Brightest Day #22 & Brightest Day #23......

God knows I don't want to do this, but I have TWO issues of Brightest Day to read and I've decided that I WILL get through them tonight, come hell, high water or insanity... Being the dedicated blogger that I am, I'm going to grit my teeth and start reading what I'm sure will be absolute garbage... See, after reading 21 other issues of this series, I can confidentially say that I AM going to hate these two comics. The only thing that I can possibly hope is that these issues are so over the top horrible I can get some humor out of them. DC is intent on destroying their company, or at least only seem interested in writing their stories for hardcore DC fanboys/fans of DC's Silver and Golden Age, fans who feel DC can do no wrong. But let me tell you, THAT is a terrible idea, one that I hope bites DC in the ass in the long run. If they think the crap that they're pulling now is going to help them catch Marvel in the sales race, then Chairman Johns and his boy, Dan Didio are both crazy AND stupid. So there you go, my feelings towards Brightest Day and DC in general are right out there in the open. You all know how I feel, so don't be surprised by the negative tone I'm SURE this review is bound to take. As always, I will be reviewing these two comics using Brightest Day rules. In other words, I start the score at zero, and add or subtract points based on just how good, or bad things things in these issues are. Welcome to Brightest Day... Welcome to my nightmare.

Brightest Day #22(of... who cares.):

Summary: The Firestorms wander about the Antimatter universe and eventually discover the Anti-Monitor and the Black Lanterns(including that pain in the ass, Deathstorm) playing around with the White Lantern. Apparently the Anti-Monitor wants to force the White Lantern to create life for him so he could eat it and become more powerful... How very Galactus-esque of him. The Firestorms attack and turn the Anti-Monitor's helmet into a ball of hydrogen and then blow it up... Yeah, somehow I doubt THAT'S gonna stop him... Sure enough, that doesn't stop old Anti, it just pisses him off. The Anti-Monitor blasts the Firestorms, somehow splitting them back to Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch. Oh, and for some reason, Deathstorm, who was basically standing around taunting everybody, releases Professor Stein from his mind. Don't know why, but whatever. The Anti-Monitor gets angry because the White Lantern “took something” from him(um, okay). Deathstorm decides to turn Jason into salt(man is he a one trick pony or what?), and Ronnie jumps in front of the blast... But wait! Prof. Stein, who's way older, and presumably less athletic than Ronnie, manages to jump in front of Ronnie, taking the blast himself... LAME! Jason and Ronnie combine to become Firestorm again and Ronnie tries to figure out a way to reverse Prof. Stein's death by salt. While this is going on, the Anti-Monitor is... um, I don't know what he's doing actually... Let's say he's doing the Batusi, just because. After finishing his dance, the Anti-Monitor decides to attack Deathstorm and the other Black Lanterns, thus proving himself to be a terrible partner. Meanwhile, Prof. Stein decides to have the most dramatic death scene EVER by taking a full FOUR pages to die. The Anti-Monitor must start dancing again, because by the time Stein finally dies(like 37 days later!), Deathstorm and the Black Lanterns are back to taunting Firestorm again... Man, if taunting was an Olympic sport, Deathstorm would take home the silver. I'd naturally take the gold. Firestorm decides he's had enough of Deathstorm's incessant taunting(and really, who can blame him?), and goes to attack, but before he can, the White Lantern destroys all of the Black Lanterns. As for the Anti-Monitor... Let's say he started up the Macarena. With the Black Lanterns destroyed, and the Anti-Monitor dancing the night away, the White Lantern returns Firestorm to Earth and brings him back to life, since Ronnie was able to work together with Jason. Sure, why not. Ronnie demands that the Lantern brings Stein back to life, but the Lantern says hell no. It does decide to tell Firestorm that it wanted to go to the Antimatter Universe because it wanted to collect information from there. Why it decides to tell Firestorm this, especially since it's obvious he could care less, is anyone's guess. This issue ends with the deadly menace of Aliveman sneaking up on the Firestorms telling them to hand over the White Lantern, lest he kills them like he did to those other c-list heroes.

Thoughts: You know what the worst thing about this comic book was? It WASN'T that bad! I mean come on, I read this comic because I KNOW it's gonna suck, so the fact that it was pretty good kind of bummed me out... Jeez, DC can't even do THAT right... Anyway, let's get on with the scoring. We'll start off by giving a +3 to the Anti-Monitor trying to force the White Lantern to create life for him to eat, because it makes sense. Hell, if I had that White Lantern, I'd force it to make me cheeseburgers, all day and all night. -1 to Deathstorm saying “dude” like 25 times this comic. People who say “dude” repeatedly really annoy me... +2 to Firestorm setting the Anti-Monitor's head on fire, just because it was a cool idea. However, I'm going to have to give a -1 to Firestorm literally using a giant cartoon match to set the fire... Where the hell are we in, a Bugs Bunny cartoon?! -1 for Deathstorm simply letting Prof. Stein go for basically no reason, and not bothering to explain why he did it. -3 for Prof. Stein leaping in front of Ronnie, who himself was leaping in front of Jason to intercept Deathstorm's salt blast of utter doom. And a -1 for Deathstorm being so damn uncreative! I mean come on, you already did the whole, “Kill somebody by turning them into salt” trick. Try something else already, “dude”! I'm going to give Prof. Stein's death scene a +5, because it made me laugh so hard... I mean DAMN, that was a Hollywood level death scene right there! He REALLY dragged that out! +5 for the White Lantern killing Deathstorm... Man did I hate that thing... -1 for the White Lantern's bizarre decision to tell Firestorm that it went to the Antimatter Universe for a reason... I mean seriously, Firestorm could care less! Oh, and another -1 for Firestorm crying... What the hell? Is this series being written by Marv Wolfman or something? Because it seems we have somebody crying every single issue, just like during Wolfman's New Teen Titans run... Finally, a -2 for the unbelievably obvious ending... Anybody who DIDN'T see that one coming needs to go back to reading those “I can read!” pre-school books...

