Normally I’m impervious to these superhero events, but I guess all you have to do is look at the percentage of comics thus far that have turned out to be Blackest Night tie-ins on here. Page by page, namely in the Arisia Rrab sequence, the art did stutter a bit, but as a whole, this was one long Gatling of explosions and punches that still manages to slip a story into the margins.
There was a really fulfilling crescendo, too, leading up to Kilowag’s big moment, and I did appreciate the cliffhanger, even if it didn’t come at the end. Actually, this issue would have been fundamentally more effective for me if it had ended with the [edited for spoilers] moment, rather than the (spoiler you don’t and shouldn’t care about) Indigo Tribe entrance at the end. The Indigo Tribe are not endearing themselves with me at this point, and they’re easily the weakest link in a mostly well executed event right now.
The really well time historical confrontations between deceased and former Lanterns has been one of the highlights for me in these books and deserves to be called out as well. It’s one of the great features you get when you let a writer like Johns drive a crossover event, and it’s been paying out in spades thus far. I know I pointed this out before, but given the the ambiguity in what the Black Lanterns really are, it’s still questionable whether any of these confrontations will have any lasting impact — as my impression right now is that they’re basically just vocalizing whatever fears, paranoias, or insecurities they’re target is feeling in any given fight. That significantly mutes the impact of these scenes, but nonetheless it does make for good reading in the moment.