Last Wednesday, in recognition of the second full week of DC Comics’ New 52 promotion, I recommended the seven new DC titles that I thought were most likely to be worthy of your attention and your money sight unseen. Now that we’ve had a week to digest them, the question is how did I do? I think it’s safe to characterize the entire promotion as a monster success for DC at least in terms of PR for month one: sellouts across the line, reprints on the way and copies being ordered in the six figure range. Overall, I can honestly say the quality of the actual product has been stronger than I was expecting. The books I personally recommended for week three in order of expected quality were as follows: Batman, Wonder Woman, Nightwing, Green Lantern Corps, DC Universe Presents: Deadman, Red Hood and the Outlaws and Catwoman.

So how were they in reality?

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DC Comics’ Brightest Day returned with a strong issue two weeks ago and we can only hope that it’s a sign of things to come for the series. In many ways the book returned to the way it began by shifting the focus around the major players that were resurrected during Blackest Night, namely Deadman, Firestorm, Hawkman and Hawkgirl. After what we felt was a marked decline, things are looking up.

PTB: It Feels like it’s been a while since we did one of these. Did the book ship late or is that us?

KevinMLD: Pretty sure that’s just us being slow.

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DC Comics’ Brightest Day 26-issue maxi-series has turned the corner into its second half with last week’s issue #14. This one had a huge guest star in the recently returned Bruce Wayne, but as you’ll read, you can’t always judge a book by its cover.

Spoilers ahead.

PTB: You must have enjoyed this more than the past few issues. I’m tempted to even say it’s the best of the series since the zero issue. It didn’t really advance the plot at all, but I enjoyed it very much.

KevinMLD: I absolutely agree this was the best issue in a while. The origin segment was clunky again; climaxing with the terrible Deadman on his knees pronouncing his desire to live scene… But besides that I enjoyed it.

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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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Brightest Day returned last Wednesday after a week off and focused on Hawkmen, Hawkwomen, and other assorted bird-, cat- and fish-people. PTB and I are keeping our discussion of the book on our original bi-weekly schedule even if the book isn’t, so let this hold you over until issue #6 next week.

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