Score: 4 out of 10. Wow, that's like a perfect score for an issue of this series!!!So long, Deathstorm... See you in HELL!!!!!


Brightest Day #23(of 24!!! It's ALMOST over!!!!!):

Summary: I can do this... I can do this... Okay, let's get this over with so I can vomit. We begin with bad things happening all over the Earth. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, Saint Barry Allen, etc. Well all over the Earth except for Starwood Forest, where Aliveman is preparing to kill Firestorm or strike a dramatic pose at Firestorm. Whatever. It seems the “Dark Avatar” is coming, and the White Lantern needs to prepare its forces in the safety of Starwood Forest. Oh, and Green Arrow is stuck in Starwood for some reason, even though he has NOTHING to do with this whole Brightest Day mess. But whatever. The White Lantern teleports Dove to it, as well as Hawk, who grabbed a hold of her just as she was teleporting. The White Lantern also tells Not Old, Not Fat and Not Bald Captain Boomerang to throw a boomerang at Dove, but doesn't bother to teleport him into Starwood... Whatever, X. Just keep moving on... Don't stop to think about it... Just keep going... From there, the Dark Avatar climbs out of the ground, and I'll be damned if it doesn't look like an enormous version of Swamp Thing... But that doesn't make any sense... But that's what I see. The Dark Avatar(what a lame name...) parades over to Starwood Forest and begins banging on the force field around it, because if it destroys that tree with the White Lantern symbol on it something bad will happen. Since we aren't told exactly what will happen, I'm forced to make up my own story... Um, let's see... If the Dark Avatar manages to eat the White Lantern tree, Darkseid, Britney Spears and Donald Trump will join their dread powers together and the Earth, nay, the ENTIRE universe will cease to exist!!! So you see, that would be bad. While the Dark Avatar is banging out the Spider-Man theme song on the force field, the White Lantern kills Firestorm off. It then resurrects Firestorm as the fire elemental, the Martian Manhunter as the earth elemental(even though he's from Mars..........), Aquaman as the crying water elemental, and Hawkman AND Hawkgirl as the air elemental(s). Wait a minute, why are there TWO air elementals?! Meh. Never mind... The elementals attack the Dark Avatar, while Aliveman, Hawk and Dove are told to protect the White Lantern Tree, since it is the Parliament of Trees... Oh god... It IS Swamp Thing... From there, the body of Alec Holland climbs out from underneath the White Lantern Tree, and is pronounced Earth's Ultimate Savior...

Thoughts: Crap on a crutch... I can't BELIEVE this entire mini-series was building towards the return of frigging SWAMP THING! I mean REALLY?! That is a letdown like no other. I mean SWAMP THING?! I can't... I don't... I mean what is there to even say?! It's Swamp Thing. I can't believe this whole thing set up the return of Swamp Thing... I'm in shock. Okay, before I throw my laptop across the room or something, let me score this issue so I can go and read some Marvel comics to get the taste of THIS one out of my mouth. First things first, I promised JT I'd give this comic a -10 right off the bat, and I'm a man of my word. So we get started with a -10 for JT. From there, we get another -10 because I had to see that bastard, Saint Barry Allen. -2 for Green Arrow being stuck in Starwood Forest, even though he has NOTHING to do with this entire boondoggle. Another -2 for having to see Not Old, Not Bald, Not Fat Captain Boomerang. -3 for the White Lantern telling Not Old, Not Bald, Not Fat Captain Boomerang to throw a boomerang at Dove... Are you kidding me?! He's had a goddamn YEAR to throw that frigging boomerang and he STILL hasn't?!? Unbelievable... Oh yeah, and ANOTHER -3 for Not Old, Not Bald, Not Fat Captain Boomerang STILL not having thrown the boomerang in THIS comic! What the HELL is he waiting for?!? A written invitation?! THROW THE DAMN BOOMERANG ALREADY!!! *sigh* -10 for the Dark Avatar apparently being a corrupted version of Swamp Thing. Now I'm sure all ten of Swamp Thing's fans will be pleased, but everybody else? Probably not. Hey, another -10 for NO John Constantine appearance here! What the hell is that?! Constantine and Swamp Thing are close, and Constantine would have made this comic at least bearable... John Constantine is awesome... Where was I? Oh yeah, this sucky comic. -1 for Firestorm's death, because really, who DIDN'T see that coming? -10 for the whole stupid Earth elementals thing... What the hell is this, an episode of Captain Planet?!? And a few more things... -2 for the fact that there are TWO air elementals... How does that make ANY sense? Why couldn't the air elemental have been EITHER Hawkman OR Hawkgirl? Making it both of them was just dumb. Speaking of dumb, let's give a -30 for the Martian Manhunter being the earth elemental. How in the blue HELL does it make sense that the MARTIAN Manhunter is the elemental of earth? I mean MARTIAN is in his NAME!!! He's from MARS! And yet he's the EARTH elemental!!! ARGH!!!!! And then there was the end. With Alec Holland(Swamp Thing) being revealed as Earth's Ultimate Savior... Swamp Thing has never been what you'd call a mainstream DC character, I always saw him as more of a Vertigo type guy(like Constantine), but I guess that genius Chairman Johns has decreed that Swamp Thing will now be the most important character in the DCU. For that, I say -25. This was as disappointing a comic as I've ever read. Oh well, at least Brightest Day ends next issue and I'll never again have to think about this whole ordeal ever again. Man, I have a lot of negative numbers to add up now... Let's see just how low this score is gonna be...

Score: -118 out of 10. I'm literally at a loss for words...Yup...