Avert Your Eyes from "Brightest Day"

As we all know by now, I love comic books. Comic books are a form of storytelling that combines the intimate methodical techniques of a novel with the visual flare of cinema. In many ways comics are superior to both formats as they can dispense the need for excessive Stephen King levels of exposition by just showing you a picture of what is happening and are capable of setting up much more dynamic shots than movie because the framework of a comic is not limited to the aspect ratio of a movie theater screen or television set.

Yes, comics can do just about anything and probably should try it all. Looking back at the 80s we had very daring writers assembling deconstructive pieces on super hero stories and analyzing the mental stress and odd social implications that a living breathing super soldier might pose to society. Unfortunately, the amazing lengths that comics such as Watchmen or Sandman took were inevitably the catalysts of the absolute destruction of the industry in the 90’s. Gone were the dark tales of cerebral meditation and in were the ludicrous large gunned, multi pocket wearing, amateurish anatomy of the Rob Liefeld age. Somehow comics survived and are now going through a revival thanks to a little bit of ingenuity and the knowledge that “fun” should always be a part of the equation.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the dark stuff; hell Preacher is so vile that it makes me giggle with delight and appreciate the message it’s trying to deliver with its overtly western feel. Despite this love of the macabre I have to say that silly fun will always rank higher on my personal comic shelf. The Bone series is easily one of my favorite comics to ever see Mylar. Ever since I collected the complete paper trade back I have made it routine to read through the whole thing at least once a year. Why? The characters are endearing, the quest is grand, and it knows when to take itself seriously and when to sit around and just goof off. Hell, this is a comic that takes the works of one of the most noteworthy writers of all time, Melville, and references him by naming a cute and cuddly creature after one of the most nihilistic characters in literature. In many ways it’s perfect. This sort of awareness is pivotal to its success; it understands its own universe and doesn’t deny what it is. So with all that said, let’s talk about Brightest Day.

For those of you that have read my stuff since the beginning, you might recall that I posted a rather negative review of cross over events in comics. To save time and space for those who never read the thing, I don’t really care for them. The idea of throwing together all the characters of a respective comic universe to do battle is rarely self contained within its own series and is nothing more than a ploy by the company to have people buying copies of comics from all of their various characters’ individual series.

Luckily Blackest Night was one of those rare gems that knew exactly what it was. First and foremost it was a Green Lantern comic and so it took great care in focusing almost exclusively on the events of Green Lantern that occurred before the cross over began. Sure there was some stuff about Mera and other supporting third tier super heroes, but it was always in small bursts that complimented the primary story. Blackest Night eventually ended and kicked off Brightest Day. As of writing this review I am 4 books in and what I see before me is a completely bland, insipid, scatter brained, juvenile mess.

I’ve always feared that comics might be in danger of going back in time to revisit the atrocities of the 90’s and books like Brightest Day are the reason. Imagine for a second, a comic book about super heroes within the pristine world where Superman and Wonder Woman reside that features a mother brutally murdering her own family and then ripping her own flesh off then proceeding to tear the skin off her now dead family. Oh I’m real…. Yes, this is a scene in Brightest Day. This is a scene that occurs within the standard DCU. Superman will forever be a hero who protects the people of a world where house wives do things on the level of The Collector. Sure I’m aware that sick things happen in life and many might point to me and say, “Stop trying to censor this! You just can’t accept the harshness of reality.” Well to that I say, this is a work of fiction and for the sake of entertainment I am always willing to suspend my disbelief. I don’t mind this sort of behavior in expanded universe material, but once you have the most brutal of horror movie events unfolding on the pages of what will soon be cannon, I think you’ve got a serious problem.

