Today the 25th & final issue of DC Comics' Brightest Day (but it's marked 24 because their was an Issue 0) came out in your local comic book store. What did I think of it?
meh. & huh?
What did I think of the story as of a whole? uh... Not sure. My feelings are leaning towards not good. It had it's moments (and most of those only involved 1 character from the book). But coming off the pure awesomeness that was Blackest Night, Brightest Day wasn't as good. I've thought about why it wasn't good.
Why did I think one was awesome where as the other was not awesome. It think was the length & width that really killed it for me. Length as in 25 issues long & Width as in had a lot of people in the series. Having a bunch of people in a book can work but if most of your characters from the book don't interact with each other that can be bad.
Brightest Day was all over the place, in terms of location & what it was doing. There was no one set storyline. We had like 5 or more story lines going on at the same time which can be annoying & confusing. Or, I know annoyingly confusing!
Brightest Day was annoyingly confusing & not so good!
What I think would have saved it a bit (for me at least) if they had done it a different way. If there had been a series short mini-series (3 or 4 issues long) with 2 books bookending the series. One to start off all the story lines (which what 0 was) & one to tie up all the story lines together (which the last few issues & Issue 24 tried to do). The mini-series would have been about the different characters: One for Hawkman/Hawkwoman, One with Deadman, Hawk & Dove, One about Martian Manhunter, One about Aquaman & One about Firestorm(s). This is sort of how the series went anyways there were certain issues that only featured a few characters & you had no idea what what those that weren't in the issues were doing.
Also what made Blackest Night good was that it 7 issues so the story clipped along, going from awesome thing to awesome thing. There were various tie-in mini series that helped fill in some gaps that weren't really necessary to the main book (which almost of the tie-in stuff I read was cool). With Brightest Day it was 25 issues & just took a stroll to the endpoint. I didn't really see any tie-in mini series. In BD, Stuff happened in each issue but you had to wade through a half dozen issues before something major or a plot point happened. I think stuff major happened in Issue 0 & then the next time something major happened was in Issue 7 by that issue BN was done & over. I was willing to let this happen in BD: it was a longer series, there was a lot to set up & other excuses I said as I started to read this series.
By the mid point I was lost. I'd read the latest issues, put it down I wouldn't know what I had just read. I found myself thinking over it in my head & it wasn't making sense. I found myself wanting to yell at the book: EXPLAIN, BRIGHTEST DAY, EXPLAIN!!!!!!!!! WHAT ON RAO'S GREEN KRYPTON IS GOING ON??????? WHAT IS YOUR POINT????????
And for the most part, the events of Brightest Day just seemed to be happening in it's own world. You didn't see the events spill over into the Batman books, Superman books, Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern Books. Or even some of the series that were launched a result of the aftermath from Blackest Night (BD was a result of BD).
I'm not even sure what the point of the Brightest Day was other then to kill off Hawkwoman (again), introduce a new Aqualad (who didn't really do anything), bring back Swamp Thing (Why?) & have an excuse to launch a few new titles. Which wasn't a bad thing: Justice League: Generation Lost is awesome! The Flash book is pretty cool, too.
At the end of Issue 24 there wasn't one. There was no end, just a "story threads from here will be continuing on elsewhere. Have a nice day! :)" That's fine but you have to have an ending to your book! Give the readers (i.e. Me) a feeling that reading this series was worth it?
WHAT WAS YOUR POINT?
TELL ME!
We'll be soon going into DC's next major event Flashpoint which from all that I've seen could be awesome! And it playing one one thing i really like in comics: Alternate Timelines! But I don't think I'll be picking it up in the individual issues. I don't have enough money as i once had. I wish that I could use all the money I spent on BD & spent it on FP.
*sigh* If I only knew then what I know now.
Well, until next: Stay Jazzy everybody!
- Brian
T-Minus 5
2 comments:
Wasn't this the structure used by 52? Did you like that series, and if so, why did you feel it was successful where BD isn't?
I did like 52. Not sure they had similar structure.
52 took place over a year, BD took place over a few weeks, few months, a year (I don't know. I don't think they said). Both had large casts I'll give you that. But I think 52 was better at explaining things. I didn't feel as lost reading 52 as I did reading BD.
52 also had an ending to it & then the some of events of 52 continued elsewhere. Where as BD didn't have an firm ending it just ended & if you'd wanted an ending you'd have to read it elsewhere.
Thanks for replying!
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