Brightest Day #21 - The Plot Thickens (With Awesome)

The light at the end of the tunnel is within sight and for once it's not because I smoked too much crack! That light is the end of Brightest Day. It's been building for over a year now and it's been an awesome ride. I liken it to being in a stretch limo with naked Playboy playmates while driving down the Las Vegas strip with Charlie Sheen and Lindsey Lohan serve cocaine laced Krystal from bottles made out of diamond encrusted gold. I make no bones about it. Brightest Day is the best series DC has on the racks and ending it would make every subsequent day as tragic as the Kennedy assassination. However, this story was never set up to run ten years with multiple writers coming and going like hookers at Tiger Woods's hotel room. It's a series with a beginning, middle, and end. Geoff Johns has given us the beginning and middle, throwing in a few nerdgasms that will leave your dick lifeless and limp for a good three days. Now he's setting up the end and the nerdgasms just can't stop coming (metaphorically speaking).

The end has been marked by the White Lantern showing that it's kind of a douche. It has been the binding force of all these sub-plots involving Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, Firestorm, Deadman, and the Martian Manhunter. Everyone has had their own pile of shit to deal with. Yet when they finally clean it up and spray a gallon of Febrise on the rug, the White Lantern shows up and says their mission is complete. Then it kills them. It doesn't apologize or show any regrets. It just turns them to dust. Even for a lantern, it's a dick thing to do. For Boston Brand, aka Deadman, it probably makes him wish he was dead again.

The last issue brought the Aquaman plot to a head. For anybody who thinks Aquaman is a sissy, they are hereby sentenced to be flogged with Courtney Love's pubic hairs in a public forum after reading Brightest Day #20. Aquaman didn't just beat back Black Manta and an invasion on the surface world. He turned Manta's bastard son against him, reunited with Mera, and lost his hand in the process. When all seemed over and Aquaman was looking to get freaky with Mera, the White Lantern showed up. Despite Deadman's urgings, it wasn't enough. The White Lantern offed Aquaman just as it did Hawkman and Hawkgirl. So yeah, it is a dick move and it now shows that everyone who came back in Blackest Night is in danger of being worm food again.

Brightest Day #21 continues from the ashes of the last two issues...literally. The Atom is investigating the death of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, presumably while trying hard not to puke micrograms of bile. The rest of DC's finest heroes are on the beaches of Miami, cleaning up the mess made by Black Manta's invasion (and presumably hitting a few clubs in between). They also meet up with Mera, who looks like she just watched a donkey show in Tijuana go horribly wrong. Batman suspects the White Lantern is trying to rationalize these acts in the same way Charlie Sheen rationalizes his ego. Before they can even look into this mystery, a shit ton of distress calls come in. It seems the White Lantern isn't content with just being a dick to the heroes it brought back and their loved ones. It has to be a massive shlong to the whole fucking world.

The next target appears to be J'onn J'ozz. A while back before the White Lantern was acting up, J'onn was on his own little mission. He searched for another surviving Martian and found D'kay, who happened to be the Lorena Bobbet of Martians. She went after J'onn like a fat woman on her period goes after chocolate. She invaded his mind and made him believe that he resurrected every lost soul on Mars. Then in the same breath, she had him relive the experience. Now I know the White Lantern is a dick and all, but that's just plain fucking cruel. J'onn has a very low tolerance for bullshit that is dumped on the memory of his people so he makes sure D'kay feels his pain.

D'kay tries to mind-fuck J'onn even more, which is like trying to date rape a woman at a convention for domestic abuse victims. Suddenly the White Lantern isn't quite as big a dick anymore. She taunts him by saying that while he was living in fantasy land, they got freaky Martian style and she's pregnant with his kid. This would be a great propaganda piece for the enemies of Planned Parenthood, but J'onn is no dumbass. He sees right through her bullshit like a guy who just caught his wife going down on the pool cleaning guy.

Now some may argue that the beat-down J'onn is giving this bitch boarders on excessive. Keep in mind this same bitch mind fucked him and pissed all over the graves of his people. So in this rare instance a good bitch-slapping is justified. The Martian version of bitch slapping involves using telepathy to make D'kay feel all the pain that others are feeling. Since Mars is dead, J'onn taps into the minds of the people of Earth. This is like hooking every brain cell up to 7 billion car batteries while active spark plugs are strapped to your nipples. This does more than just put D'kay in a world of hurt. It alerts J'onn to the trouble on Earth, which means for him that he has to speed up his bitch-slapping.

