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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Comic Book Review: Brightest Day #2




The second issue of Brightest Day was released today, featuring a beautiful cover with ominous connotations for our recently resurrected Aquaman. But the cover is quite misleading, as the issue doesn't deal much with Aquaman but rather The Martian Manhunter. Spoilers:

Firestorm is still is Professor Stein's lab, they are very confused though, as Stein and Ray Palmer say they have bad news, yet they don't give any details. They are told not to move, and Ray Palmer jumps into their chamber, dressed in some kind of fire-proof suit. Ray's going to jump inside Firestorm to attempt to disable the Matrix bonding them together, though he doesn't reveal why. Firestorm suggest they try to split naturally, but Ray tells them no, saying it's too dangerous. So Ray dives into the insanely hot Firestorm, locates the Matrix and attempts to push the subatomic particles apart to disband it. But something goes wrong, as Firestorm begins to share the same thoughts, and then suddenly catches on fire, eventually exploding...

In Pearl River, New York, a mother is preparing dinner for her three children who are playing Rockband. As she finishes setting the table, something suddenly overtakes her and she begins to udder a strange phrase: "A-Alive... He's Alive.
She grabs a knife of her table, and begins to brutally murder her children, afterwards pulling off her skin to reveal a White Martian.

In Denver, J'onn J'onzz is visiting the casket of Saul Erdel, the scientist that brought him to Earth from Mars. He finds a picture inside the hands of the dead scientist, a picture of him and his daughter, the woman J'onn saw in his vision.

The Hawks are still tearing through the Peruvian Jungle, hot on the trial of whoever stoles the bones of their first bodies. They storm into a strange lair, filled with pictures of them from every life, pictures of them while just being civilians, and plaster masks, molded from the faces of their previous incarnations. They soon deduce that the owner of the lair is Hath-Set, their original murderer. Infuriated by his obsession with them, with his continuing to murder, Hawkman decides it's time to find him, and kill him.

Back in Denver, J'onn visits Erderl's now elderly daughter, whose name is Melissa. He takes the form of her dead father, and flies her into the sky as he tries to discover information into her past. Melissa is quite senile tough, she just believes it all to be a dream, so J'onn's ability to read minds come in handy here. She beings to narrate the memories of her past: After finding a Aztec tablet as a boy, Erdel became obsessed with the idea of aliens. After he had a daughter, he would feed her these ideas, and eventually when she got old enough, she helped with his experiments. Erdel's first attempt to transport a Martian to Earth went very wrong, as he bought White Martian to the world. The White Martian destroyed the lab, and ran out after almost killing the scientist and his daughter. But that bad experience didn't stop Erdel's endeavors, as he now became obsessed with bringing another Martian to defeat the monstrous one. Thus, that's how the Martian Manhunter came to Earth, but of course this story didn't end well either. Erdel died saving J'onn from a generator explosion that destroyed parts of the lab again, and knocked Melissa unconscious as well as scarring her forehead forever. Erdel's last words to J'onn were: "save us from my arrogance... my recklessness..."
After reliving the memory, J'onn very touchingly tucks Melissa into her bed, as she says goodnight to her father. J'onn promises to return visit her as her father again, and he then leaves.

In Dubai, Boston Brand is still following Aquaman and Mera, but he's getting frustrated that they can't hear him. The King and Queen of the ocean dive into the water, and dead fish rise to the surface, but before Boston could do anything, he's teleported away by the White ring. He thrown to a dark, unknown land, where he is falling very quickly. The ring saves him, and then to Boston's confusion, it tells him to FIGHT. "Fight who?" he asks.
The last page is Boston in front of the Anti-Monitor, and he stares in bewilderment as he ponders what the ring told him to do.

One thing I really like about the book, is the array of different artists. Instead of DC getting some nobody artist to draw the series as quickly as possible, they used some well known DCU artists to draw different stories in the book. I really wish we could have had more Aquaman here though, since his story seems to be the most mysterious and destructive. But with that said, the ring teleporting Boston to the Anti-Monitor Universe was a great reveal, and I look forward to the fighting it out.

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