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Info:

• Title: Brightest Day #2
• Writers: Geoff Johns, Peter J. Tomasi
• Artists: Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, Joe Prado
• Inkers: Vicente Cifuentes, Tom Nguyen, Rebecca Buchman, David Beaty, Patrick Gleason
• Colors: Aspen MLT’s Peter Steigerwald w/John Starr & Beth Solelo
• Publisher: DC Comics
• Publication Date: May 19, 2010
• Price: $2.99
• Series:

BRIGHTEST DAY #2 Review

BRIGHTEST DAY #2 Review
© Mania

The mystery of the returned heroes deepens in this second issue of Brightest Day. Ronnie Raymond, the previously dead half of the old Firestorm, has been permanently bonded with Jason Rusch, the guy who was ½ of the new Firestorm along with his girlfriend, who was killed by Ronnie Raymond when he was dead. Professor Stein, who was the other half of Firestorm when Raymond was alive the first time (and who might’ve been dead once himself) is working with Ray Palmer, also known as the Atom (but not the one who just died) to get to the bottom of the whole situation. Meanwhile, Ronnie’s hearing voices and it isn’t Jason.

In New York, some lady responds to the news of Martian Manhunter’s return by slaughtering her family and tearing her skin off, while the Manhunter himself is hanging out in the coffin of Saul Erden, the scientist who brought him to earth. Later, J’onn J’onzz takes advantage of Erden’s daughter, who is a senile old woman at this point in time, by taking the form of her late father. Hawkman and Hawkgirl bust up Hath-Set’s secret headquarters and find that every time he’s murdered them in their previous lives, he took a few moments to make plaster molds of their faces. Creepy.

Oh, and Aquaman and Mera are in there too, for one panel but Boston Brand doesn’t get to talk to him, ‘cause he’s just a pawn of that darn white ring. And it wants him to do some crrrraaaaazy stuff.

So… I really thought this book was off to a pretty decent start with the 0 issue. I’ve been excited to see these heroes come back and I’m eager to see what Geoff Johns will do with Aquaman. He’s done wonders with Hal and Barry, I’d love to see him work his magic on the King of the Seven Seas. I’m also a fan of the 3^rd tier characters like Firestorm and I’m intrigued by the idea of Deadman returning to life. I thought the first issue was a good follow-up and I liked where the stories were progressing, but I gotta tell ya – two issues in and I’m already bored.

Throughout this entire issue, I found myself thinking “Enough with the exposition and the set up, just get to the story already!” I feel like we’ve been waiting for years for this thing to get moving, only to realize that this is only the second issue. I always thought that “event fatigue” just meant you were getting tired of the endless stream of events, crossovers and tie-ins but I see now that I was wrong. It’s much more insidious than that. It’s like when you start feeling kind of sick, but you never really get a full-on flu or cold. You’re just sorta tired and achy for a week or so, with no other symptoms. Maybe you start to feel a little better for a day or three… then you’re sick again. Finally, when the cold or flu or whatever ailment you’ve got finally hits you, it seems as though you’ve always been sick. You actually can’t remember a time when you weren’t puking or blowing your nose every 10 minutes. It seems as though your entire life is consumed by illness. That’s sort of how Brightest Day feels. Technically speaking, this story began back in the pages of Green Lantern: Rebirth, right? That was where the seeds for Blackest Night started being sewn… and that was 2004. It seems like we’ve been building to this forever.

Cover art to BRIGHTEST DAY #2 by David Finch

Or hey… maybe the book just wasn’t that good? For as much as I love 3^rd tier characters, I actually never give a rats ass about J’onn J’onzz up until Brightest Day #0, and I’m already bored with him again! Boston Brand, who is presumably the protagonist of this series, only appears for two pages in this issue and Aquaman, who is actually on the cover, is only in it for one panel! I do like the idea of the curse that Hath-Set placed on the Hawks and that whole thing with the death masks was creepy as hell, but the two pages of story they got just didn’t do it for me.

It’s like there are a number of really interesting stories going on in these pages, but I either didn’t get enough to satiate me or they just didn’t play out in a captivating way. And honestly, I’m finding that for as interesting as some of these stories may be, the whole mystery-of-the-risen-heroes thing is just sorta “been there, done that… for the past 5 damn years!” Meh.