I was less than impressed with Brightest Day #0. I still think that it was pointless to resurrect many of the twelve characters that are starring in the Brightest Day titles. Brightest Day #0 did not change my mind at all with its incredibly slow and dull story. Having said that, I am going to keep an open mind since I usually like Johns’ work and I definitely have been a fan of Tomasi’s work. Hopefully, these two writers can win me over with Brightest Day #1. Let’s hit this review for Brightest Day #1.
Creative Team
Writers: Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi
Pencils: Ivan Reis, Pat Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark and Joe Prado
Inks: Vicente Cifuentes, Mark Irwin, Oclair Albert and David Beaty
Colors: Peter Steigerwald
Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 6.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: We begin with Hal, Carol and Sinestro arriving at the crater where the white lantern is located. Some local law enforcement officers instinctively begin shooting at Sinestro. Hal prevents Sinestro from using his power ring to crush the police officers. Sinestro spits that the cops could show him appreciation after Sinestro just helped to save Earth.
Hal says that just because they have a truce does not mean that Sinestro is welcome on Earth. Sinestro says that he would have left Earth along with his Corps if the White Lantern was not here on Earth. Sinestro explains that the white entity dispersed into the air after it resurrected the twelve heroes and villains. The white entity then evolved and reformed into the white lantern.
Sinestro then admits that he could not lift the white lantern. Sinestro tells Hal to try and pick up the white lantern. Hal reaches down and strains to pick up the white lantern. Hal cannot pick it up. Hal says that maybe the white lantern is like the sword in the stone. The question is who is the “King Arthur” who can pick up the white lantern.
We shift to Deadman teleporting onto a ship in the middle of the ocean. Deadman wonders why the white power ring has made him invisible to everyone. Deadman wonders why the white power ring keeps transporting him from place to place. Deadman wonders what the white power ring wants from him.
We then see that Deadman is on a ship full of Somali pirates. The pirates have kidnapped a bunch of European kids from a cruise ship. One of the Somali pirates is about to rape one of the little girls. Deadman tries to do something to stop the pirate, but his white power ring will not let him. Suddenly, Aquaman and Mera burst out of the water and attack the pirates.
The pirates shoot at Aquaman and Mera. The bullets bounce off of Aquaman and Mera. Aquaman throws his trident and nails the would-be rapist pirate against the wall of the ship. Mera uses her water powers to take out another pirate. A second pirate ship arrives to help out their fellow pirates. Aquaman then uses his telepathy to summon a massive giant squid which attacks a second pirate ship. The giant squid then destroys the pirate ship and kills the pirates.
Aquaman tries to use his telepathy to stop the giant squid, but it doesn’t work. Mera and Aquaman note that the giant squid is dead. Suddenly, a dead shark jumps out of the water and eats one of the pirates that was about to shoot at Aquaman. Aquaman and Mera looked stunned. Deadman wonders why Aquaman is only summoning dead sea creatures like when Aquaman was a Black Lantern. Deadman wonders if he is supposed to stop Aquaman.
We cut to a fish market where we see Black Manta in his civilian clothes. Black Manta is working at the market and is gutting a fish. The news report on the television near him talks about the triumphant return of Aquaman and how he saved the children from the Somali pirates.
One of the three customers comments how great it is that Aquaman is back. Black Manta says nothing, but gets an angry look in his eyes. Black Manta then kills the three customers in the fish market with the knife that he was using to gut the fish.
We zip over to Firestorm arriving at Dr. Stein’s lab. Ronnie talks about how being Firestorm is overrated. That it was cool and first, but then it got worse and worse. Ronnie says that Jason can have Firestorm all to himself. That Ronnie just wants to hang out with his friends. Jason replies that he just wants to hang out with this girlfriend.
Ronnie and Jason try and separate themselves from each other. Firestorm starts to split into the two boys and then they snap back together into Firestorm again. Firestorm then asks Professor Stein why they cannot separate from each other. We see the Atom (Ray Palmer) and Professor Stein in Stein’s lab. Stein says that he cannot help Firestorm. The Atom says that they have bad news for Firestorm.
We shift to the Northern polar cap of Mars. We see J’onn carrying a huge glacier to a clearing. J’onn uses his heat vision and melts the glacier into a lake. J’onn then sees that a small plant is beginning to sprout from the Martian soil. J’onn is pleased that life is beginning once again.
