By: Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi (writers), Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, Joe Prado (artists), Vicente Cifuentes, David Beaty, Mark Irwin (inkers)
The Story: The Secret of Life: Okay! Chesseburgers are done! It’s time for the White Lantern to give out class assignments to all twelve resurrectees.
What’s Good: The rubber is hitting the road here. The White Lantern gets a lot of speaking time in this issue, so we’re getting a lot of revelations. Not direct ones, but clues to what the White Lantern is all about, what it’s trying to do, through the immediate assignments it issues to the resurrectees. Interestingly, some of the missions are contradictory, or even already completed, which leads me to think that the final reveal of what the White Lantern is about (and what Blackest Night was for) will be something more subtle than the raison d’être of any of the color spectra we’ve seen so far. All in all, very cool. The writing is crisp and well-paced. One thing I started noticing about Johns’ writing is that he ends every page on a bit of a cliff-hanger, which is smart story-telling for a serial medium like comic books. The characters were sympathetic and mostly multi-dimensional, especially with Boston Brand (arguably the series protagonist) and Hawk and Dove (whom I argue are a waste of ink, but around whom Johns and Tomasi are building good stories). I couldn’t figure out in the beginning if Dove was hitting on Boston over burgers, or interrogating him, and at the end, the scene had a taste of both, which takes subtle writing. I also enjoyed seeing more of Hath-Set on Hawkworld, the third personality in the Firestorm matrix and that Jackson kid near the White Lantern. Lots of subplots are coming together and each issue is getting more exciting.
The art chores are awesome. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but check out the textural detail and shadow work on the second splash page. I was a little less satisfied with the art on the Martian Manhunter and Firestorm scenes, but this doesn’t mean it was bad, only that I so enjoyed the artwork on Boston and crew that anything else suffers in comparison. Not a bad place to be as a book buyer in any case. Hawkman’s art was freakishly awesome too, especially the lionmen ripping birdflesh from the bones of the slain enemy. The shadows, layouts, colors and camera angles were all also worth admiring, which I did.
What’s Not So Good: Johns and Tomasi, armed with a first-class art crew, have pretty much delivered an issue I couldn’t find fault with.
Conclusion: Brightest Day #7 is an exciting adventure with engaging, Earth-centered heroes and a cosmic backdrop. If you like a classic-style superhero story, pick it up. I really enjoyed it.
Grade: A-
-DS Arsenault
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