Brightest Day #7

In a nutshell: better, but not there yet.

It's making progress, now that a connecting plot has been revealed (or at least the semblance of one) other than YOU'RE ALL ALIVE. It still seems incredibly convoluted and confusing, since it is multiple plots driven by multiple characters in different directions. In Blackest Night there was a specific focus on the various lanterns and people who would become lanterns, so two groups which reconnected in the middle of the story. Here it's still all over the place. There's a while left to get the story together, but I'm wanting that sooner than later.

Anyway, it's marked improvement, and once the series is complete I'm sure it will be fantastic. I'm just waiting for a conclusion sooner rather than later.

What's Wrong With Brightest Day

Brightest Day #7 comes out tomorrow, and I've been thinking about the series a lot.

I don't like it that much. I hate saying that, but it's disjointed, confusing, and has the bad habit of not answering questions but simply raising more. Here's the summary for #7.

"There can be only one who wields the White Lantern...but is it truly Deadman? And what will happen when he attempts to charge the white ring? Meanwhile, Ronnie Raymond risks everything for Firestorm, Martian Manhunter uncovers more clues about the bizarre string of murders stretching across the country, Aquaman searches for the key to the ocean's survival and the Hawks come face-to-face with the evil that lurks within the strange land known only as Hawkworld!"

Keep in mind there are only 32 pages there. 32 pages for 5 different storylines. That is abysmal. I want answers. I want progress. There's barely any overlap to call this a crossover. The brightest day series has just been a disappointment so far. I want to eat my words bad, but I'm doubting that it's going to get better.

Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour & Brightest day 5/6

What right does this series have to suddenly become really good?

Seriously! Here I was being all critical and then the finale is way too good to even get into. There is explanation and closure and an actual meaning here. Needless to say I'm pretty thrilled.

I was skeptical at first, scoffing at the ridiculousness of it and generally being a jerk, but damn it got good. I don't know what more to say. It's good. Much better than...


Brightest Day 5&6: Let me sum it up. Each character gets like 5 pages and crawls along through a plot that somehow relates to the White Lantern. I don't really care about Aquaman or the Hawks. Deadman's story seems very good by he is bogged down by the rest of the series. Seriously guys, get to the point.

Brightest Day #4

First off, the title is a lie. I read the whole thing and not once did I see Black Lantern Firestorm, just Ronnie Raymond passed out drunk in contrast to Jason passed out studying. I know this is all building somewhere, but this storyline has the attention span of a hummingbird.

So- things that are happening [spoilers]

-Deadman is getting jerked around by a white ring
-Aquaman is summoning dead sea life
-Ronnie killed Jasons girlfriend while he was a Black Lantern
-Martian Manhunter is not alone
-Hawk is angry (suprise, suprise)
-And Hawkman and Hawkgirl are embroiled in some weird plot with their arch-foe and are now on Pandora or something (complete with hovering rocks)

That's a lot to follow, and not a lot gets covered every issue. Blackest Night had an obvious thesis statement: Zombies and how to kill them with emotion-powers. This is just, well, confusing. I guess the heroes are confused and if Geoff is trying to recreate that for us, good job, but it's not the good type of confusion where I'm worried and wondering what will happen to characters or anything. I just want answers so we can move on.

Brightest Day #4 is good but nothing special. I've not really been disappointed with anything in this arc except the lack of focus. It just keeps bouncing from cliffhanger to cliffhanger with little actual progression save people getting more and more confused and leaving me with and confounded look on my face. I am interested to see where this goes and how it all fits together, but I'm still wondering how they are going to wrap this up in a nice big bow. Blackest Night was good in the sense that it slowly revealed things and had a discernible dramatic structure. There was action and a climax a resolution. Brightest Day just sort of feels like a denouement where everyone is standing around awkwardly standing around wondering what to do.

It's been 4 issues and nothing has really happened in terms of rising action. I'm going to keep reading because I'm already halfway in and I want to know what's going on, and if I don't keep up I'm going to be way out of the loop, but I'd be really happy if Geoff would get to it already.

In short- buy it if you like DC comics and knowing what's going on. It's nice vignettes that may one day become a full fledged story. It's going to get there. I hope.