Rather than stay on Mars and subject D'kay to the kind of treatment that would get him blacklisted by Concerned Women for America and Amnesty International, he finishes the job in the most logical way a man in his position would. He throws her into the son. No, that's not a metaphor. That's actually what J'onn does. He flies D'kay to the sun and throws her in like a chicken leg in a deep fryer.

That's one way of dealing with a psycho-bitch that every man in the world can appreciate. It works for women who deal with douche-bag guys to so it's not completely misogynistic. Once he watches D'kay's Martian flesh burn away like Colin Powell's credibility, the White Lantern shows up. So while J'onn's treatment of D'kay may be a dick move to some, it's still minor leagues compared to the lantern. This time it doesn't immediately turn him to dust the moment his mission is complete. It tells him to choose between his worlds, Earth or Mars. Seeing as how one is a dead hunk of rock and the other is only dead in terms of chronic plagues of stupidity, the choice is pretty obvious.

J'onn returns to Earth in time to see what's causing all those distress calls that the Justice League was getting earlier. Apparently Mother Earth is having a bad case of PMS and taking it out on everything around her. She's spewing volcano, unleashing Earthquakes, and spreading storms that are ravaging entire cities. It's not the worst case of PMS ever documented, but it's still up there. Maybe if it threw in a few irrational screams about what a bitch her mother is and how the world doesn't understand her, then maybe it would crack the top ten. And that's a big maybe.

J'onn does what heroes do and starts saving lives. This from a guy who just relived the death of his planet and had to mingle with a alien psycho-bitch for way too long. It shows without a doubt that J'onn has a heart as big as his Martian balls and comic fans everywhere should kneel before them in the same way they kneel before Zod. The only one who doesn't find this sort of brazen heroism commendable is the White Lantern. Just as he's saving crying girls from a river of lava, it shows up along with Deadman. Just like Aquaman and the Hawks, Deadman pleads with J'onn to get away. But this time, something different happens.

In the last two stories, the White Lantern's victims were caught off guard in the same way a dog is caught off guard when he finds out he's been neutered. For J'onn, he's about as surprised as everyone was when they heard the news that Ricky Martin was gay. He senses what Deadman has been through and doesn't even try to avoid it. It may be mind-numbingly stupid, but it may also be another act that further proves the adamantium caliber toughness of J'onn's balls.

So with Deadman still as helpless as ever, J'onn accepts the White Lantern's plan whatever it may be. It doesn't turn him into dust. Instead when it strikes him, he's essentially absorbed into the Earth. And not in the way hippies pretend when they're doped up on LSD. J'onn is literally taken into the Earth and he looks very content doing so. It leads readers to wonder more about the White Lantern's plan. Is it really as simple as being a massive dick and killing the characters that came back in Blackest Night? Or is there more to it? There was a chance that this tactic could have lost it's punch after what happened to Aquaman and the Hawks. Now it's taken a slightly different twist. It's not so radical that it makes your head spin off your neck, but it's enough to make you wonder and start foaming at the mouth for the next issue.

It's another powerful issue, but powerful in a way that's different from the last two issues of Brightest Day. What happened with Aquaman and the Hawks really took a bat to the hearts of the readers because after all the struggles they went through, the White Lantern just dropped in and ended them. It's like putting down a dog right after he got his nuts back. This issue appealed to the whole mystery aspect of the White Lantern. It's clear this thing isn't on a murder spree akin to Jason Vorehees, randomly decapitating characters who decide to get naked at the wrong time. There's something deeper to this plan. Deadman sure doesn't know what it is, but J'onn seems to know and was okay with being part of it. That has all sorts of implications that require several hits of LSD to properly contemplate.

It's a minor shift. One could argue it's too minor to make this issue different enough from the previous issues. Whoever argues that is very close to being nit-picking on the level that a lousy boss fires his assistant for not filling his candy dish completely with red M&Ms. Then again, you have to nit-pick if you want to find something wrong with this issue. There really isn't much to criticize. Like the last two issues, the story is top notch and so is the art and dialog. This issue may not hit people as hard emotionally as the last two issues, but Brightest Day #21 definitely leaves an impact. It thickens the plot while completing yet another storyline that has been developing for many issues. It's hard to knock the book for doing what you expect it to do and doing it pretty damn well.

I'm not going to beat around the bush this time. Brightest Day #21 is a 5 out of 5. There's no question about it. This issue is the third in a row where the story has taken a dramatic turn and ended with an emotionally gripping finish. With so few plots left and only a few issues left, there are only so many pages left for Geoff Johns to work with. This series has been going on for over a year and in that time it's told an elaborate story. Now that story is coming to an end and the steps leading up to it are leaving the series with some of it's best moments. Blackest Night was a historic achievement for DC comics. It's difficult to contemplate how any series can compliment that kind of awesome. Well Brightest Day has done that and succeeded more than anyone could have expected. That more than anything makes this series extra awesome as the end draws near. Nuff said!