Suddenly, J’onn grabs his head in pain. We see half of him turn into Black Lantern J’onn. J’onn has a vision of him choking Professor Erdel. There is a female scientist on the floor of the lab. J’onn recovers from the vision and says that it never happened. That he never choked Erdel. Also, that Erdel was alone when he mistakenly transported J’onn to Earth.
J’onn says for the psychic flash to breach his mind meant that it was directed solely at him. J’onn flies toward Earth and says that he must find this woman.
We shift to high above the Peruvian Andes where Hawkman and Hawkgirl encounter the team of explorers who have recovered the original bodies of Hawkman and Hawkgirl (Prince Khufu and Princess Chay-ara). The Hawks start beating up the explorers. During the brawl, the one explorer with the two bodies manages to get teleported away from the scene.
We then shift to deep in the Peruvian Amazon and see Hath-Set holding the original bodies of Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
We slide over to Black Manta setting his cottage next to the water on fire. Black Manta then walks into the ocean. We then see Black Manta in full costume blasting back out of the ocean. Black Manta yells “Aquaman!” End of issue.
Comments
The Good: Brightest Day #1 was a solid issue. It was certainly an improvement over Brightest Day #0. Johns and Tomasi deliver a solidly constructed issue. The pacing was well done. The reader is presented with a pleasant balance between action and drama in this issue. The action scenes are well timed to keep the issue lively.
Johns and Tomasi waste no time in delivering the challenges that lie ahead for each of the heroes in this title. This nicely cues the reader into what journeys we can expect for each of the heroes.
Brightest Day #0 was well plotted. This issue moves with a purpose and clear direction in mind. I expect nothing less from a story written by Johns and Tomasi. Both writers are excellent plotters and fully understand how to manage and evolve multiple short range and long range plotlines. Brightest Day may suffer from numerous defects, but plotting is not going to be one of them. There is clearly a well thought out and planned purpose for this title.
The reader learns a bit more about how the white lantern was formed. It also nicely explains what happened to the white entity after it resurrected the twelve characters in Blackest Night #8. Personally, I hope that Deadman is not the “King Arthur” who will be able to lift the white lantern. It is way too blatantly obvious of a choice. Hopefully, Johns and Tomasi have a swerve in store for us.
My favorite part of Brightest Day #1 was the scene starring Aquaman and Mera. Now, I openly admit that I am a fan of Aquaman and Johns completely won me over as a fan of Mera due to his excellent handling of her during Blackest Night. Having said that, the writers certainly have their work cut out for them trying to make Aquaman a relevant and viable character in the modern DCU. This has been a hard takes to achieve in the past.
I thought that Johns and Tomasi did a great job impressing upon the reader that Aquaman is indeed a heavy hitter. We get to see bullets bouncing off Aquaman showing off his strength and toughness. Then Johns and Tomasi have Aquaman summon a giant squid that destroys an entire ship and then a shark that eats one of the pirates. Both moments were fantastic.
These two moments prove that Aquaman’s telepathy allows him to do more than just “talk to fish.” The ocean is full of incredibly dangerous creatures and being able to command them makes Aquaman a serious force to be reckoned with when near the water.
This is one thing that Johns has really picked up on during Blackest Night and has carried through to this issue. Aquaman’s telepathy should be played up and used in creative manners such as what we saw in this issue.
I liked the twist of Aquaman only summoning dead sea creatures just like he did when he was a Black Lantern. This continues the theme of Aquaman seeing the Black Lantern version of himself in the reflection of the water in Brightest Day #0.
Clearly, Aquaman is not back to “normal” since being resurrected. It does not seem that the white light was able to cleanse Aquaman completely of the infection of the black power ring. I am definitely curious to see where Johns and Tomasi go with this plot twist.
The plotline involving the Hawks was solid. It is clear that Johns and Tomasi want to do their best to clean up the Hawks’ messy continuity and to possibly free them from the prophecy of Hath-Set that has cursed them throughout history.
Of course, the appearance of Hath-Set sure seems to be an obvious clue that this is indeed the direction that the writers are going with the Hawks. If nothing else, the Hawks always provide the reader with quality action as they know how to kick-ass better than most characters.
