The new Green Lantern event "Blackest Night" hits shelves this week, and with the promise that "the dead will rise," there's a lot of speculation going around over just which characters are going to be resurrected by the Black Hand to join his corps of corpses.

Things are getting a little complicated -- partially owing to the fact that in comics, dead characters don't really tend to stay dead anyway -- but don't worry: ComicsAlliance and Chris Sims are here to give you the edge in your local comic shop's betting pool as we present the odds-on favorites (and the long shots) for who's going to rise from the grave this summer!

Driq


If ever there were a character tailor-made for "Blackest Night," it's Driq, a Green Lantern whose willpower was so great that he used his ring to pull his body back together after he died and kept on fighting. That's right, folks; There's been a zombie Green Lantern in the DC Universe for the past 22 years. The only question is whether anybody actually remembers him.

Odds: 12 to 1

Ralph and Sue Dibny


Ralph and Sue Dibny were among the dead characters mentioned by the Black Hand in "Blackest Night" #0 as candidates for his army, but we're really hoping that's not the case, as the idea of a rotten corpse that stretches like elastic is one of the grossest things we've ever thought of. Still, judging by the fact that the event's covers include both necrophilia and the hilariously gruesome shot of the Psycho Pirate with a fist-sized hole in his head, that's probably not going to be a problem.

Odds: 2 to 1


KGBeast


Not only does The KGBeast have one of the best names in comics, he's also so hardcore that when he was holding an axe in one hand and dangling one of Batman's ropes with the other, he cut off his own hand to make his escape, presumably because cutting the rope would've been for lesser men. Unfortunately, his legendary toughness didn't save him from being shot in the head during the "Face the Face" story arc, but since you can spot him on the cover to "Blackest Night: Batman" #2, it looks like the Beast'll be making a comeback as the OSNAZombie!

Odds: 1 to 1


Orca the Whale Woman


On the flip-side of the coin, we have Orca the Whale Woman. Like KGBeast and Magpie, she was taken out during "Face the Face," but unlike those two, she doesn't appear on the aforementioned cover, and we're pretty sure that we'd notice. We suspect that she'll continue resting in peace, but hey, there's a chance that the Black Lantern Corps could use someone with her special powers of swimming, marine biology and appealing to an extremely narrow fetish market -- the idea of a Killer Zombie/Killer Whale hybrid might just be too high concept to pass up.

Odds: 10 to 1


Vibe


Vibe, the breakdancing ex-gangster that managed to stand out as a terrible super-hero even when compared to the rest of the Detroit Justice League, is one of the few characters that nobody's ever made a serious attempt at bringing back. There have, however, been a couple of attempts by villains to revive him for sinister purposes, so could "Blackest Night" be the third time charm? Probably not, but hey: If they'll bring back Aquagirl, who knows?

Odds: 30 to 1


Enemy Ace


DC's War Comics would seem to be a great source for "Blackest Night" to draw from, because really, we'd read the heck out of a book about Black Lantern Sgt. Rock leading a zombified Easy Company that could only be stopped by the Haunted Tank where EVERY crewman was a ghost (seriously, DC, call us). We're really holding out hope for Enemy Ace though, just so we can see if they stop him by giving a Green Lantern ring to a character with a real grudge to settle against a World War I flying ace: Charlie Brown's dog Snoopy.

Odds: 20 to 1
Pantha


Pantha, like all teenage cat-girl super-heroes, had a loyal fan-base on the Internet that was pretty outraged when she was brutally decapitated in the pages of "Infinite Crisis." According to Wikipedia, she will be returning as a Black Lantern, and we're excited. Not that we're huge fans; we just want to see if she uses her ring to carry her severed head around in a floating force bubble.

Odds: 1 to 1


Ferro Lad


Taking a page out of the "DC One Million" playbook -- a "Legion of Super-Heroes" tie-in set a thousand years after the far-future setting of the rest of the crossover -- we wouldn't mind a story where Ferro Lad got the last surviving Black Lantern ring in the 31st century and uses it resurrect all the Legionnaires that have fallen in the line of duty. Zombie Karate Kid! Undead Proty! A 33% Resurrected Triplicate Girl! It's the perfect tie-in... now if only there was a "Legion of Super-Heroes" book it could be in.

Odds: 8 to 1


Azrael


In the buzz surrounding "Blackest Night" #0, there was a lot of talk about the Black Hand mentioning Bruce Wayne as one of his possible resurrections, which would be a neat trick since, as the last few pages of "Final Crisis" reveal, he's not actually dead. There is, however, a dead character that made his entire career out of being a second-rate Batman: Azrael!

Odds: 4 to 1


Grant Morrison


As to who would be the greatest Black Lantern of them all, there's only one answer: Grant Morrison. Most fans know that Morrison wrote himself into his final "Animal Man" story, but it's less well-known that writer John Ostrander, determining that Morrison was now part of Official DC Continuity, brought him back as "The Writer" in a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek issue of "Suicide Squad" that saw Morrison promptly killed by -- what else? -- writer's block.

Odds: 100 to 1