Who Is Nekron?

If you’re reading this, you’re on the Internet, and if you’re on the Internet, you probably know by now that NEKRON is the evil force behind Blackest Night. Unless you are a complete comics obsessive like me, your response to this news was most likely “Wha? Huh? Who Nekron?!?”

Nekron is an old Green Lantern foe dating back to one of DC’s very earliest mini-series, Tales of the Green Lantern Corps (1981). It was actually one of the earliest DC series I ever read, though long since lost from my collection. Nekron rules the Realm of the Dead, a nebulously-defined region of cosmic real-estate that’s not quite Limbo, not quite Purgatory, where the souls of the dead await passage to either Heaven or Hell. Nekron was content enough to lord over the spirits in waiting until Krona arrived, opening a rift to the universe of the living. Krona was an immortal, so when he “died”, the paradox ripped open the wall between Nekron’s grim domain and the living universe:

Scans from Green Lantern Annual #7 by Steve Vance and Ron Lim

Peeking through the rift, Nekron decided he wanted some of that action, and sent Krona and an army of dead Green lanterns to kill the Guardians of the Universe and widen the rift to allow his escape. Hal Jordan and the living lanterns managed to beat back the invasion, but Nekron hasn’t been the same since. His appearances since then have been variations on the same “raise the dead to invade the living world” trick, and it seems that Blackest Night is his biggest, most ambitious plot yet.

The revolving-door nature of death in the DC Universe is itself a major theme of Blackest Night, so I suspect that Nekron’s ambitions are going to end up being the reason for that instability. We don’t know how or why he was made ruler of the afterlife, but for a time, he was only one aspect of death in the DCU. As told in some Captain Atom comics I last read 17 years ago and in Nekron’s Wikipedia entry:

“Captain Atom has a run-in with Nekron in the pages of Captain Atom #42 and #43 (June-July 1990), in which he is described as "Death as the Ultimate Opponent." Black Racer, also making an appearance, is coined "Death as an Inevitability," while Death (prominently known from her appearances in Vertigo titles) represents "Death as the Release, as Mercy, as Compassion."

Death and the Black Racer are both out of the picture these days, with Vertigo characters famously off-limits to the DCU and the New Gods characters having been exported to an alternate Earth, so that may leave Nekron as “the” Limbo/Purgatory gatekeeper. We can probably assume, then, that Nekron has a purpose; to process and usher dead souls into the afterlife. It appears he’s been hoarding the souls of the dead heroes and villains all these years, planning Blackest Night, and as a result, it’s been much easier for dead souls to come and go. If so, Nekron is a cosmic-level slacker who hasn’t been doing his job at all. Like a disgruntled worker surfing "Monster.com" on company time, Nekron spends all of his time scheming to conquer the realm of the living, while letting his “IN” box fill up. I don’t know if he’s been doing the same piss-poor job with civilians, but all signs point to “Yes" at least as far as deceased supporting cast members are concerned.

This idea even fits in pretty well with publishing history, since the majority of Black Lanterns we’ve seen died after Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, which lines up approximately with Nekron’s debut (and discovery of the living realm) in 1981. In other words, so far, we haven’t seen any Black Lanterns who died before Nekron got ambitious and started paying attention.

Meta, isn’t it?

If so, his defeat (we assume!) at the end of Blackest Night could lead to a sacking and change of management in Limbo. Maybe the Spectre will get the job. Presumably, that would also lead to a slate of redemptive resurrections and/or passages to the afterlife. I could see a mass resurrection, with a few characters electing to go to their final reward peacefully, knowing that they will pass forever. I always enjoy seeing obscure characters get dug up and dusted off, and I actually have read all of his previous appearances, so I’m interested to see Nekron’s big push after all these years. Whatever happens, the metaphysical implications are pretty staggering for the DCU, and should make for good reading.

Ghosts of Blackest Night in the 30th Century!

DC's latest epic crossover, Blackest Night has been pretty good so far, though the second issue seemed featherlight compared to the first, and told us nothing we didn't already know. Except, of course, that we've already been here. A couple of times.


