When Blackest Night Descended

Green Lantern Hal Jordan battles the undead scourge in "Blackest Night".

I'll admit that although I'm a Green Lantern fan I'm not nearly as familiar with the GL world as with Superman or Batman.  This is something I've been trying to change as of late and so I've been reading essential Green Lantern stories, the majority of which are written by DC superstar Geoff Johns.  These include Secret Origin, Rebirth and the Sinestro Corps War.  Recently I re-read the epic "Blackest Night" storyline now that I know more about Lantern mythology.  The scope of the book is pretty enormous, pulling in just about every element and character from each age of DC comics and spanning the multiverse as well.  For those not familiar with The Green Lantern Corps the basics are that billions of years ago, the immortal, self appointed Guardians of the Universe recruited thousands of beings across the universe into a galactic police force harnessing the green light of willpower to overcome fear and bring order to the universe.  The Green light was one of seven other colors that make up the emotional spectrum of life that all beings are part of.  It's said that in the beginning of things there was only darkness and then came the white light of creation and the resulting battle between the two split the light into the seven colors of the spectrum, each embodying a particular emotion.  The Green Lanterns were the first Corps, drawing their power from the Central battery on the planet Oa, where the Guardians reside.  Soon other Corps sprang up, each harnessing the power of the other colors of the spectrum: the Sinestro Corps, led by former Green Lantern Sinestro and wielding the yellow light of fear, the avaricious Orange Lanterns, the hopeful Blue Lantern Corps lead by former Guardians Ganthet and Sayd, the enraged Red Lanterns led by Atrocitus, the fiercely passionate Star sapphires, and the mysterious Indigo tribe. 
Once we get to "Blackest Night", a war of light between these Corps has erupted across the universe, but on the planet Ryut, a black lantern battery grows around the corpse of the Anti-Monitor, a being who once tried to destroy the multiverse.  From this, the first of the Black Lantern's, a being known as The Black Hand rises from his grave and black rings spread out across the universe, summoning the dead from their graves to extinguish all life.  Thus begins Blackest Night, as predicted by Hal Jordan's predecessor Abin Sur before his death.  Not surprisingly, most of the story revolves around the concept of death and since most of the heroes, including Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, and most recently The Flash have all died at least once and been resurrected, death is a very present reality.  When the story begins Hal and the Flash, just recently resurrected after being lost to the speed force, are standing in front of Bruce Wayne's grave after he was supposedly killed by Darkseid's Omega beams.  Of course, years before Superman was also killed and brought back after fighting Doomsday and Wonder Woman was murdered by a demon and came back.  In the DC universe, death and rebirth are just regular days at the office.

Hal also experienced death and rebirth when he was infected by the entity Parallax, the living embodiment of the yellow light of fear, who fed off the fear Jordan felt after his hometown of Coast City was destroyed.  Fueled by fear, Jordan nearly destroyed the Corps, killed fellow lanterns and all the Guardians except for Ganthet and tried to rewrite history to prevent Coast City's obliteration.  After sacrificing himself to reignite the sun, he was brought back in Green Lantern: Rebirth.  In "Blackest Night" we see the sheer amount of heroes in this universe and others, who have died in battle.  Soon all over the universe, the dead are rising, among them former heroes seeking to kill those closest to them and recruit them into the Black Lantern Corps.  Among them are Martian Manhunter who died battling Darkseid and was buried on Mars, Arthur Curry a.k.a Aquaman, who rises from his grave on land and attacks his wife Mera and some characters such as Hawkman, Hawkgirl and The Atom with whom I was less familiar and therefore didn't know the full details surrounding those deceased who come after them.  Both Hawkman and girl are killed by resurrected versions of Elongated Man and a woman named Sue Dibney and then proceed to attack their friend The Atom.  The stronger the emotional connection to the deceased, the more susceptible the person is to attack.  Even the Guardians, the eternally icy founders of the Green Lantern Corps, become susceptible to the Black scourge.  Many epic battles ensue as Hal Jordan and The Flash along with other heroes fight off wave after wave of reanimated corpses.   
To make matters worse, Black Hand is able to summon a reaper like being called Nekron who is tethered to the Black Lantern battery which has been teleported to Coast City. Upon rising, Nekron first resurrects all the dead residents of Coast City then resurrects Batman from his grave (although it's not really his body but a clone), thus establishing an emotional connection strong enough to revert Superman and Wonder Woman back to a death-like state and turn them into Black Lanterns.  Hal and Flash are able to outrun the black rings hunting them down and severe the connection only to be attacked by Superman and Wonder Woman.     
In order to battle the merciless onslaught of these zombie hordes, Hal calls upon the leaders of the other six corps to put aside their differences and combine their light to overpower the Black Lantern power battery.  Even with the combined light of Hal and the other Corp leaders, it isn't enough on it's own.  Instead they need the combined light of beings from all over the universe and therefore send out rings to recruit more beings.  The Flash Barry Allen becomes a Blue Lantern because of his great hope while Aquaman's wife Mera is a Red because of her anger.  We see The Scarecrow recruited into Sinestro Corps because of his power to instill fear in others while Lex Luthor is recruited in the Orange Lanterns because of his lust for power.  Soon an army of Lanterns, including fellow Greenies Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner, arrive and attack the Black Lantern Battery in order to shut down the connection.  It is then when Nekron murders one of the Guardians and summons The Entity, a being of living light responsible for all life in the universe, with the intention of killing it.  At this point we learn how the Guardians of the Universe lied about the origin of the Entity, claiming it originated on Oa when it really originated on Earth.  Page after page, the action simply intensifies as more and more Lanterns clash and finally combine their light to reproduce the white light of creation and bring all the dead back to life including Black Hand, severing Nekron's connection to the living world and ultimately destroying the Black power battery.      
For hardcore Green Lantern fans "Blackest Night" is about as epic and intense as it gets.  Existence itself it threatened across the universe, putting just about every living being directly in the crossfire.  The detailed history of the Corps and it's relation to the origins of the Universe is pretty damn fascinating.  When "Blackest Night" was going on I remember people talking about it like the Comic event of the century and it's easy to see why.  Geoff Johns really pulls out all the stops and pulls in just about every character from every corner of the DC world.  "Blackest Night" is a tour de force epic that any true Comic book fan can't afford to miss.