Brightest Day #15 - Inching Back To Awesome

So here it is. The new issue of Brightest Day is out after Geoff Johns's long streak of awesome ended with the last issue. It's like having a favorite restaurant all your life and having a single meal where the cook spit on the steak and rubbed his balls in your potatoes. That bad taste is still in your mouth and there may even be a few ball hairs stuck between your teeth, but you still love the restaurant and the food so you go back to give it another shot. Geoff Johns is one of those rare comic writers who has earned a few mulligans. He's written so many awesome stories that we can't reasonably expect everyone to be mind-blowingly awesome. That would be like expecting your girlfriend to keep giving you the best blow job you've ever had night in and night out. Such expectations just aren't reasonable.

What made Brightest Day #14 such a disappointment was that it abandoned what made the book so awesome from the beginning. It took many different plots and balanced them in a way that fit into a larger story. Not every issue was going to cover every plot, but that was okay because the plots that were covered were awesome enough that it was hard to give three quarters of a shit. Brightest Day #14 basically linked up with none of the other plots. It focused entirely on Deadman's ongoing struggles with the White Lantern. That wouldn't be too bad if it hadn't all been a big tease. The biggest injection of awesome came from Batman and the promise that he may be the guardian of the White Lantern that Boston Brand had been searching for. That didn't seem to be the case. Boston gave the ring to Batman, the ring rejected him, and it went back to Boston. That's about it. Boston did get to make out with Dove and that's okay for a fucking Disney movie, but not Brightest Day. There wasn't even a hint as to what other stories would come with the next issue or how this was going to affect the other DC characters who were being affected by the White Lantern. There were a lot of reasons to pull chunks of hair out with a metal lathe and that issue earned the lowest score yet for the Brightest Day series.

Enter Brightest Day #15. This book is like the maid who has to clean up a hotel room after Motley Crue went on a crack binge and staged an orgy featuring no fewer than 20 groupies, 8 midget prostitutes, and 5 transsexual strippers. It does not make too smooth a transition and that may be for the better. Like America's history with African slaves and Justin Bieber's twitter feed, it's one of those things best left unmentioned in civil conversation. This issue focuses on a plot that culminated a few issues ago. J'onn J'ozz, the Martian Manhunter was channeling his inner Scooby Doo, uncovering a mystery involving the last green martian. This last martian was about as friendly as Dick Cheney on a hunting trip. She attacked and tried to screw over J'onn (and it might have been literal at some points, but it's hard to tell since I haven't watched much Martian porn lately). In some ways she succeeded (minus the money shot) and got J'onn to use his White Lantern powers that had flared up earlier to revitalize Mars. It all seemed so cheerful and happy, but then it was revealed that the last green martian tricked J'onn. He's essentially living in a fantasy world now on the scale of the Matrix, only in his reality Keeanu Reeve's bad acting isn't there to fuck it up.

If you hadn't kept up with the events that led up to this issue (or are too damn lazy to look up spoilers online), you wouldn't really know that the Martian Manhunter was in a dream world. Everything looks all cheery and happy. J'onn is on Mars, his people are alive and well, he's revered for having saved them all, and years of prosperity have since transpired. That should be a big enough hint, that this happens in the future. When his fellow Justice League members appear that include Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern it they all look like they're spokesmen for one of those annoying Medicare commercials by the AARP. While I'm sure Geoff Johns is enjoying his royalty check on fine wine and the best GILFS a lobbying group can provide, J'onn and his buddies smile and hold hands at how happy life is. It almost makes you wonder why Disney didn't by DC instead of Marvel.

The good times continue, further reinforcing the notion that this can only be a dream. J'onn chats with his Justice League buddies, thanking them for dropping by. They take a moment to reflect on how peachy J'onn's life is on Mars. He's got his planet back, his people back, and he's literally the savior of an entire race. For those like Superman who don't have that luxury, they should be downright jealous. But J'onn still managed to show plenty of humility. Considering you can't get a politician to show humility these days, it's amazing a Martian does a better job. They also take a moment to remind each other that Father Time is starting to creep up on them like a pedophile at the little league world series. It leaves J'onn looking like he's ready to retire and do the Martian equivalent of sleeping until noon and falling asleep in front of the Golf Channel.

