We’re at the halfway point in Brightest Day, and it seems like a good time to address some aspects of where the story stands. With 13 issues out, I think it’s fair to start asking some questions about how this series has progressed, where it’s going and whether it’s worth sticking around for.

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Before we get into our discussion about Action Comics #894, I figure some background information is probably necessary. Pretty much two years worth of spoilers lie ahead… You’ve been warned.

The Superman books have had a weird few years.  What with him not appearing in any of his ongoing titles during the New Krypton storyline, and now with superstar writer J. Michael Straczynski taking over Superman and deciding that the perfect follow up to that storyline is to have Superman walk across America as if he were Forest Gump or something. Of course if you’re going to have Superman just walk for however long that garbage is going to go on, you certainly don’t need multiple books chronicling it. As a result, Superman remains absent from his original flagship title Action Comics, and that book now stars Lex Luthor.

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Welcome back for our ongoing discussion of DC Comics‘ Brightest Day series. As these posts have begun to pile up, we’ve created a new hub to access previous issues and even some of the things we had to say about Blackest Night. Brightest Day #12 is all-Martian all the time, which proves you can’t judge a book by its cover (unless it’s the variant cover).

Spoilers to follow.

PTB: I’m not so crazy about the cover this time around. It has nothing to do with the art, it’s more about the use of text. “DEATHSTROM RETURNS!” From where? He’s been in nearly every issue including the last one.

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This year’s New York Comic Con came and went this weekend (10/8/10-10/10/10), and this is a tough one to write up. In a word, it was overwhelming. I want to say I had a good time, but I don’t know that I came away from it with the experience that I was looking for. Thankfully, that wasn’t true for everyone here at MLD, and I did come back with a lot to write about.

The Show

Saturday was impossibly crowded. Reports indicate that 97,000 people attended the show throughout the weekend and it felt like every one of them was in the same aisle (Evan Dorkin sums it up well here). Attendees reported waiting up to an hour to get into the building and even to get into some of the panels. Both Saturday and Sunday were reported as “sold out,” but I’m not sure that point reflects a reasonable number for that space. Combining the show with the Anime Festival may have just been too much.

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I had the chance to get away over the last few weeks and made a serious effort to avoid anything resembling work. As a result, I managed to read a few comics that have been laying around this place for a while. This was the same plan I attempted last year, but as you’ll see, my reading list has changed quite a bit.

Last summer, I took a fairly eclectic mix of books away with me in a little box, and I even started writing this post about them. All the big names were there: the X-Men (X-Men Forever #1, Dark X-Men: The Beginning #2, New Mutants #2-3), some Marvel Cosmic stuff (Nova #26-27, Skaar: Son of Hulk #6-12, War of Kings: Savage World of Skaar), a few Avengers (Mighty Avengers #24-27, New Avengers: The Reunion #2-4, Ms. Marvel: Storyteller), even some things that aren’t normally on the reading list (Batman and Robin #1, Warren Ellis’ Ruins).

What I came away with after reading all this is that  I should have never continued with Mighty Avengers after Brian Bendis left the title. Everything else was rather satisfying, but it solidified my decision to stop buying a lot of books. One of the stand outs that I didn’t mention was Amazing Spider-Man: The Short Halloween by SNL’s Bill Hader and Seth Myers. It’s a fun book, but remembering it makes me sad about what I’m coming away with this year:  there’s just too much Amazing Spider-Man each month.

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