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Brightest Day #20 Review, by Marc Alan Fishman – Snarky Synopses #3

February 21, 2011 Marc Fishman 1 Comment

Brightest Day #20
Written by Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi
Art by Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, and Joe Pr
ado

I know, I know, I know. It’s been forever and a day since I graced the fine corner of the net known as MichaelDavisWorld with my comic book reviews. I could bore you with the details on why I’ve been gone. I could also just lie. That’s easier. I’ve been gone because I was on a covert mission by the government. Yeah… that’s the ticket. It seems our President wanted me to infiltrate the Tea Party, and find out their big secrets. As it turns out? The tea party is making their own brand of iced tea. It’s set to compete with Brisk, and Snapple in 2012. But don’t drink it! It contains trace amounts of Alaskin’ hockey mom sweetener. It’ll make you love America and Jesus… but hate the gays and common sense. But I digress. This week, let me take you deep into DC’s current epic-of-the-day: Brightest Day.

For those not in the know, Geoff Johns took the Green Lantern idea, and over the course of the last couple of years, expanded the universe to also include red, yellow, orange, blue, indigo, and violet lanterns as well. Why? Because rainbow’s hadn’t been cool since they adorned the Trapper Keepers of yore, bedazzled and beset by unicorns. So this past summer, Necron, a once defunct mort of a villain was reimagined as the avatar of death in “Blackest Night”. Long story short? The rainbow coalition won, and at the end of the summer, the white lantern emerged and resurrected a handful of B,C, and D list heroes and villains. You still with me? Good. “Brightest Day” is the macroseries that follows “Blackest Night”… following along with those resurrected characters, in an attempt to explain just why they are back. Here we are, nearing the end of the series, and here at issue #20, a major storyline finally comes to an end.

Let’s face it guys and gals… Aquaman is a tough character to care about. He exists in a world unseen by us, except when Nova is on PBS. And while he’s been a mainstay and staple of the DCU, he’s never quite enjoyed the success of his other B-Listers like Green Lantern or Flash. Geoff Johns (and Peter Tomasi) obviously loves these B-Listers, and has given a considerable amount of time within the pages of Brightest Day to bring our orange clad fish-talker to the forefront. Celebrating the long history of the character over the last 19 issues (albeit only within a few pages at a time), Aquaman’s storyline comes to dramatic end in issue #20. The “Aquawar” as it were, is a little hard to follow/care about, but it’s pulled off as well as it ever was going to be on the page. We get some savagery from Black Manta and Mera’s evil sister (seriously, who DOESN’T have an evil sibling in comics?!), the rise of Blaqualad (ok, he’s not named that, but come on, it’s zippy!), and even a cameo by Aqualass. I didn’t even know there was an Aqualass before this issue… but she’s sufficiently witty and pretty, so it was a pleasant introduction. While Brightest Day as a series, much like it’s big brother “52”, suffered early on from a slow moving plot that bounced between too many threads… there’s great dividends paid off in these final issues—where story lines are given the entirety of the book to tell their tale.

On art chores in this book, you can’t ask for a better team. Ivas Reis and company deliver solid pages of action and smaller, more emotional moments to boot. Double kudos as well to the letterer this issue… whose sound effect graphics elevated several key moments. Plus, I’d never known how to spell the sound Aquaman makes when he talks to fish. If I have any gripe at all on the visuals this time around, it’d be with the pair of double page spreads being in such close proximity to one another. The double page spread is the “big whammy” of a comic… and using 2 within a book that only boasts 20 pages of content does seem a little overboard. That being said? Both spreads were rendered beautifully. So much so, later pages seemed to suffer from an obvious rush job.

Ultimately, I’v little snark this week for my pick. Because it’s wrapping up a story months in the making, with a payoff that is (thank Gorp) well worth the read, I have to recommend it. Now obviously unlike my previous picks, you’d probably want to check out the rest of this series to appreciate it all. Take my word for it though, wait until the trades are released if you’re not already picking this up. As “Brightest Day” winds down, as a comic fan, I’m a bit torn. “52” was DC’s first attempt at releasing a weekly comic. They gathered the best writers and some great artists, and released a series that did what no one thought could be done; Allowing D-List no-names take the lead in a series that sold incredibly well. Shortly after that though, DC attempted another weekly, “Countdown to Final Crisis”. Suffice to say, this book is a cancer in my long boxes. I don’t think it’s worth the paper it’s printed on. It was chaotic, terribly paced, and ultimately wasted reader’s time and attention. Countdown begat “Trinity”, which begat “Wednesday Comics”. Geoff Johns (one of the writers on “52”) has gone back to the well structurally with “Brightest Day”… and in this government spy’s opinion? It’s well worth it. But if DC feels the need to continue these weekly / semi-weekly books, I’d say they should tread lightly.

I mean, how many books can we really read featuring Snapper Carr, Talky Tawny, and The Green Cigarette?

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Comments

  1. Russ Rogers
    February 21, 2011 - 8:57 pm

    The Green Cigarette! I haven’t seen him since Animal Man, what, #30. That was about twenty years ago.

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