Last month MLD presented a primer on all things Scott Pilgrim to prepare readers for the upcoming Edgar Wright film, which actually hits theaters this Friday. Today we will be discussing the Wildstorm/Homage Studios series RED that has inspired a Bruce Willis film due out this Fall.

Spoilers will follow.

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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.

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DC Comics launched a new app for Apple’s mobile platforms overnight. This came as quite a surprise because DC has been the only major publisher absent from the digital world to date. The app is built on the same Comixology platform that’s used by the Marvel and Boom apps. This format, at least on the iPhone, basically divides each comic page up into panels and guides the reader through each one for a clean and easy reading experience.
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DC Comics‘ Brightest Day #2 hits stores today, ptb and I have taken some time over the past two weeks to share our thoughts on issue #1.

KevinMLD: So what did you think of Brightest Day #1?

I enjoyed it more than I expected to. The Aquaman stuff is a great twist. Clearly the resurrection of these characters isn’t as simple as it originally appeared. I like that he’s off fighting Somali pirates, though that risks becoming too topical down the line… But that he now controls dead sea life is a really interesting change. I wonder if it’s just freshly dead creatures or if he’ll be calling on like dinosaurs at some point.

I’m not sold on Deadman’s role yet and, as I’ve said before, his story is what I’m most interested in.

ptb: This was a major improvement over #0 for me. The appearance of Green Lantern, Star Sapphire and Sinestro at the opening really helped since I wasn’t sure the resurrected characters were going to hold my attention. Although I agree completely that the twists surrounding their returns are intriguing.

Savage undead giant squids are a good way to keep Aquaman interesting (the two page spread as it rose up to attack the pirates was amazing) and the reveal with the guy gutting fish (and people) was a real surprise.

I like that Deadman is central to the story since he’s a character I’d like to know more about.

I’m not into this new Firestorm at all, but Martian Manhunter and the Hawks’ stories have caught my interest even though I know nothing about Manhunter’s flashback or who Hath-Set is.

The connection between the White Power Battery and Excalibur could be cool or completely awful.

KevinMLD: The weird thing about the Martian Manhunter flashback is why hasn’t he tried to bring Mars back to life in the past? Is he demonstrating some new abilities tied to his resurrection like Aquaman? Also, what about the other Martians we’ve seen like the white Martians from JLA (unless they’ve all been killed at some point and I missed it) or the Teen Titans’ Miss Martian? He isn’t the only living Martian as far as I know.

I’m not sure about who Hath-Set is. I recognize the name but can’t remember if he’s tied to the Hawks or Black Adam.

I’m hoping the sword in the stone thing remains just an a metaphor. If it doesn’t they’ll probably go the obvious route and make Aquaman the White Lantern. His name is Arthur and they’ve gone with the once and future king motif for him in the past.

My prediction for who the White Lantern will be is either Aliveman or Dove of Hawk and Dove… Though I guess it’s probably more likely it will be someone entirely new.

I guess we’ll see sooner than later.

Also read our thoughts on:
Brightest Day #2

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

As Brightest Day, the follow up to DC Comics‘ hit miniseries Blackest Night, officially begins today (issue zero was released last month), ptb and I have taken few moments to reflect on what has come and speculate on what’s ahead.

ptb: The thing that stood out most to me about Blackest Night was the way it made me realize how little I know about the DC Universe. The major players and surface details I get, but as soon as you go a little deeper I’m lost. After reading issue one, we talked a bit about who was who and clarified a lot of civilian/code names. Knowing who people are is one thing, but understanding why they’re important is another. Barry Allen being back is kind of lost on me, but resurrections of guys like Max Lord are a complete mystery. The appearance of the Monitor (or was it the Anti-Monitor?) also didn’t mean much to me although I know it’s a big deal.

KevinMLD: Now you know how I feel when I read about Bastian!

The reason for Barry Allen being back is a mystery to me and so far DC has done very little to demonstrate why he’s something special beyond the fact that he was on the Super Friends when Geoff Johns was a kid.

The Anti-Monitor has played major roles in both Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis as well as the Sinestro Corps War. He single-handedly destroyed the original DC multiverse. That’s literally all you need to know about him. He’s the biggest of the big bads.

Max Lord is a little more complicated and stupid. He kind of ran or financed the Justice League during the 80’s sitcom years from what I know. He has some mind control powers. He was basically ignored as a character for years, but made a comeback just prior to Infinite Crisis. He turned heel in a big way and took over the organization Checkmate, which is a DC universe spy organization similar to Marvel’s SHIELD. He had big evil plans that involved using his mind control powers on Superman to do some supervillainy stuff until Wonder Woman snapped his neck on national television. This led to people distrusting Wonder Woman because no one knew how naughty Max Lord had been.

ptb: A second major issue I had with Blackest Night was the fact that throughout it, I was hearing about what was happening in Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps and those seemed to be the books I should have been reading. Blackest Night gave the main story from a DCU-wide perspective, but I’m honestly more interested in the spectrum of Lanterns than how Blackest Night affects the Atom (and he may be a bad example since he became a Lantern).

KevinMLD: The Blackest Night story obviously concluded in the Blackest Night main book, but I definitely think most of the major story beats took place in Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. The main War of Light stuff took place in GLC, with the adventures of Hal Jordan and the main allied rainbow corps members taking place in the GL book. In fact, the Blackest Night main series felt like it was a tacked on, money grab on DC’s part until the last two issues.

This also reminds me of how I felt reading Civil War. Why did Spider-man side with Tony Stark again? If these companies are going to run major events like this, they need the information that is most important to the story to take place in the main title.

ptb: I read the whole thing and I definitely liked it, but I know there was a lot that I missed. Brightest Day #0 didn’t really change much of this. The tone and perspective of this issue may have been different from what’s to come in order to set things up since it is a zero issue, but it’s going to have a hard time maintaining my interest if it focuses only on the White Ring resurrected characters. The covers indicate that Hal Jordan is involved so maybe that will help.

Both series look great and that’s a big plus, but I’m definitely unsure of how long I’ll be sticking around from here. How many issues does this series run?

KevinMLD: I like that Aquaman is back, but a lot of the other resurrections aren’t very exciting… Especially Hawkman and Hawkgirl (not to be confused with Hawk who was also resurrected) who were killed twice in the last year and Martian Manhunter who just died during Final Crisis. But I am really excited about the resurrection of Deadman. That’s a brilliant concept. Deadman is a character who was completely content being dead. Being dead has always been his gimmick. This is brand new ground for the character. I’m kind of sad that the now “Aliveman” has powers. I wanted to see him just be human for awhile and come to grips with his new life. I hope there are interesting plans in place for him.

Anyway, even as a big DC fan I’m not totally sold on Brightest Day yet as there has been very little revealed about the story and due to the fact that it’s going to run for 26 issues. I’ll be there for the first few issues though.

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