by Karl Kesel, Ron Marz,
Stuart Immonen (Illustrator), Mike McKone (Illustrator)
Publisher : DC Comics
(March 1, 1998)
Softcover, 144 pages
This was one of those
major events which ran rampant throughout DC and Marvel. Every year it seemed
some new event swept across all the various series, meaning that at least one -
if not two - issues of your favorite comic was interrupted by some overarching
plot which you may or (more likely) may not care about. The collection of The Final Night series contains only the
original series without the cross-over issues. As such the focus from issue to
issue is a little haphazard, shifting this way than that
Unlike other crossover
events published by DC, the conflict of The
Final Night did not revolve around a conventional villain. It was primarily
a story of survival that focused on the main characters performing disaster
response, while attempting to prevent impending mass extinction of all life on
Earth. At the end of each issue was an in-story website feature written by
S.T.A.R. Labs, giving information updates and emergency support to residents of
the DC Universe as the crisis progressed.
There is quite a lot of
background needed to understand this book. Superman's enemies destroyed his
home city, driving Hal insane and causing him to destroy the Green Lantern
Corps, giving up his role as Green Lantern and becoming the nigh-omnipotent
Parallax in the process. In a few years, Hal went from being an iconic hero to
a murderous villain. Hal Jordan, the
Silver Age Green Lantern, suddenly went nuts and destroyed the Green Lantern
Corps and seemingly half the universe in Emerald
Twilight. Jordan turned up as the master villain behind Extant in Zero Hour. With Final Night, this cycle comes to a merciful close.
Basically this book was
the attempt to redeem Hal Jordan while giving him a swan song. The plot is
weird but basically revolves around an old Legion of Super-Heroes villain
called the Sun Eater coming to devour Earth’s sun. The world is saved in the
end, of course, and by an unlikely hero.
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst
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