Brightest Day #0 – A Review

Brightest Day #0

Publisher DC Comics

Writers Geoff Johns & Peter Tomasi

Pencil Fernando Pasarin

Inks: Fernando Pasarin, John Dell , Cam Smith, Prentis Rollins, Dexter Vines & Art Thibert, Peter Steigerwald wBeth Sotelo

Colors Nick J Napolitano

Format 48 Pages of Story and Art

Price $3.99

This was an excellent start and a fantastic way to build success off success. Too often DC has floated some good ideas out there and failed to capitalize on any success they may have started. This book following fast on the heels of Blackest Night #8 solidifies a great event and builds it into a foundation for what look to be some great stories ahead.

At the end of Blackest Night we had 12 people resurrected and of course we were left wondering why these twelve people. Now it would have been easy to maybe launch new series for Hawkman, Aquaman, Firestorm, had Maxwell Lord be a major villain in the DCU but instead we are given Blackest Night #0 which touches on each and every person who has been resurrected and leaves us with one simple fact these twelve people have been resurrected for a reason. In addition they add that the reason is a mystery, but it will not be a mystery for long. The book ends with ads for various series like new series Brightest Day, Justice League Generation Lost, Flash, Green Arrow, Birds of Prey, Titans Villains for Hire and of course Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. I have to tell you DC has me psyched up for all of it. It seems somebody at DC finally gotten how to build success on success.

Of course the whole sales job would have been a flop if the lynchpin book linking Blackest Night into Brightest Day wasn’t a great book. This issue zero did exactly what it was suppose to do by picking up right from the end of Blackest Night and looking in on all the people who have been resurrected.

We started with Deadman who is now alive and wearing a white ring whether he wants to or not. He is lost and trying to determine what he is to do with his new found life. He is almost a time lost hero since he has been dead for such an extended period of time. The ring then takes him on a trip stopping at each revived person and we get glimpses and hints of each one of them.
Aquaman senses something is still not right and sees an apparition of the Black Lantern Aquaman. Captain Boomerang we find is pragmatic, while he is in jail he accepts he has a life again and plans to get busy living. Hawkman and Hawkwoman have rekindled their love and at the same time someone is collecting the bones of their first bodies. Maxwell Lord, Martian Manhunter, Jade and the rest are each touched on and we are given a glimpse that all is not right with any of the people who have come back. Whether this is something they each need to work through or something more sinister we will have to discover over time. Finally we focus again on Deadman whose white ring is trying to tell him something and we are given glimpses of what is to come. At the same time Deadman via his ring rebuilds Star City with a massive star shaped park in the middle of the city. It may sound corny but it works and this will obviously lead into the new Green Arrow series coming in June. The final panel is Sinestro flying into a crater on earth looking to pick up the new white lantern.

Of course there is a ton of information on each of the characters but this whets your appetite perfectly. Personally I think if you like Blackest Night and then read this you can’t help but be hooked in for the long ride. Johns and Tomasi have delivered a perfect bridge and are building a strong foundation for the stories to be told. So often the failure is what happens after the event and this looks like what happens afterwards will be as good if not even better then what has come before. Instead of having story ideas just meander it looks like there is a plan on where this is going and we are going to see it unfold instead of getting a promise for things to come at some time in the future. It truly is a bright day for DC, but by no means does that mean it is no longer a dangerous world, in fact it maybe more dangerous than before.

Finally Pasarin and the crew of inkers did a great job on the artwork. A heavy drop off in quality from Blackest Night would have been a disaster, but Pasarin turned in an excellent job doing what maybe one of his strongest efforts. Even with diverse hands (an old name for when it was a group inking job) the book held together beautifully.

Overall Grade A – Brightest Day delivers on the promise of how Blackest Night ended and promises some great stories in the months ahead.