Following the lead in Scott Snyder’s current run on Batman, DC Comics has posted a graphic containing all of the titles that will be participating in the Batman crossover event Night of the Owls.

Night of the Owls started this week with a prelude in Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows’ Nightwing #8 which kickstarted the first issue in the crossover event, Batman #8 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. The concept of the mini-event is that Gotham City has a sordid past that even Bruce Wayne was unaware of. The Court of Owls, an evil group of assassins, has been controlling the fate of Gotham the entire time. There’s much more to the story including Dick Grayson’s lineage and an all out assault against the Wayne family and other leaders of Gotham City. It’s a war of Bats vs. Owls when most of the Bat-family is called upon to participate.

Blackest Night #8
Writer: Geoff Johns
Penciller: Ivan Reis
Inker: Oclair Albert & Joe Prado
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Nick J Napolitano
DC Comics
Price: $3.99
Released: March 31, 2010

Well, Blackest Night has finally reached its conclusion, and it’s been a fun ride. Issue #8 is the final issue of the series, so of course we get the big battle, the resolution, and the set up for the next batch of stories.

Was the story as a whole a success? Yes, very much so. A multitude of great character moments: the joy of the Flash as a Blue Lantern; the next great buddy comedy comic in Larfleeze/Lex Luthor: The Orange Couple; Kyle Rayner and the ghosts of dead girlfriends past; and any ton of other things I can’t think of off the top of my head.

I did have some problems with the series as a whole, namely that it did go on for a bit too long (I think it could have stood to be 6 issues instead of 8) and I never felt like I got a good handle on Nekron as the main villain. I wish more time had been spent setting him up and explaining who he is rather than just trotting him out and saying he wants to kill everything. Maybe I need to read the whole story again to get a better feel for his story.