Written By: Geoff Johns & Peter J. Tomasi
Artist: Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark, Norm Rapmund, Vicente Cifuentes, Oclair Albert, Tom Nguyen, Mick Gray, Mark Irwin, & David Beaty
Colorist: Aspen MLT’s Peter Steigerwald
Cover Artist: Gary Frank & Rod Reis
Letterer: Rob Clark Jr.
Editor: Rex Ogle
The Earth Shattering Plot
Swamp Thing is Earth’s ultimate savior, but in order for him to return, someone else must die. As the newly inducted elemental heroes fight off the Dark Avatar, one hero will sacrifice himself in order to save all of humanity…and the one he loves.
My Awe-Inspiring Opinion
As a lot of you know, my opinion of Brightest Day has been quite low. However, with that being said, as painful as it was, I’m certainly glad I stuck it out all that way through as the series as I found out of Swamp Thing’s return.
However, as awesome as this return is, the issue isn’t perfect and seems to have been thrown together to help wrap up a series that was destined for failure. The end result of each character’s stories may look as if there’s some semblance of a coherent conclusion, but ultimately makes little sense.
The Hawks turn into the wind, Manhunter becomes the Earth, Aquaman becomes H2O, and Firestorm become fire. These biological alterations of the heroes of course make sense when thinking of their characteristics, but make little sense with the stories they were caught in the middle of within Brightest Day; The Hawks get caught in an interdimensional duel with Shiera’s mother, Manhunter goes through a lovers quarrel over the longevity of Mars, Firestorm failed in his attempt to save his professor, and Aquaman controlled the dead fish…it just doesn’t make sense to me.
As Brightest Day strung me along with multiple convoluted storylines, I now find myself happy about the return of one character but still confused about where this whole thing is going. Why did Hawkgirl not return and Hawkman did? Why is Firestorm uncertain about his future? Brightest Day did a great job at stringing readers along without giving any indication about what was going to happen and leaving virtually no clues to help solve the mysteries. Now we are left with even more daunting events and questions which, in turn, make no sense and I sit here thinking to myself that I have absolutely no idea what happened in 24 issues. #24 only satisfied my geeky side with the return of Swamp Thing but didn’t give me any closure with the series itself, not that I was expecting it too.
It was confusing during Blackest Night and is STILL confusing for me in Brightest Day…How can a Black Lantern exist while the actual hero lives as well? Firestorm goes up against himself and now Swamp Thing fights the Dark Avatar…which is Swamp Thing. I feel this concept was never successfully explained which makes everything even more confusing than it already was.
And of course I come to the book’s art, and as I’m sure you can see, it has a jumble of artists. Save me oh Lord, the jolting effect from one page to the next gave me such an artistic headache that I literally took three Advil and five Ibuprofen just to help simmer the pain. (That’s completely untrue by the way, no medication was needed. It was just painful to gaze upon.) The first splash page of Swamp Thing standing over the world is gorgeous! Then I turn to the next splash page where Swamp Thing fights the Dark Avatar and he looks completely different with no resemblance from the previous page. The artistic talents in this issue are amazing, but the toggling eats at my soul.
My Majestically Climactic Conclusion
All in all, Brightest Day is a failure, leaving nothing but confusion, uncertainty and very little closure. Yeah, sure, Swamp Thing is back and it’s awesome…but the ending doesn’t give readers anything to work off of.
3 out of 10 stars.
