Blackest Night Theories and Speculation

To me a part of the fun of being a comics fan during events like Blackest Night is speculating on the mysteries and potentials surprises and then seeing if you guessed right. And personally I love being wrong when a writer goes in a different direction than I'm thinking and presents story elements that I never considered - and blows me away with it. 

Image via Wikipedia

For example, on the Raging Bullets podcast I recently talked with the co-hosts, Sean Whelan and Jim Segulin, that when Kyle Rayner died back in Green Lantern Corps number 42 we speculated that Kyle wouldn't stay dead and maybe bring reinforcements from Nekron's dimension.  While we were right in that Kyle wouldn't stay dead, he certainly didn't visit the Realm of the Dead.

So with Blackest Night hitting the last two issues and number seven on the immediate horizon I thought maybe I'd put some of my hunches out there to share with people.  So if you're sensitive to spoilers you may want to look away, although I assure you I have no inside information and haven't seen issue seven yet - so my thoughts are not based on any knowledge of what's to come and represents my GL fanboy speculation.

The biggest thing I've been thinking about is the "Guardians Great Lie" that Black Hand has alluded to.  And I've been under the impression that Nekron's origin is not exactly the great lie that death sentinel was referring to.  I think there's a revelation yet to come that will really make us think about the Guardians' methodology and question the decisions they've been making even more.

A while back Geoff Johns made the comment that the light spectrum split when the first living being used willpower to move under its own power.  He's also made it sound as though this is the second war of light.  I've also been considering the original "Tales of the Green Lantern" miniseries where Nekron first appeared and how he had no knowledge of our dimension until an immortal Maltusan, Krona, was killed by the Guardians and passed through the Realm of the Dead.

Image via Wikipedia

The contradiction to me is that if there were a war of light prior to the aforementioned story, then Nekron should have known of our dimension from the start.  So did the Guardians banish Nekron to the Realm of the Dead and somehow managed to mind-wipe him?  Or are the Guardians only immortal because they made a deal with Nekron and created the Realm of the Dead for him to rule in exchange for him granting them immortality - and then they reneged on the deal?  Certainly a far less altruistic origin for the Guardians than what they have told us.

My other theory has to do with the thought that the first being who shattered the white light was Ion, and that the entities for each emotion sprung forth from a common source, a white being who fractured when it conjured the will to move against Nekron.  The fractured entities fought against Nekron and defeated him.  The Guardians later manipulated things to keep the entities out of the reach of other beings to ensure that they would be able to control the destiny of the universe.

Furthermore my hunch is that this first war of light took place on Earth and that Earth, for all the disdain the Guardians and other species have for it, is so primitive and ruled by emotions because that is the birthplace of the emotional spectrum.  And this is why the Guardians allowed four Earthmen to be Green Lanterns in order to protect Earth and prevent the Guardians' manipulations from coming to light.

I think that the entities are being pulled back to reform the white entity, explaining why we haven't seen Ion or the Predator for months - and why Parallax was yanked away by an unseen force in Green Lantern 51.  I think we're going to see the white entity and he/she/it will be choosing a herald, the dreaded White Lantern that many fans have hoped we wouldn't see since it does seem like it's from a Saturday Morning cartoon.

The Great White Hope?  Image via Wikipedia

Contrary to the popular notion that Hal Jordan will be that White Lantern, I think it will be someone else entirely because Hal is pure willpower, and even though he has proven capable of wielding several of the rings I think that he's already the poster boy for willpower.  I think that the white being will be looking for someone who knows about order, even when that order calls for choices that some might think are wrong.  I'm thinking order is the driving forces based on Dove's ability to destroy the Black Lanterns with a touch and display a white aura.  

And who better to redeem himself than the guy who's sense of creating order drove him to cross the line, the White Lantern to be....Sinestro.  As much as the return of the Green Lantern mythos was a focus of everything Johns has done since Green Lantern: Rebirth, it's also been about the rise and fall and redemption of Sinestro.  If I'm guessing right I don't know what that will mean for Sinestro once the dust from Blackest Night settles.

And maybe I'll be wrong on all accounts - but it's fun to think of the possibilities.

Posted in: Blackest Night, Geoff Johns, Hal Jordan, Nekron, Opinions, Sinestro