Yeah, Brightest Day is kinda weird and gross. Blackest Night had its morbid scenes as well, hell this IS a zombie apocalypse run, but nothing on this level of insanity. Fans will probably point towards Marvel Zombies and ask why I don’t mention the strange happenings there but honestly Marvel Zombies was always nothing more than kooky fan service. In no way was Marvel Zombies canonical and once you throw Ash from The Evil Dead into the mix you quickly realize it’s all for fun. Blackest Night and Brightest Day want you to believe in this mythology badly; they want you to understand even years from now that yes, zombies are real and yes they can drop kick Hal Jordan like a punk bitch. This is the sort of stupid ideology taken from the 90’s where you just give the loyal fans exactly what they want no matter how inappropriate. Yes, I blame the recent rise in the popularity of zombies for constructing this DC run and shame on all of you for spoiling what once was great.

So other than being gross what’s wrong with it? Well for starters it can’t keep focused. I applauded Blackest Night for its tunnel vision. Brightest Day on the other hand while still belonging to the Lantern comics only does so in spirit. Hal Jordan and Sinestro in the 4 comics that have been published to date have only made an appearance in the first issue and only on the first 3 pages or so. What the hell have they been doing? This is the White Lantern for god’s sake! Shouldn’t they be more interested in the presence of a brand new Lantern Power source? Shouldn’t they be interested in this since it is essentially ALL of the Lantern powers rolled into one with the awesome bonus feature of being able to bring the dead back to life in the non flesh eating George Ramero sort of way? No, of course they’re not. They tried lifting it a few times and Hal chocked it up to being the Sword in the Stone myth. Do I ever wish that were true, hell where’s the Disney version? That would be a lot more entertaining than this schlock.

Wait, didn’t Sinestro seize the power at the end of Blackest Night for a moment? Didn’t Hal Jordan and the collective A-list members of DCU also get some of its mojo towards the end? This Lantern must suffer from some kind of bi-polarness if it freely offers Sinestro its power at the drop of a hat and then isolates itself like some 14 year-old self mutilator the next.

Without any Lanterns around you’re probably wondering, well then who is the story about? Hate to break this to you but Brightest Day suffers from the biggest problem of most cross over events in that it can’t decide who to focus on. The story jumps back and forth between Aqua man and Mera, Firestorm, The Martian Manhunter, and the Hawk duet. *yawn* other than the Martian Manhunter I really don’t care too much about these other characters. They may have had their decent runs here and there, but I’ve never read them and am not interested in starting now. Furthermore, this disjointed narrative can work and has worked in the past but it requires a great deal of creative story telling that I don’t think is present here. Hell you want a great tale that jumps between numerous characters? Read They Came Like Swallows, watch any Quentin Tarantino film, play Final fantasy 6 as these are all great examples of how you can build up an emotional investment in numerous characters and subplots that coalesce into a single cohesive narrative.

Obviously, the events of these separate characters are all unified by the White Lantern, but as of chapter 4 I’m still not seeing it. By now there should be a clear indication of how these completely boring and uninteresting events involving zombie sharks and Martha Mansons are tied to one another other than the very ambiguous, it’s the white lantern’s doing.

Come to think of it, the more I study this, the more I see a desperate ploy by DC to try and inject their increasingly unpopular A-list stars with relevance in the same manner that they did with their C-listers over the last few years. Blue Beatle and Booster Gold are great examples of characters dug up from the mud and turned superstar over night. The difference here is that while those two had interesting stories written around them that were, believe this, fun and captivating, the characters of Brightest Day are just given a zombie face lift because that’s the most edgy and contemporary thing they can think of to appeal to the current market.

Where are the Lanterns? Why is this zombie thing continuing? How is this event going to sit within the DCU several years down the line? What is the logic in depicting such violence when you have creative license to do so in expanded universe material? Umm, shoot – I’m missing two here. Ah the hell with it. So far Brightest Day does not impress me one bit. I’m starting to think that maybe pandering to the fans of zombie culture may end up biting DC back in the ass if they’re not careful. I’ll stick around for now but I would prefer not to *guffah*.

