REVIEW: Brightest Day #18

DC Comics’ Brightest Day series is heading into the home stretch and the previous issue saw a marked improvement in how the story is being told. Issue #18 continues this trend as the stories of the characters resurrected by the White Lantern during Blackest Night continue to converge. Two of those stories meet and take a dramatic turn, but everything may not be as it appears. We also briefly revisit DC Universe Online MMO.

Spoilers ahead.

PTB: It was nice to see Captain Cold in the opening, but I wasn’t really following what was going on. They don’t even really identify him or Captain Boomerang which I found a little strange given the way this book has handled its large cast.

KevinMLD: Yeah, this is a strange scene because it flows directly out of recent Flash events in which Captain Boomerang freed the Reverse Flash from prison.

PTB: I assume it’s meant to set up the confrontation between Boomerang and Dove, and at the same time show that Boomerang has been changed by his resurrection. This book is the only place I’ve even seen the character, so it’s probably a lot less compelling than it could be. Also, we now know Dove is at least college-aged since we see her at Georgetown.

KevinMLD: I wonder if this is a new development in her character. But I’m glad she’s at least not in high school.

PTB: Any idea who Lorena is that Mera was talking to?

KevinMLD: Apparently, she’s Aquagirl and was apparently a Teen Titan at some point, but never while I was reading that book. In all fairness, I had to Google her to find out. It’d certainly be nice if that information was in the story in some way.

PTB: There were a lot of new faces to Brightest Day in this issue. We see that the Black Lanterns are with Deathstorm again. So I guess they’re more permanent than he indicated previously.

KevinMLD: I thought we found out he can call them up on demand out of dirt or something.

PTB: That is what he said, but it’s still hard to know if they’re true Black Lanterns or just some sort of projections from him.

The pink and purple art of the Hawks battle with Khea (Hawkgirl’s mother) looked outstanding. The bones of their former lives animating and attacking was particularly awesome.

KevinMLD: This is an unexpectedly strong conclusion to their story. I kind of hope this is the end of their story, but I doubt it.

PTB: I definitely enjoyed it, and the art really helped with that. I’d be surprised if this is the end for them, but it’s fitting that the Hawkpeople are on the regular cover to this issue as this is the culmination of their story. So, they’re dead again?

KevinMLD:  We can hope, but I’m not willing to accept that despite the piles of dust. I’m sure we’ll find out they were just transported somewhere or only one of them died or some other cop out. If they are dead, they’ll be back soon enough. Place a bet? Who is resurrected first: Cobra Commander, Hawkman, or Johnny Storm?

PTB: I’ll take that action. I say Hawkman followed shortly thereafter by Cobra Commander. Johnny Storm may be gone for a while.

The Hawks are transformed momentarily into White Lanterns because they fulfilled their mission from the White Battery Voice. What does this mean for Max Lord, didn’t he recently complete his task? Did that happen to him?

KevinMLD: Yes. In Justice League: Generation Lost #13, Maxwell Lord leads Captain Atom to kill Magog and upon Magog’s death he briefly becomes illuminated with white light and has his life returned to him.

PTB: That “life returned” phrase from the White Lantern Voice definitely stood out to me. Its reaction to Hawkman saying to Hawkgirl, “I love you more than life itself,” also caught my attention as being odd.

KevinMLD: The ring seems to think Life is the most important thing in the world based on its treatment of Deadman. The ring can’t seem to understand that anyone would value anything more than life. It’s an interesting development.

PTB: It definitely piqued my interest in the nature of the voice. Deadman and his white ring clearly had something to do with the Hawkpeople turning into dust, but did the white ring actually force him to kill them when they refused to agree to live apart?

KevinMLD: That’s what I think we’re lead to believe that they’ve been turned to dust. I don’t know that you can say Deadman was forced to kill them or if the ring did it on its own. This certainly is an interesting development as I had previously assumed the white ring was a force for good, but this seems more ambiguous.

PTB: We definitely can’t take for granted that everything associated with the White Lantern is good. It occurs to me after seeing them turned to dust that maybe the White Ring collected them so that the Champion, Deadman, can call upon them whenever he needs them. It’s similar to what we were talking about with Deathstorm and his Black Lantern Corps.

KevinMLD: That might be an interesting twist. I guess we’ll see what they have up their sleeves.

Last week we both briefly discussed the DC MMO game rather dismissively. I saw this news yesterday and found it kind of shocking. Apparently, the DC game is Sony’s fastest selling MMO ever and they’ve produced MMOs based on Star Wars and Everquest. That seems pretty crazy to me. I’m still not paying $15 a month to play a video game.

PTB: I wouldn’t be able to justify that cost either, but I’m not as surprised that it’s their fastest selling MMO. It’s been heavily advertised for a long time and DC’s popularity is at a real high point even if it’s not dominating the comics market. I don’t know how those numbers compare to World of Warcraft, but I would doubt it’s that successful yet.

Having it available on the PS3 really increases its market as the article points out, and its availability on Valve’s Steam platform might be good news for you. I think that works on the Mac OS. You’d still have to pay to play though. The thing that irks me most is seeing Batman, Robin and Nightwing in the image from that article and knowing you can’t play as those characters.

KevinMLD: I think I read there was going to be some sort of combat mode in which you can play as the main DC heroes/villains but not in the story mode. I also read that there are basically bully gamers who have been playing since the beta and have earned advanced experience ratings and power who are hanging around the levels for new players and just beating on them. I can’t imagine being excited about a game that can be so negatively affected by jerks.

Read our thoughts on:
Brightest Day #17 / Brightest Day #19

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