Beyond the Justice League, J'onn also has his family back. At this point even I have to admit this dream world is pushing the whole Disney style sap. He's hanging out with his wife, they're cuddling in a way comic couples aren't supposed to cuddle (according to Joe Quesada with regards to his stance on the Spider-Man/Mary Jane marriage). He's got all the Oreoes and love a guy could ever want. You know it can't last. It's gotta go wrong at some point.

Then at last there's a glitch in the Matrix. While feeding his dog (which looks like a totally regular Earth dog and not some bizarre Martian dog mind you), the little mutt actually bites him. Now I don't know where the dog came from or if it was some gift from Superman or something, but it's the first time that J'onn's perfect little world starts to crack. You just know at some point he's going to get a jolt of reality on the scale of 10 billion hangovers.

It all starts going down hill, as if that dog bite was a voodoo curse. On the very next panel, Batman is shown to be dead. There's no big time fight. Somehow some way an unseen foe took out the Dark Knight when countless plots of exploding whoopee cushions form the Joker could not. It's pretty underhanded, but given this is undoubtedly a dream world it does feel a bit more salient. And in the same tradition of a Dan Brown novel and shitty Ron Howard movies, Batman tries to give J'onn a message before he dies. He never gets a chance to finish and lie naked on a pentagram. If only everyone were so lucky to die in such an elaborate way.

It doesn't stop with Batman either. Pretty much the entire Justice League starts falling like the unnamed guards in a James Bond movie. Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, and Green Lantern all die gruesome deaths. It's not Ultimatum style gruesome, but it's quite a shift from all the rainbows and unicorns from earlier. It's a jarring shift, but one that gives the book a unique feel. One minute you're reading such a happy story and the next there's a mass murderer on the loose. It's like Dexter meets the Disney Channel.

Only Superman remains and before he shows up in a twisted heap of Kryptonian gore, J'onn assembles the Martian Manhunters. The time for holding hands and singing Bryan Adams songs is over. J'onn wants to find this killer and give him the old alien rectal probing treatment, the drunken hillbilly version. They don't find the killer, but they do find Superman. He's trapped in a Martian prison with a Krytonite mask. It would be an unceremonious way to die. Even Lex Luthor would call such a method tacky as hell.

J'onn tries to save Superman by giving him a quick solar sauna (minus the happy ending). Along the way his daughter, Kym, shows some typical teenage whining that seems to cross species. J'onn is making such a big deal about helping his Earth friends that he seems to give less consideration to his Martian brethren. He's becoming Jake Sully in Avatar minus the five-legged horses. Like James Cameron and his producers, J'onn won't hear it. He manages to heal Superman and he's understandably pissed.

It's a given he only becomes more pissed when he demands to see the others only to find they've been butchered like extras on a Michael Bay set. They're basically left to bury their friends and find out who's behind this and how they hell they pulled off what generations of super-powered nutjobs couldn't. It rubs J'onn in all the wrong ways. He remembers how he had to bury every last member of his race before and the thought of doing it again is enough to make him want to cut off his hands and dive head first into a volcano.

It's this paralyzing fear that pushes J'onn over the edge. It's that trigger that turns that sweet, lovable child who likes to rip the wings off flies for fun into a deranged Jeffery Dahlmer level psychopath. Even Martians have their limit and J'onn reached his. So he does the only logical thing a madman would do in his position. He tries to kill Superman. I want to say it sounds contrived, but in a dream world where J'onn is slowly losing it this makes perfect sense. How's that for irony?

It's during this act of Joker style madness that J'onn gets his first dose of the red pill to take him out of the Matrix. Superman urges him to wake up. Doing so is like ripping off 10,000 band-aids while rubbing iodine into your eyes. He flies all over Mars to see everything going up in flames again. All those people he saved are becoming Resident Evil style zombies minus the retarded movements. He makes his way home to find his wife looking remarkably calm. J'onn then proceeds to give her the Ike Turner treatment, literally ripping away the deception from her flesh to reveal the truth that someone has been fucking with him in the worse possible way.

It's a violent dose of reality for the Martian Manhunter, but it leaves him looking more badass than he's ever looked. He finds himself back on Mars (now dead as George W. Bushes credibility), choking the sadistic bitch to death. Now normally I'm not at all for violence against women, including hot alien chicks. But when it comes to mind fucking a guy so he has to relive the death of his whole fucking planet again, that whole chivalry crap goes in the nearest trash compactor.