Crossover Events. Part 3: Reloaded

This morning I came to the realization that maybe I was a tad harsh on DC in yesterday’s post. To prove that I am an unbiased and fair critic, I will call a truce with DC for this once and shower praise upon it while throwing Marvel into the mud. I hope that makes you viewers out there happy, and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Now, if you haven’t read part one and two, do so now and then come back here for the finale.



About a month ago I finished the Blackest Night crossover event and I was rather impressed. After checking to make sure blood was not boiling from the Earth’s surface and the clouds were still made from water and not Satan’s piss, I turned back to the comic and let out a sigh of relief. Finally, something worth a damn, my whole day had changed in a matter of seconds. No longer was I a bitter, self-loathing, misanthrope, I now had the urge to hug my fellow man and pet kittens with my hands rather than a pizza cutter

To clarify, the reason I enjoyed Blackest Night so much was that it was everything a crossover event should be. For the most part, even though the story dealt with an enormous catastrophe that required the assistance of most the DCU, it still focused on the Green Lantern characters and revolved almost entirely around their history - for the most part. This was a huge relief, because it meant that anyone who had been reading Geoff Johns Green Lantern run was able to keep it together and understand exactly what was going on. The story was self-contained, it wrapped up neatly while simultaneously opening the path for a new adventure for these characters, and it didn’t demand too much outside reading. However, there was something wrong with the last page. The same thing that is wrong with any comic that ends before the beginning of a new crossover event, the checklist.

Suddenly, I was having a nightmare. I was back in school and taking a test. Surely I had time to prepare for this, right? Oh yeah, that mound of homework they assigned for me. Well sorry, but I was far too busy playing video games to give a flying Frenchman about all that research. Yes, this had to be a dream that would at least explain why I was naked.

*sigh* To explain, a checklist is a detailed listing of all comics the company suggests you read to understand the full story of the next crossover; or as I see it, a full list of where to spend your disposable income for the next few months. Oh lovely, remember getting that pamphlet the last time you went into a movie, remember that pamphlet having a crossword puzzle on it that helped to explain the middle act? The Evil Dead movies did not require you to read “expanded universe” material and they were excellent films. Did the Phantom Menace leave plot holes and mysteries unanswered that could only be explained in outside material? Oh wait – scratch that last one. In fact, that’s my point right there! Crossover events like any other story need to be self contained.

Let’s use our imaginations for a bit, children. Reed Richards uses the awesome power of science to coat the earth in a thin layer of chocolate pudding. Galactus having just returned from burning man smells this delicious experimentation and once again goes for a late night fourth meal of Earth accented with a side of moon. Sensing the danger that Galactus might pose, Reed Richard and the rest of the Fantastic 4 summon all of Marvel’s superheroes to fight. This is exciting! This could be really fun in an IQ 60 drooling on your bib sort of way. But before you go on, you really need to read The Vision #876578678….

Why? Why should the audience have to suffer through this? Is it really necessary to force your readers to tolerate 25 pages about a green android they know very little about just to find out why the character is in this crossover event and spreading radioactive chocolate jimmies on the Earth? No, its not. The checklist is just a way to ensure that people are buying as many issues from the publisher as possible.

Oh, but of course if you REALLY wanted to know everything that was going on, you could always buy the compendiums for $50-$100, or go to the Marvel website and do some research on the characters to familiarize yourself with their backgrounds, or just go to Wikipedia and waste the next 6 hours of your life probing away for the answer to why The Hulk’s pants manage to stay intact when he goes berserk. Keep it simple! If you are going to make a crossover event, have the audience focus on only a select group of characters and have the rest for window dressing. And while you’re at it, be sure it tells a complete story that can be completed in 6-10 issues.

Ugh, you know what? I give up. Just take it, take it all. You can have your stupid comic crossovers, I’ll just go on pretending like they don’t happen. I’ll go on pretending that mutants do not exist in the regular Marvel universe. I’ll pretend that Gotham city resides in some parallel world where flying space men can’t steal all of our designer red underoos. But how? You know what? I’ve got an idea for a crossover, how about a pillow case and a collection of hammers do battle with my head!