DC has released more information about the upcoming Brightest Day event. It’s definitely going to be a company wide event, and it may just change some of your favorite titles for the better.
Maybe.
Before you dread the thought of wading through another company wide event, you may want to note that this does appear to be a cleaning up of the DCU, or as some are already referring to it as DCU: Rebirth following the Geoff Johns naming convention over the past several years. It will be pretty hard event to miss, as following the Brightest Day #0 release, DC will be branding “a number of new and ongoing series with Brightest Day”.
One of the first series we should see is the new Flash ongoing that Johns is also writing, with Francis Manapul on art.
“With this book, Geoff and Francis are really bringing Barry Allen back into the spotlight and cementing him as the premiere Flash in the DCU in his own monthly. It’s no secret that I’ve been waiting a long time to se this. I’ve always been a huge Barry fan, and I can say that Geoff and Francis are reinvigorating him as a character in much the same way Geoff did with Hal Jordan. Should be fun,” said Dan DiDio in a statement made on The Source, DC’s blog site, where the Brightest Day story first broke.
When Johns brought back Green Lantern, it did herald in a new age of Hal Jordan stories. I would like to think the Flash: Rebirth series has been a great story, but with all the heroes that have returned from the dead over the years, even the return of Saint Barry seems a bit tainted for my taste. Still, I will be interested in seeing what new stories will come with this title. I’m more disappointed in the fact that DC let the Wally West character become so mired down in drama and convenient story telling devices that even the Speed Force could help him escape. If I had one wish from this upcoming series, it would be this; If Johns is really wanting to bring back the hey-day of Flash stories, he really needs to bring the complete Flash Family back ala the Mark Waid days of the ’90s.
From looking at the first cover in detail, I can admit that I am drawn in by the art (no pun intended) and this cover, along with the Geoff Johns name is enough to get me to jump on board the first story arc.
What is really striking me about some of the announced titles that will take part in this event, is that many of them appear to be dealing with the troubled characters from DC. Titans is a book that really had a rough start, and even now, the title sells around 25,000 a month, and even with the addition of Deathstroke, The Tattooed Man, and Cheshire making a big appearance in Titans: Villains For Hire Special, I don’t know how much longer fans will want to read the Titans title. Slap on a Brightest Day banner, and new artists, and there may be a change in the wind.
With the Justice League of America donning the Brightest Day banner, the picture becomes even more clear as to what DC is hoping to do in 2010 beginning with issue #44. I don’t know if this is the official cover or not, but Dan DiDio did say the new team was still under wraps.
With the bigger picture becoming more clear – at least in my mind – I can’t say I dislike what is going on. As a manager, when something isn’t going right in the store, you don’t shut the store down and fire everyone. Instead, you retool, figure out where the strengths and weaknesses lie, and reopen with a whole new outlook and hope that this incarnation of whatever plan you are hatching works.  The light is what follows the darkness, and it seems Brightest Day might be a way to scrub clean the troubled titles of the past and give them fresh new look for the year.
Of course that’s just how I see it after the first day of announcements from DC. My outlook might change as the week goes on, and more news trickles out from the company.
12 Comments
I’m assuming that JLA image means there’s a JLA/JSA crossover as part of “Brightest Day” since so many of the people on this page are members of the JSA. The one that stands out if the one that looks like a female Johnny Quick… maybe this is Liberty Belle changing identities?
I do hope Titans gets a boost. It deserves it…and needs it.
Liberty Belle got her speed power back and took on her father’s uniform in a recent Flash issue.
I’m worried about the fact that there’s already another new JLA lineup being announced. Won’t that be the 4th lineup in the past 12 months???
I wonder if there is a plan for JLA or is it throw everything against the wall and see what sticks?
I’m curious about that insignia. Is that the emblem of a possible White Lantern?
That is what DC is leading us to believe
It looks, to me, like a ‘unification’ logo. Rather than Black Hand’s logo, you’ve got a similar triangle with 7 beams of light coming from it (ROY G. BIV = 7 colors).
I’m not sure how I’d like for that to work, really … one guy with 7 rings, one guy with 1 ring with all 7 traits, or 7 guys each with a different colored ring working together (as we’re seeing in the Blackest Night title). Of those options, I think a ‘white’ ring is my least preferred.
I’m calling it: Jade is back on the JLA cover.
all but three characters would know her instantly, and it would also explain the re-humanized Obsidian and his father, Alan’s, reactions. Jay, Donna, Kara, and Rick have also known/worked with her for years and the others (Jesse, Vic) have known her in a less intimate way than the others. Super-Mon, Congorilla, and DiDio’s favorite new toy, Magog, are just there to show some face time, esp the latter two.
That’s an interesting idea that makes a lot of sense.
It also makes me wonder if DC is going to use the BN series to empty out all its, um, Refrigerators…
Agreed, Brainlock. Was about to post that myself.
Since we’re making predictions, y’all just gave me a brilliant (hehehe) idea. JADE AS WHITE LANTERN! Cuz, like, hasn’t she exhibited most of the 7 flavors of ring? Compassion, love, hope, and will have all seemed central to her character at one point or another, and since she’s “human” it’s only natural that she’d feel rage, avarice and fear at some point as well. Maybe the “StarHeart” is the source of the White Radiance? That’d also kinda tie Alan to the new Corps too, and.. Well, I think it’d be neat to give him his own niche, now that he’s been “demoted” from Official Green Lantern status (he’s not in the corps, his ring works differently, etc). I’ll go away with my crackpot theories now. :D
as much as i like barry allen i would rather have the kid flash ongoing