REVIEW: Brightest Day #3

DC Comics‘ Brightest Day #4 is in stores this week. That makes this as good a time as any to share some thoughts on issue #3.

PTB: The cover really caught my attention on this one. At first, I thought they were the resurrected characters, but upon thinking about it that’s clearly not the case. I know it’s just the cover, but with Atom and Mera included it just got my wheels spinning about who the twelve resurrected characters are now that I’ve got a handle on some of them.

KevinMLD: The characters on the cover are the stars of Brightest Day to date. I assume the other resurrected characters will play a role in the title at some point, but they’re clearly not going to be main characters the way Mera and the Atom have been so far.

PTB: Aquaman, Deadman, Manhunter, Firestorm, Hawkman and Hawkgirl have had a lot of face time in this book. I know you mentioned some of the books featuring the other six, but I’d like to see Osiris, Max Lord, Hawk, Jade, Captain Boomerang, and Professor Zoom appear here. They were in Brightest Day #0, so maybe we’ll get there by issue 26.

KevinMLD: Again, I think they all must have a role to play in the end. I think I read that we will know why they’ve been resurrected by issue 7.

PTB: They actually do appear when Deadman uses his white ring to attack the Anti-Monitor and that may be even more confusing. Is it safe to assume the “voice” of the White Lantern speaking to Deadman is the Entity from Blackest Night?

KevinMLD: This is an interesting scene. The Orange Lanterns Corps are projections like we see Deadman use against the Antimonitor. Also, the Green Lantern rings can answer questions posed by the Lanterns, but they’re more like computer responses than what we see here. So is the white ring alive and aware? Is Deadman communicating with the White Lantern entity? (The equivalent of Ion or Parallax). Does the white ring have characteristics of all ofthem various rings? I have no idea… yet.

PTB: The Deadman story looks great, by the way.

KevinMLD: Agreed.

PTB: The Firestorm story takes an interesting turn as we see that Ronnie may remember his time as a Black Lantern despite his claims to the contrary.

KevinMLD: Yeah but this storyline is weird. I’m under the impression that Jason has been stuck inside Ronnie since at least when he was absorded during Blackest Night, yet he’s worried about his physics test the next day. When was he going to class exactly?

PTB: Aquaman getting partially swallowed made enough sense as he tries to figure out the dead fish business, but who are Mera’s people? She’s from another dimension?

KevinMLD: Why wouldn’t she be?

PTB: Manhunter and crazy anti-Rock Band mom are connected. I like how his investigation led him to consulting the dog, but I wish the dog had some answers about the Bermuda Triangle, the White Lantern and the exploding plane. Is the blue text “WE’RE FREE” the Lantern voice Deadman was hearing? The word balloon doesn’t have the same shape.

KevinMLD: No idea about the Bermuda Triangle stuff but I didn’t assume it was the same voice. As for the dog… It’s a cute scene and an interesting choice to have the Manhunter erase the dog’s memory of the traumatizing events. That’s actually an interesting and likely unintended political statement that the people at PETA would love.

PTB: Big payoffs on the Hawkpeople story, but what is Hawkworld and why does Hath-Set need all their bones to access it? And who is Hath-Set, have we covered this?

KevinMLD: I don’t know. There was a late ’80s? DC series called Hawkworld in which Hawkman was an alien. He was later reimagined as this guy who is constantly dying and being reincarnated and I’m guessing one of those lives was the one lived on Hawkworld. So maybe there are bodies there that Hath-set needs to collect. I really don’t know what’s going on in this scene to be honest. But I’ll tell you Hawkman screaming out, “We’re coming Hath-set! We’re coming to finally end this!” is pretty dumb dialogue. Who is he talking to exactly? He’s just screaming out to the world. That’s some bad writing. Lots of pretty pictures though.

PTB: These pages looked great. Same artist as the Deadman pages?

KevinMLD: I really have no idea who any of the artists are…

PTB: What’s with the back-up about the Brightest Day: Green Arrow book? Was it a back-up or is that a preview running in a bunch of DC books this month?

KevinMLD: It’s a preview for another new Green Arrow #1 in which Green Arrow who was exiled from Star City for murder will apparently now be living in a magic star shaped forrest that has grown in the middle of the city. Not even joking.

PTB: Any thoughts on the DC Nation article about the Jonah Hex movie? I know we talked about it and how it seems to be analogous to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic and movie.

KevinMLD: I look at it and with the weird high tech weaponry and supernatural themes, it has very little to do with any of the Jonah Hex stuff I’ve read and enjoyed. Though I hear there were some supernatural Jonah Hex stories told through Vertigo in the ’90s. The previews for the film remind me more of Will Smith’s Wild, Wild West than anything else. The way it turned out gives me very little hope for the Green Lantern film next Summer.

Read our thoughts on:
Brightest Day #2 / Brightest Day #4

More on the series can be found at our Brightest Day hub.