In 1998, DC's JLA annuals were haunted by "GHOSTS", as the various JLA'ers were haunted by the dead from their pasts. (Note that by now, many of those "dead" have since returned.) I don't have most of these, but if the Green Lantern, Flash, and JLA Annuals I do have are any indication, it looks like the Bernie Wrightson covers were the best things about 'em.


Ignore that innacurate-but-excellent cover; Flash Annual #7 saw the Flash, haunted by the flickering, barely coherent speed force ghost of Johnny Quick. He finally has a heartwarming ghost-hug with Jessie Quick, but no point does Johnny become a zombie and attack Flash.



Green Lantern Annual#7 is a different story however, as Kyle Rayner finds himself meeting his fellow Green Lanterns for the first time, as hideous, undead revenants! You'll recall that in 1998, the Green Lantern Corps were still dead, Mogo was destroyed, and the Corps disbanded, leaving Kyle Rayner the sole Green Lantern. Nekron shows up, taking advantage of the supernatural forces behind the larger "Ghosts" storyline to elbow his way back into our universe, and sics the Lantern Corpses on Kyle, before being subdued. We'll be talking more about that guy soon.

No, the true force behind the haunting in the Annuals is revealed in JLA Annual #2. It turns out Felix Faust, in one of his many bids for immortality has awakened an ancient Egyptian wizard, Hermes Trismegistus, and angered him enough to cause all this mess with the ghosts.

All of this, indeed, all events in the story so far, is of secondary importance to the GHOST OF VIBE:

Yes, Paco Ramone returns, looking for his former team mate, Aquaman. The Ghost of Vibe is accompanied by eerie strains of old school electro Break dance music wherever he goes, and soon Ice, Steel, and other dead JLA members re-emerge as well. At the end, Vibe leads them to dog-pile on the evil-wizard-possessed Faust:





Five years earlier, in the 30th century, The Legion of Superheroes 43-48 (1993) saw a multi-issue saga that had the 30th century heroes caught in a struggle between Mordru and the White Witch. Mordru raised an army of the undead, among whom were such dead Earth heroes as Vigilante, the Justice Society, and Jason Todd:


As if that weren't bad enough, the Legion had racked up quite a body count by this time in this continuity, so eventually, all of the dead Legionaries showed up for a Live Legion versus Dead Legion showdown:



So yeah, DC has done the "Undead Heroes return" thing before, albeit never on the Scale of Blackest Night. It remains to be seen how Blackest Night turns out, but lets hope we at least get Black Lantern Vibe out of it, before we're through.








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Blackest Night Thoughts

Blackest Night has been years in the making, and looks like it might actually pay off. Issue #1 was good, creepy stuff. The panel where Green Lantern rings up all of the DC Universe dead, shown below really points out how casual DC's disposal of their superheroes has been over the last 25 years or so. That's not even counting what I'm sure is easily three times as many villains, and countless supporting cast. The ending was quite distressing, but effectively so. I wasn't really expecting much from this, but the first issue was a good start.


The question remains; Will they use this as an excuse to resurrect a bunch of characters? Any of these guys? All of them?

An important point: These zombies aren't zombies. Zombies have a whole set of rules that Black Lantern Ralph and Sue Dibny weren't following. These Black Ring entities are possessing the bodies, manipulating the bodies, and mimicking the former occupants, all the better to be evil, but they aren't zombies.

It's okay, kids, that's not Golden Age Superman ripping out Krypto's heart, that's some...thing using Golden Age Superman's body like a sock puppet!



For awhile there, Neil Gaiman's Death was the personification of Death in the DCU, but that hasn't been the case in some time. I think they've also tried to suggest that the Black Racer "was" Death, but that never really stuck either, and regardless, he's off the table now too. The fact that there's really nobody to usher the dead into the afterlife these days may play a part thematically in Blackest Night.

I will be very disappointed without an appearance by Driq of Criq. Driq was the (ahem) short-lived zombie Green Lantern introduced in Green Lantern #217. Driq was great, by the way, a Green Lantern so learned and valuable that his ring wouldn't let him go after he died.