With the recent doom and gloom of the Blackest Night being lifted, the heroes of the DCU have entered a new age. Dubbed “Brightest Day,” readers have been privy to a few new title launches such as Birds of Prey, as well as a series aptly named Brightest Day. In this installment of Touring the Cosmos, we will be looking at the first five issues of Brightest Day, but more importantly catching up with some of the recently revived heroes.
Brightest Day
Writer(s): Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi
Artist(s): Ivan Reis, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, and Oclair Alberts
********SPOILERS AHEAD ************SPOILERS AHEAD**********
Blackest Night ended with a bang, but left readers with some unanswered questions. The main focus of Brightest Day is to see what the newly discovered White Lantern’s purpose is, and why it has chosen to revive only certain dead heroes.
Boston Brand, a.k.a. Deadman, has been a hero in the DCU for many years. Albeit a dead one. He had died as an acrobat, and came back with the ability to jump from person to person, controlling their every action while inside. Very few people could see him, and some even believed he didn’t exist. Currently, he is the only wielder of a White Ring, and is having a hell of a time getting used to it. People can now see him, but he is rarely in control of his actions or his whereabouts. The White Ring is directing his every action, but not letting him use its power when he needs it most. Last we saw, he briefly battled the Anti-Monitor (and lived to tell the story), and is now working with Hawk and Dove.
A popular hero of the 90s, Firestorm has most recently had some minor success. The original, Ronnie Raymond, died during Identity Crisis and hasn’t been seen since. In 2004, a young new hero name Jason Rusch had taken over the mantle. As an inexperienced adventurer, Jason was only starting to settle into his new-found role when the Blackest Night hit. When Ronnie was brought back as a Black Lantern, he killed Jason’s girlfriend Gehenna. Claiming he had no control or knowledge of this when he was recently revived, we are slowly learning that this may not be the full truth. Jason and Ronnie now have no control of the Firestorm matrix, and also have very little trust in each other.
When you want to find trust or love in a pair, look no further than Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Having been killed together by Black Lanterns Ralph and Sue Dibny, the Hawks have recently been revived with a fresh new lease on life. The power of the White Light has resurrected Hawkgirl as Shiera Hall, who is finally able to remember her past lives and love for Carter Hall. With new-found love and a relationship stronger than ever, the Hawks are battling to break their cycle of dying at the hands of Hath-Set.
One who knows death very well is J’onn J’onzz, better known as Martian Manhunter. A green alien hailing from Mars, he was witness to the destruction of all of his brethren, and landed on Earth to start a new life. He has over the years felt much guilt for being the last of his kind, and only wishes that he could have his family back. When most of the villains of the DCU were transported to a prison planet during Salvation Run, J’onn was sent as a spy, but was subsequently stranded as well. Libra, the villain heralding the coming of Darkseid, used J’onn as a sacrifice to the other villains to join his cause during Final Crisis. Recently having been revived at the end of Blackest Night, J’onn is attempting to reconnect with his roots on Earth, as well as explore his origin on Mars a little more.
Connecting with his roots has always been a problem for Aquaman. With his current resurrection, he only finds it harder and harder. He formerly had the power to call out to his marine brethren, being able to reach out to some of the deadliest sea creatures. Now it seems that his power only allows him to call on dead sea creatures. He has no desire to return to Atlantis and sit atop the throne again, only wanting to live his life with his wife Mera. This may be fine and dandy, but issue #4 shows that Mera may not be exactly what she seems.
Well, that touches upon all of the characters involved in Brightest Day. There are other resurrected characters, like Captain Boomerang in Flash, Maxwell Lord in Wonder Woman, and Jade in Green Lantern Corps. A new character named Jackson was highlighted for a page, but his purpose is secret for the time being. Hawk and Dove are also making an appearance, and we are sure to see others. So far this has been better than Countdown or 52, but hopefully it will pick up a bit more steam as more secrets are revealed. I think the most important question that begs to be answered though is…
Why have they returned?
Mike Parente
mike@comicattack.net
Boy, the Hawk family sounds like it has all the elements for a delicious novel about cursed reincarnation. I’d read that. I love that kind of story.
Also, lol, what Aquaman? He’s a “zombie” so now he can only talk to zombie sea animals? That’s hilarious. I didn’t know he could get any lamer, but he can!
Pingback: Tweets that mention Touring the Cosmos: Brightest Day -- Topsy.com
Yeah, Aquaman sucks. Hawkgirl on the other hand is awesome.
Nice overview! For me personally, the Firestorm and Aquaman storylines are the most interesting.
Keep up the good work here!
The Irredeemable Shag
http://firestormfan.com – The Source for DC Comics’ Nuclear Man – Firestorm!
Compared to Blackest Night Brightest day I feel has been kinda boring the only parts of the story I really cared about was the Martian Manhunter the rest left no real impact on me Blackest night kept my interest throughout the series but Day just seems kind of weak in terms of story I stopped reading after issue 2 and just flipped through them to see if anything interesting happened since I stopped even the fight between Deadman and the Anti Monitor didn’t get my attention it’s not that bad of a story it’s just executed poorly compared to Blackest Night though I am interested in what the White ring’s oath will be.
top 3 crappy heroes at #1 is The Wonder Twins, #2 Spider-Ham (Why god Why?!) Aquaman comes at #3 he’s better then ever now cause he can summon the dead he just got interesting as a character not enough to make me continue reading brightest day but enough to make me think he’s not the lamest hero
@Irredeemable Shag- Thanks for checking us out man and for the props! Your site looks great!!
@The Angry Comic Critic- You like Blackest Night more than Brightest Day!? I disagree. I think they’re both great, but I’m liking the focus and pacing of Brightest Day more. Things feel like they’re happening in the series and I like the scatter-shot approach with the different story lines. It’s keeping things interesting.
And yeah, the White Rings oath- I didn’t even think about that!
@Kris – You’re awesome lol just when you thought Aquaman couldn’t get any worse Brightest Day proves you wrong! lol
@Andy – I felt the pacing of Brightest day was too slow while as with blackest night it was a mile a minute and was so good at least to me that it made want buy nearly nearly every tie in issue up till around issue 6 or 7 of the main book and in Blackest night showed the heroes loose nearly everything they held dear and screwed with there heads as never before seen plus it made me want to keep reading to find out what happened but with Brightest day while it is a decent series it doesn’t make me really care about whats happening to the characters and to me it feels like nothing is happening while in blackest it felt like a major change in the DC universe it brought the dead to life killed off dozens of characters and bought the entirety of the 7 corps not counting the black and white together under one banner. brightest day so far hasn’t felt like it’s really done much in the grand scale.