Brightest Day #2
Written by Geoff Johns & Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark & Joe Prado
There’s been much hullabaloo all over the internet in regards to Brightest Day #1 and, well, it’s potentially racist overtones, but I’m glad to see it’s had no affect on DC and what they choose to publish.
Yeah, looks like we’re going to be dealing with lots of potentially race-related drama in regards to everyone’s new favorite odd-couple, Firestorm.
The first chunk of the issue’s action is related to their quest to be separated and the difficult Professor Stein and the new sole-bearer of the Atom mantle, Ray Palmer, are having accomplishing that. Something’s rotten inside the Firestorm matrix (a potential side-effect of being a Black Lantern like Aquaman is suffering from?) and as you can see from above, it’s sowing seeds of dissent between our heroes. Whether it’s merely projecting Jason’s actual thoughts or is an entity all to itself, remains to be seen.
The Martian Manhunter segment of this issue wasn’t particularly grabbing. It delves deeper into the mysterious events surrounding his original summoning to Earth and puts him on the train of a mysterious (Martian?) creature who we get to watch butcher her human family while they enjoy some Guitar Hero. I don’t have any particular feelings about how retcon-a-riffic they’re getting with J’onn. It seems to me like they’re trying to give the Manhunter an enemy of his own, possibly to give him more purpose as a character rather than just being perennially attached to the league. I’ve got no problem with that, I just wish they could give the Martian Manhunter an opponent that wasn’t, y’know, Martian.
The Hawk’s definitely stole the spotlight in this issue. Tracing down some leads in their own quest, the pair learn that their enemy Hath-Set is behind everything and they make a (somewhat) startling choice:
It’s one thing when heroes choose to kill in the defense of innocents or do so from a place of anger and vengeance, but it’s different in this case. The Hawks just want to be rid of their eternal foe so that they can love each other in peace. There’s something undeniably humanizing and utterly compelling about that.
This is almost a random tangent, but please bear with me: When I was kid, I watched the Superfriends religiously, and you want to know who my favorite member of the team was? It was Hawkman, if you can believe it. I liked him more than Superman and Batman – I actually wanted to be Hawkman. Know why? The mask, mace and wings.
Now that I’m older, I’m glad to have another reason to like Hawkman.
Okay, tangent over.
The issue concludes with Deadman trying to get the attention of Aquaman and Mera (and Aquaman leaving dead fish in his wake as they swim away) before Boston is shunted off again by his white ring to the Anti-Matter dimension, home of the Anti-Monitor. Yeah, sounds like someone’s about to have a crappy day.
Final Rating: 7/10 – Things really picked up in this issue for just about all the characters involved. Aquaman and Deadman got a bit of a shaft, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t see them dealing with their currently escalating dramas next issue.