Johns and Tomasi are doing a nice job with the chemistry between Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Personally, I am just thrilled at seeing these two characters back together and better than ever. It has been a long time since we have gotten the classic Hawkman and Hawkgirl team. This is definitely a good direction to go with these two characters and I am looking forward to seeing them firmly re-established in the DCU.
Johns and Tomasi spend some time trying to re-establish Black Manta as a viable and serious villain. It makes sense that if the writers are going to try and re-establish Aquaman in the modern DCU that they will also have to try and re-establish Aquaman’s main nemesis. Black Manta is a character that has never appealed to me at all. However, maybe Johns and Tomasi can succeed in finally selling me on Black Manta.
Black Manta is presented as a standard violent psycho. I found the scene where Black Manta kills the customers to be a fairly generic move to “shock” the reader and to cheaply and quickly establish that Black Manta is a psychopathic killer.
What I did like is that Black Manta says absolutely nothing until the final page where he says the one word “Aquaman.” I liked the scene where Black Manta silently burns down his beach cottage and then walks into the ocean. The lack of any narration gave that scene so much more impact on the reader. Of course, I will admit that this was dampened a bit by the cheesy shot of Black Manta jumping out of the ocean like a porpoise to end the issue.
For artwork by committee, Brightest Day #1 is actually pretty good looking. The massive amount of artists cobbled together to do just one issue is borderline ludicrous, but the fact that the art changes with each character’s plotline makes the contrasting styles a bit less schizophrenic. Luckily, Ivan Reis, Pat Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, Joe Prado, Vicente Cifuentes, Mark Irwin, Oclair Albert and David Beaty are all excellent artists so I did mind the artwork by committee as much as I usually do. I found the artwork in the Green Lantern, Aquaman and Hawks scenes to be the best.
The Bad: Johns and Tomasi deliver some average character work in this issue. None of the characters are particularly fleshed out. Of course, juggling such a large roster of characters makes it difficult for the writers to spend the proper amount of time truly nurturing and evolving the personalities of these various characters.
The dialogue is also average. It is nothing spectacular, but it gets the job done in a workman like fashion. Most of the characters dutifully deliver their lines in a fashion that neither pulls the reader into the story nor jerks the reader out of the story. By far and away, the best dialogue was in the opening scene with the excellent banter between Hal and Sinestro.
I still find Deadman to be rather boring. I cannot shake the feeling that I am simply getting an updated version of the Pariah from Crisis on Infinite Earths with Deadman in Brightest Day. The scene involving Deadman in this issue was just a re-hash of what we already got in Brightest Day #0. Deadman’s narration was repetitious and simply more of what we already got in Brightest Day #0. Johns and Tomasi have completely failed to make Deadman even remotely interesting at this point.
Johns and Tomasi failed to hook me with the plotline involving Martian Manhunter. That is a shame and a surprise since I am a big fan of Martian Manhunter and really want to enjoy his storyline. However, the fact is that I have zero interest at all in the plotline surrounding J’onn trying to repopulate Mars. This seems way too much like what we already got with Krypton being brought back. Personally, I like the fact that there is just J’onn and that he is the last of his people. It makes his character more interesting.
The teaser of the psychic flash did nothing at all for me. The only remotely interesting aspect of that plotline is that J’onn turned partly back into his Black Lantern form when he got the flash. It appears that J’onn, like Aquaman, still has some ties to his Black Lantern self. Other than that, Johns and Tomasi failed to get me interested in who would be behind this psychic flash or why J’onn’s memory was completely wrong. At this point, this seems forced and awkward.
The Firestorm plotline was a total miss. The plotline of Firestorm having problems with his powers is so boring. This is an incredibly uncreative theme that we have seen countless of times. I almost never enjoy a plotline based on the hero experiencing some kind of “problem” with their powers. They are generally done only when the writer has simply run out of ideas for the character. I was glad that Ronnie was resurrected, but the writers have failed to capitalize at all on my initial interest in Firestorm.
Overall: Brightest Day #1 was an average read. That is definitely not a good way to kick off a new title. It is incumbent upon the writers to start a new title with a bang in order to hook in and retain as many readers as possible. This muted start to Brightest Day runs the risk of boring enough readers so that they do not bother to stick with this title over the long haul. Johns and Tomasi did just enough, and I mean just barely, to get me to keep Brightest Day on my permanent pull list. However, I would say that Brightest Day is probably a title that will be best read in trade format rather than in monthly format.