"Brightest Day" Wrap Up

When "Blackest Night" was released I was surprised to find myself enjoying a cross-over comic, something I haven't been able to do in years. "Blackest Night" managed to avoid all the things I hate about cross-over comics and give me a more narrow and well defined narrative story that worked excellent as a companion piece to the "Green Lantern" comics that had been running prior to the big zombie event's release. So when "Brightest Day" was announced I let my guard down and was eagerly anticipating the new DC event to see if they could carry the torch well beyond their earlier efforts. They didn't

Two months ago when i first started picking up the issues of "Brightest Day" I expressed my deep hatred for what I was seeing unfold on each page. I complained about the lack of focus and the agonizing direction of following 10 separate DC heroes across 5-6 story lines. At that point in time I was only on issue 2 so I wanted to be a fair critic and ride this one out. Some times good things just need a little bit of momentum to get up to speed, although I still feel like the biggest problem modern comic writers have is that they don't know how to condense stories in any meaningful palatable way.

As of writing this article I am now at issue 8 and I am done. No honestly, I quit.

I have spent around $24 dollars so far and what do i have to show for it? I have no idea! The story is still aimless, the characters are just now starting to unravel, and the purpose of all this white lantern nonsense is still shrouded somewhere in the mists of pretentious half-baked story-telling.

What "Brightest Day" really needed to do was find some direction. You can still have a comic that follows the lives and events of multiple heroes and heroines, sure, but if you are going to do that you need to unify them and get the reader invested by giving us some clue as to what this is all about early on. They have been dragging their feet for so long now that I couldn't care less about the events that are about to unfold because I feel as though I've been robbed of my time and money.

Now I know there are going to be some DC apologists that I speak to me at the comic store or amongst my group of friends who will take the time to explain to me how this is all used to build tension or something, but they are wrong; and while I normally don't say this, I am confident I can defeat their argument without even having to read the remaining unpublished issues. This comic is being projected as a 26 issue event, when all is said and done I can promise you that whatever the big message is or whatever alteration this causes in the DCU could very well have been edited down to merely half those numbers. 13 issues is getting a bit long in the tooth as well, and unless we're talking about "52", if you have to go over 13 then reconsider your story.

If anyone is reading this that cares, please don't support "Brightest Day". The ends will not justify the means. Maybe the conclusion will be good, maybe it will be the greatest climax ever inked for a DC comic, but doesn't it sort of sour things when the beginning was such a sluggish mess?