By: Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi (writers), Patrick Gleason and Scott Clark (artists), David Beaty, Mick Gray, Tom Nguyen, Mark Irwin, Rebecca Buchman, Keith Champagne, Sandra Hope and Patrick Gleason (yeah, that’s right….8 inkers for 24 pages)
Conclusion: Yes, I know that conclusions usually come at the end, but I can’t properly complain about this issue without giving a spoiler (which is against our policy at WCBR). Therefore, I’m going to give my “don’t buy this book” recommendation before I get to the spoiler. Then, if you want to foolishly risk your hard-earned (or ill-gotten…I don’t know you that well…) coin on this book, you can stop reading now and see for yourself. Just remember the environment and recycle!
***Spoiler Alert!!***
The Story: J’onn J’onzz, 25 years in the future, enjoys the accolades of fawning peers and Martians, while indulging in boring musings. By page seven, a dog bites him. Then, friends get killed. By page 18 or 20, we discover it’s all a dream. Yup. It was a dream.
What’s Good: Nothing. The dialogue was irritating and verbose. The dream-reveal was irritating. And for some reason, they couldn’t even keep a consistent art style because the DC editorial team decided that eight (8) inkers was the appropriate number of different people to handle a 24-page comic book. The empty story and surplus of inkers lead me to theorize that one or both of the writers were sick or MIA, leading to a half-done, rushed script getting to Gleason and Clark late, leading to the need for artistic inconsistency.
What’s Not So Good: Sigh. I’ve been trying so hard to like this series. I’ve enjoyed the pace picking up, the focus on some of the resurrectees over 15-20 pages, where we can really get development and the story can move. The 22 pages of this issue devoted to J’Onn J’Onzz did not develop anything. Nothing changed. It was all a dream. It’s possible for characters to learn things in dreams (Scrooge) and emerge as fundamentally different characters with a new perspective on the world. That didn’t happen here. And the final panel of him choking the shit out of D’Kay while that warped femme fatale recovers from another failed attempt to seduce him…well, we were already there several issues ago. Nothing changed. These 22 pages are not needed. They can be excised in their entirety from DCU continuity without any loss of information.
The last 2 pages don’t advance the story in any way either. If you want more spoilers, Starman and Congorilla play chess and get a warning from Firestorm that he’s about to destroy the universe. Again, nothing new. Actually, to be honest, I didn’t know that Congorilla liked chess so much, but is that the core reveal of this issue?
You’d think that the editors and writers of Brightest Day, after getting their balls busted by fans for not making this story move forward quick enough, would use every single panel to hype up the tension and keep the action moving. I’m not trying to be an armchair quarterback or anything, but c’mon people! Brightest Day, as a member of my pull list, has now been given another warning card. One more like this and I’m gonna give up on Brightest Day.
Grade: D
-DS Arsenault
Filed under: DC Comics Tagged: | Blackest Night, Brightest Day #15, Brightest Day #15 review, Comic Book Reviews, comic books, comic reviews, DC, DC Comics, Deathstorm, DS Arsenault, Firestorm, Geoff Johns, J'onn J'onzz, Jeastice League of America, Martian Manhunter, Pat Gleason, Peter J. Tomasi, Reviews, Scott Clark, Weekly Comic Book Review
And….Brightest Day continues to be ridiculously inconsistent.
This is probably the most uneven series out there right now. It’s like we’re oscillating between win and suck every two weeks.
-Alex
W….T…F?
I too have been really trying to like Brightest Day. I loved Blackest Night, and was really hoping that BD would be more of the same fun, only more positive and less zombie apocalypse-ey. But the crawling place and wheel spinning is really, really starting to grate. I’ll finish the series since it’s (sigh. Kind of) almost done and I’m a neurotic completest (plus the cover on this one is damn cool, I have to say…except, as much as I love Diana, why the heck is she flying with all the other heroes, in that outfit, when she hasn’t even met them according to her current continuity?) but I crack it open with dread rather than anticipation every time. I’m sure I’ll be adding my ranting to yours come Thursday.