter and Aquaman taking center stage.]]

* TearJerker: Atrocitus kneeling in the dirt on a wasteland without life that was once his home planet.
--> '''Atrocitus''': "This is what you did, Ganthet! What your androids did, Sayd! The Manhunters came... They came and we did... We did nothing to deserve this... We... We did nothing..."
** Bizarro deciding to protect Francine Langstrom from Black Lantern Solomon Grundy because she reminded him of Lois. Also:
--> '''Bizarro''': (after destroying Black Lantern Solomon Grundy) "Hello. Solomon Grundy. Hello."
** When a Guardian is asked why he vowed to protect the Universe, his response: "I...I don't remember."
** When Kyle Rayner tries to calm down Red Lantern Guy Gardner, Guy mistakenly declares him to be a Black Lantern, then tries to ''squash his head between a hammer and anvil''.
** Kilowog, Green Lantern drill sergeant, is surrounded by the corpses of Lantern rookies he feels he failed to save. And then they start rising as Black Lanterns, taking off to attack the Central Power Battery.
--> '''Kilowog''': "Did you think YOU were special? That your names would never be enscribed in the Lantern crypt?!? You were all Lanterns! And Lanterns die... Lanterns die..."
** Assuming that it is still canon even though it wasn't drawn, the death of the Rainbow Raiders. Seven random losers who stole the equipment of deceased Flash rogue, Rainbow Raider, the team saw Blackest Night as a sign of the apocalypse and drink poisoned Kool-Aid, Jonestown-style. Being D-list villains, the Black Rings don't even bother to resurrect them since none of the Flashes even knew who they ''were'' and as such, have no attachment to them. Your opinion may vary as to whether this is also an example of BlackComedy.
** Okay, this isn't quite part of ''Blackest Night'' as it was of ''InfiniteCrisis'', but Booster Gold getting back in time to see himself attend Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)'s funeral and be unable to give an elegy to his buddy is pretty gutting.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Where to ''begin''...
** Let's start with the resurrection of a recently-killed DC character widely known as one of the nicest guys around. Zombie Ralph Dibny's first appearance occurs when he caves in Hawkman's skull with his own mace and taunts Hawkgirl with [[CatchPhrase "I smell a]] ''[[CatchPhrase mystery]]''". Chilling.
** In Blackest Night #4, Ray Palmer (the Atom) is trying to talk to Damage and Atom Smasher, who are related to the original [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] Atom (who all three are trying to fight). Just as Ray gets through to Damage about letting go of his past, Black Lantern Jean Loring rips out Damage's heart as it was filled with hope. I don't think we need to talk about what happened the [[IdentityCrisis last time Jean saw Ray]].
** Black Lantern Batman. And what he was used for... See Kick The Dog.
** For this Troper, Black Lantern Wonder Woman. Specifically, her lasso, which has turned into a garrote.
** Dunno how this managed to be avoided, but Black Lantern Firestorm turning Gehenna, the girlfriend of the current Firestorm, into table salt and tearing her heart out '''slooowwwwwly''' in the process. Oh, did I mention that the current Firestorm was bonded with BL Firestorm the whole while this was happening, and we got to see Gehenna's horror as she was turned into salt? For a CrisisCrossover filled with HighOctaneNightmareFuel, that moment has given [[{{Kryptik}} this troper]] nightmares...... Oh, did I mention that Black Lantern Dr. Light finds the salt pillared Gehenna and LICKS her, telling the [[DistaffCounterpart OTHER Dr. Light]] [[{{Squick}} just how she tastes??]] Yeah....
*** Even worse is that Black Lantern Firestorm didn't know the formula for salt and the current Firestorm couldn't help but give it to him?
*** Oh no, he knew. He just forced Jason to give it to him to torture him even more. It's one thing to kill the guy's girlfriend, but another to make him feel partially responsible for it.
** Black Lantern Ted Kord... just Black Lantern Ted Kord.
** Black Mask coming back as a Black Lantern in the Catwoman tie-in issue. He was already a CompleteMonster in life. In death, [[BeyondTheImpossible he's somehow even worse.]]