By: Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi (writers), Patrick Gleason, Ivan Reis and Joe Prado (artists)
The Story: On Earth, the Hawks and Aquaman are dead and the world’s superheroes are seeing the coming wave of disaster. On Mars, the Martian Manhunter gets into the final showdown with D’Kay, the last Martian femme fatale. Against this action, the white ring is moving chess pieces in the background.
What’s Good: I enjoyed this issue. Writer-wise, Johns and Tomasi tormented the Martian Manhunter, physically and emotionally, with the metaphorical devil offering him everything he wants with the price being his soul. Then, Johns and Tomasi delivered a mutli-layered, final closure for the Martian Manhunter. The ending is not only emotionally satisfying, logically necessary and visually awesome, but right after that, Johns and Tomasi up the ante, broadening the scope of the story and bringing in messianic imagery that hasn’t been this effective since the High Evolutionary sent Adam Warlock to save the Counter-Earth.
Art-wise, I loved it. The art team took all the possibilities opened up with shape-changing telepaths as their subjects. Tendrils crept from fluid, intermixed flesh and horrible wounds were drawn by sharp claws and teeth, prior to telepathic invasions. All disturbing. The closest comparisons I can think of are the occasional Durlan-Durlan fights in the Legion of Superheroes, but Durlans take the shapes of alien beasts. Here, the fact that bodies melted like wax was way more evocative. The rest of the book had very strong imagery as well. The first page especially was arresting with the atom standing beside the fallen mask of Hawkman and the waves washing against Aquaman’s hand. Well done.
What’s Not So Good: This was a fun book. No complaints.
Conclusion: Brightest Day is finishing big and we’re getting to see some hints of where this is heading (for those that are following the Green Lantern series as well). This is looking to be as cosmic as Blackest Night, which could make this quite cool.
Grade: B
-DS Arsenault
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Grade
Conclusion