Brightest Day #1
Written by Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Ivan Reis, Pat Gleason, Adrian Syaf, Scott Clark, and Joe Prado
Second Chances
The issue nicely picks up after Green Lantern #53, which picked up after Brightest Day #0, which picked up after Blackest Night #8. That is, the journey of the one White Lantern that I want to compare to the hammer of Thor as nobody seems to be able to lift it out of it’s crater. So Sinestro brings along Hal and Carol, and in an amazing show of continuity, a regular human cop recognizes Sinestro and opens fire because of the Sinestro Corps War. That isn’t to say that either of these writers is bad with continuity, rather that it’s such a minor little thing that you would probably never think to include it. Anyway, the Lantern is like Mjolnir, or the sword in the stone.
From there we go and visit the former Deadman, who, despite being alive, is pretty ghostly. His white ring is still jumping him place to place, and he still can’t be seen or heard or do anything. Just observe. In this case it’s child slavery and him wanting to stop a pirate from raping a little girl. Luckily his white ring just takes him to other members of the Brightest Day Twelve, and Aquaman and Mera save the day. They also look awesome in the process. Alas, this is where things start to get screwy and awesome, as Aquaman’s ability to talk to fish….doesn’t work quite as he expects, and a new mystery arises because of it.
And, of course, the return of Aquaman in the public eye leads to another character making an extremely awesome return. I won’t say who, but I hit myself when I didn’t figure it out come the reveal.
We’re then treated to some Firestorm action, and given the new status quo. I’d normally hold off and wave my spoilers flag, but this was painfully obvious going in. Ronnie and Jason are now Firestorm together, and they don’t like each other, and they don’t know how to split apart. It’s like the Odd Couple, but they share a body with flaming hair. Oh, and when one of them was a zombie, he killed the others girlfriend. But neither is a zombie at the moment, so there won’t be heart ripping bad times.
J’onn has a few pages on Mars before something happens and he tracks down his own origin. It was kind of confused by this, but hey, I like J’onn. The Hawk’s got a few as well, however, theirs makes a bit more sense as it’s a direct continuation of their story from #0, whereas J’onn is creating water on Mars…..
How’s the art? Well, the multiple artists in this book worked rather well. It seems like every character has a designated artist assigned to their story, and that’s how the handle the chores. I, of course, have no idea if that is the case going ahead, or just for this issue. For all I know it’s going to be having a rotation akin to 52 or Countdown. At the same it could be like Trinity and have a consistent team from start to finish.
Overall? I’d call this a strong first issue, and can only hope that next weeks Generation Lost can be anywhere close to as good.
9/10
