REVIEW: Brightest Day #6

We’ve had a week to digest the happenings of Brightest Day #6 since it shipped last Wednesday and there’s plenty to say. Our discussion covers green Martians, white Martians, Miss Martians and manhunting Martians along with more on Firestorm, Deadman, and Aquaman.

PTB and I also take moment to touch on the Brightest Day teaser image DC was showing off at this year’s San Diego Comic Con and how much these images usually amount to in the end.

Cover art

PTB: Another noteworthy cover this week, but I almost wish there was more uniformity to how they were put together. The first few were group shots, but the composition of the groups hasn’t really had much to do with the story. The zero issue at least had all the resurrected characters. The Aquaman image on #2 and this one show the heroes with their Black Lantern counterparts, but the Hawks and Firestorm ones didn’t. I just find it weird.

KevinMLD: Not to sound like Andy Rooney, but do you know what I miss? Covers that had anything to do with the events in the issue at hand. Covers that screamed, “This is an issue you want to read, even if it’s not a title you normally buy!!!” Maybe I’m just old fashioned but these constant pinup covers do nothing for me really.

PTB: I don’t mind the pinup style, especially here since it’s showcasing characters that don’t have their own titles to show them off each month. In general though I agree with you, covers depicting some of the action on the pages inside are superior.

Speaking of the cover…

Martian Manhunter

PTB: This thing looking for the Manhunter is brutal. You said you think this is something new to his story?

KevinMLD: As far as I know, but Geoff Johns likes elevating obscure characters (see Blackest Night) so I may be end up being wrong.

PTB: All the plant life dying around Manhunter is reminiscent of what’s happening with Aquaman and the sea life. Does Manhunter have some connection to other green stuff? At least the squirrel survives.

KevinMLD: No connection to the green at all. A quick Martian Manhunter primer: Last survivor of Mars (well similar to Superman, the last survivor except for all of the other survivors), hates: fire, loves: Oreos, at some point masqueraded as a detective but abandoned that secret identity years ago as far as I know. This may all lead to the return of someone else who has a connection to the green though.

PTB: What exactly is a White Martian?

KevinMLD: Another race of Martians that are generally bad guys. They were the villains of Grant Morrison’s amazing first JLA story, New World Order. They took out all of the JLA, but were ultimately defeated by the JLA’s most dangerous member: Batman.

PTB: So who exactly is this Miss Martian that Manhunter seeks out?

KevinMLD: If you go back to our discussion of Brightest Day #1, you’ll see I mentioned how glaring her absence from that issue was as the Martian Manhunter tried to resurrect Mars.

She’s been a member of the Titans. While she chooses to look like a green Martian, she’s actually a white Martian. She pretends to be a green one so that she’s not assumed to be evil like the other white Martians. Of course, at some point she was possessed by an evil version of herself from the future and was hiding that fact, so maybe she’s not so reliable after all. Around this time Teen Titans became unreadable so I have no idea how any of that was resolved.

She’s also a member of the cast of the upcoming Young Justice series on Cartoon Network along with the new Aqualad that is slowly being introduced in this series… So I think it’s safe to assume she’ll survive her current predicament.

Hawks, Doves and Deadman

PTB: The Hawk, Dove and Deadman stuff continues to be confusing. Is that Hawk’s brother (the white lantern) that leaps out of the grave and takes down Dove’s sister (the black lantern)?

KevinMLD: I guess so.

PTB: I’m glad it’s not just me that’s missing out on the story here. So the ring tells Deadman to eat a cheeseburger and seems to be able to bring out his connection to the Black Battery and the White Battery?

KevinMLD: Yeah, I get the feeling this subplot will be most important to the overall Brightest Day story and so far it stinks. Eat a cheeseburger? Really. This is plain stupid.

Firestorm

PTB: I’m kind of annoyed that the voice in Firestorm’s head keeps referring to the atomic structure of bubble gum. It really should be chemical structure or molecular structure he’s referring to. There’s no bubble gummium atom that I’m aware of.

KevinMLD: There’s a reason DC can never get Firestorm over. He’s kind of dumb.

PTB: I don’t mind the power set. In fact, it could be kind of cool. This is really a terminology thing. At least they acknowledge that someone else is in there with them.

KevinMLD: We knew that from the cover of issue 4.

PTB: That’s true even though the book didn’t make the point as clearly as the cover did. Is this meant to pique our interest as to what the Black Lanterns really are? I seem to recall from an interview with Geoff Johns (and it’s clear from the books) that it’s not as simple as an evil aspect or version of the host.

Aquaman and Mera

PTB: We get some backstory on Mera and I’m guessing a lot of this is news? And this is the explanation of the strangeness associated with the Bermuda Triangle?

KevinMLD: Maybe. Again who would know? No one reads Aquaman comics.

PTB: I did not know that Black Manta killed their son. Should be interesting when they come face to face again.

KevinMLD: I did know this, but I think it was many years ago. I don’t think it’s a new issue.

Final Comments

PTB: We should probably talk about the teaser image that turned up last week too. Highlights include:

• Fires in the Star City forest (that should make you happy).
• Beakface Hawkpeople pouring out of the bone portal.
• Hawk and Dove with a dead looking Jade.
• Jason and Ronnie burying a BL Firestorm.
• A Green Lantern and Red Lantern construction site?
• Deadman making up a RISE tombstone.
• The new Aqualad.
• Aquaman’s corpse missing a heart and bloody handed White Lantern Hal Jordan on a throne above him?
• And something sinister with red eyes under this throne…

KevinMLD: Yeah. Remember when you posted your love for the huge X-Men posters recently? It just reminded me of how stupid these DC images always end up being. I remember one of the key pieces of an early mysterious DC promo was Batman dressed like a knight. What was the significance of that image? Apparently that Batman would wear a suit of armor in a two-issue fill-in story. So disappointing. Of course several years later that suit of armor was adopted as a costume by the new Azrael that no one cares about.

PTB: It’s always hard to know with these things. Especially since a lot of them already appear to be happening. Techland.com does a pretty thorough job of breaking this image down to its varied components. The most intriguing things to me are the Aquaman corpse and what exactly is going on at that construction site.

Read our thoughts on:
Brightest Day #5 / Brightest Day #7

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