Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly of Brightest Day #0

Quite a bit happens in this book. Some of it looks interesting. Some of it doesn't. Some of it seems like filler. Wanna know more? Look behind the cut. Spoilers and Images behind the cuts, as always.







1. Deadman...LIVES? - Honestly, this is one of those concepts I'm amazed nobody has thought to do in something else before. And putting an already unbalanced Boston Brand in charge of the White Light... brilliant.






2. Barry Checks Up On His Rogues - This brief scene was a lot better paced than The Flash #1 and a heck of a lot more fun. But I suppose I am biased being a bit of a Captain Boomerang fan.






3. Carter and Shiera, Together Again - I forgot how much I missed Geoff Johns' Hawkman and this brief scene brought all the fondness for that series back in a rush... even before the interesting hook of Hawkman's gauntlet apparently now being enhanced by The Power Of Love.





4. J'onn's Housewarming Party - I'm glad to see J'onn back. And I laughed out loud when I saw Guy's gift, proving that he can be a Nice Guy without getting hit in the head.






5. Star City Goes Green - Okay, improbable as the star-shaped blast in Cry For Justice was... this is just cool. And as I said before... Robin Hood needs a Sherwood. :)






6. Sinestro's Back... - ... and he wants a ring. So any worries about Sinestro no longer being a bad guy now that we know his anti-heroic origins? Gone. Now he's chasing after the White Ring, presumably because only he has earned it after all that he went through.










1. The Return Of Maxwell Lord: Evil Overlord - Honestly, is there ANYONE besides Dan Didio who thought bring Maxwell Lord back was a good idea? Particularly bringing him back as the uber-telepath would-be world-ruler who is, at least according to the story going into the new Justice League: Generation Lost, powerful enough to make nearly everyone on the planet forget he ever existed?

Well, that's just great. But what about the video archives of his death? The print archives and the digital archives of the print archives? Telepathy can't erase newspapers. And the Greek Gods who already intervened once when someone tried to mind control Wonder Woman (see Blackest Night: Wonder Woman, if you must)







2. The Return Of Jade - Speaking of resurrections nobody wanted, Jade's return is proving to be as horrendous as I thought. Because it's impossible for Kyle Rayner to be in a committed relationship and just be happy, we're treated to a lot of forced drama as Kyle's current girlfriend seethes over the ex-being alive and well, even as she insists that she's not making a play for Kyle and Kyle insisting that he's just happy an old friend is alive... while grinning like an idiot in a way that never happens around women who are "just friends"... although that could be the fault of the artist.






3. The Fury Of Firestorm - And speaking of forced drama... wow! Who could have predicted it? A white idiot man-child and an angry the black man who (rightly, I think) hates his guts are forced to work together to access their amazing superpowers to Save The World!

I liked this comic better when it was called Quantum And Woody.









1. The Scene With Aquaman and Mera - It's good character stuff. But it doesn't really seem to set anything up or accomplish anything except giving us hot soaking-wet redhead babe fan service and the leading nominee for the two panels "Most Likely To Wind Up On Superdickery".






2. The Return of Osiris - Hardly anyone cared when he died in 52. And hardly anybody cares now that he's back. Hell, I'm indifferent to the Marvel Family as a whole after what they did to Mary Marvel.






3. Hank Hall: Rapist Asshat - Really. Here's one more person who just needed to stay dead. Am I the only one who remembers that this guy (or at least, a version of him from a parallel timeline where he didn't die) ACTUALLY RAPED DOVE back in JSA? Just checking.

Now taking bets on how long it will be before The Monarch shows up again. And I don't mean the skinny guy in orange from The Venture Brothers.



The Final Verdict: More good than bad, though much of the book seems to be filler and we're still left wondering why a lot of these characters were brought back at all. Presumably there will be some method to the madness later on. Still worth picking up, in my opinion, if only so what happens later may make more sense.

16 comments:

  1. Most of the filler looked to be set up for tie in books, frankly.

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  2. ..... so many questions.. and so many I'm not going to ask...

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  3. They're taking things back to an old status quo. So assume any rape, which I'd enver heard of would have been retcon punched away.
    For one thing she's been remembering Hank fondly for a while.
    And I cared about Osiris' death and recall some other people being upset.

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  4. Probably so.
    At any rate, Hank - as Extant - raped Dove as part of a mechanation for a child to be born of Order and Chaos, so the wizard Mordru would have an uber-powerful body to inhabit. That child wound up becoming Hector Hall aka The New Doctor Fate and... well, see Geoff Johns JSA for the details on that...
    And I'm sure a few people were upset by Osiris' death. Hence my use of the qualifier "hardly". :)

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  5. And what of the questions you DO want to ask?

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  6. Yeah, but I have no idea what they're setting up. Hell, Flash's scene had nothing to do with Flash #1

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  7. Osiris, Martian Manhunter, and Dead Man are the only reasons I am even interested in this. I love Kyle, but I am tired of the shit with his personal life. I want to like Firestorm, but haven't been able to get in to his stuff since the 80's. Never gave 2 poops about Hawkmen and women. Kind of feeling this isn't the book for me. I had high hopes once upon a time.
    The one way I will buy this book right now is if it turns out Arthur is now aqua-phobic. That would be brilliant.

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  8. Was Hank being controlled by Mordu? Because if he was then it wasn't really Hank that did the raping.
    I feel wrong just typing that last sentence.

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  9. I hope The Monarch does show up. And by that I do mean the skinny guy in orange from The Venture Brothers.

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  10. More good than bed. I really would like to know why we couldn't get Holly Granger back as Hawk. No one ever had a chance to do anything with her.
    Would that have been so bad?
    I really can't stand Osiris.

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  11. I kinda like the Firestorm stuff if just because I'm a Firestorm fan and will take him how I can get him.
    I thought Jade got a silly death, especially considering how they reconned the Ion thing, and I'm not a fan of the Bechdel Fail in this issue, but I think good things can come out of her return. I hope anyway.

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  12. Well, I feel wrong reading it, so I figure we're even.
    But in all seriousness, I think Mordru was responsible for putting things into motion and turning Hank into Extant. I don't think Mordru was directly mind-controlling him or anything when he raped Dove.
    I could be wrong though.

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  13. That would improve the quality of certain areas of the story.

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  14. That would be brilliant but it's been done. By Mark Waid, for one thing.
    Also, given all the other Silver Age stuff that has come back... doesn't Arthur still have the "can only stay out of water for one hour" weakness?

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  15. Well, Robinson apparently has big plans for her in JLA.
    Then again, he supposedly had big plans for Ollie in Cry for Justice.
    *blinks*
    RUN, JADE! RUN!

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  16. Ditto on both. Hardly anything was done with Holly. And yeah... as I said, I'm pretty meh on anything Marvel Family related now.

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