We don't get to see all the horrible things J'onn does to this alien psycho-bitch and it's probably for the best. Anybody with a dirty enough mind can figure it out. Instead, this issue does what the last issue failed to do and actually touches on another plot in Brightest Day that has fallen to the wayside. This takes place at the Justice League of America's headquarters where Congo and Starman are enjoying a friendly game of chess. Before they can start playing the role of snooty British intellectuals, Firestorm shows up. Last we checked he was dealing with the return of the Black freakin' Lanterns and the prospect of causing another big bang. So he's clearly in need of some assistance and sets the story up for the next issue. And this time, it's done in a way that doesn't suck.

So Brightest Day #15 ends with a far different taste than it's predecessor. It's not the same feeling of imported Swiss chocolate that the other issues brought to the table, but it's still enough to get you drooling like Pavlov's dogs. It doesn't completely turn the tables though. Brightest Day #15 still made a few of the same mistakes the last issue made. It dedicated almost the entire issue to one storyline and didn't really tie it in or even hit at tying it in with other storylines. So it's not a complete departure from what didn't work. Geoff Johns is trying to roll that proverbial bolder back up the hill and crushes his back in the process.

Never-the-less, there is some quality awesome here. Unlike the Batman story in the last issue, this one doesn't end where it began. Even though much of it was spent in a dream world, J'onn woke up and confronted the enemy he had been chasing. He broke free of her control, which granted is progress. In addition the whole shift from such a happy beginning to such a gruesome end gave the story a unique feel. It went from one extreme to the other so fast and still made sense. That's not an easy thing to do. That's like trying to jerk off and take a piss at the same time. Only those truly skilled in the craft can pull it off.

Now I want to get back to giving Brightest Day comics perfect scores. It seemed a given for so long and I miss being able to sing the praises of a book that delivers everything it promises. However, I simply can't make that leap in the same way I can't wipe my memory clean of the previous issue. So for Brightest Day #15 I give it a final score of 3.5 out of 5. This issue is not entirely back to where Brightest Day was in terms of quality. It's definitely back on the right track though. Nuff said!

Brightest Day #12 - Consistent Awesome

Things come and go all the time in comics. There are very few consistencies. Superman will save the day. Spider-Man will make a wise-crack. Deadpool will blow some shit up while breaking the 4th wall. But nobody is surprised at that shit. It's about as startling as Ricky Martin coming out of the closet, as Lindsey Lohan being arrested again, or as Sarah Palin revealing she never paid attention in high school. When something becomes consistent that you don't expect, now that's something to take notice of. That's like discovering the secret pass code to Michael Jackson's hidden stash of pills. Very few comics can ever remain consistently awesome over a long period of time, especially those that come after big events like Blackest Night. But someone at DC must have sold their soul to Satan because Brightest Day has become the exception that shits all over the rule.

The series has been awesome. Every book feels like it was crafted with the same care that Rush Limbaugh employs when he crafts his bullshit. It has been one of those rare series that encompasses so many characters and tells such an intriguing story that there's a little bit of everything. You get action, drama, aliens, dead people, sci fi, and hot naked chicks. You couldn't make it more awesome if you tattooed it onto the legs of a 12 high priced strippers. The last issue was somewhat sub-par, but that's like saying a a Playboy centerfold has a small mark on her left butt-cheek. It doesn't take away from the appeal and enjoyment of the whole package. And since this series is biweekly, it doesn't take long for Brightest Day to get another chance.

The past few issues have been a lot more focused with respect to the many stories that Brightest Day balances. Aquaman and Firestorm took center stage with their stories dominating the pages of the book. Their story like that of so many others is tied to the White Lanterns and so far that has been established as the binding force that draws every one of these characters together. The last issue ended with Firestorm giving rise to Deathstorm, who brought back a team of resurrected Black Lanterns. Aquaman's story has him searching for the guardian of the White Lanturn. This search is leading him back into the story of the Martian Manhunter, who a few issues back went on his own search for the last Green Martian. If you're a little confused, that's okay. That's just your brain telling you that appreciating a certain level of awesome requires the activation of more brain cells than you may be comfortable with.

J'onn J'ozz gets things going in this arc. He returned to Mars the last time he showed up, only a few issues back mind you. There he meets the Green Martian that he's looking for. While I'm not an expert on Martian culture, I'm pretty certain that this one has psycho bitch side to her. She wants to both kill J'onn and fuck him, all while sounding more wacked out of her mind than Charlie Sheen on crystal meth.

J'onn finds out the hard way that this bitch has been a left a bit off-key from being alone for so long. It's sort of like locking Michael Bay in a windowless room and feeding him only shrooms and water laced with DMT. So it's hard to really blame her (aside from her being completely fucking crazy) when she tries to seduce if that's the right word the first Green Martian she's come across in decades. Not only that, she seems to believe that his connection to the White Lantern will bring Mars back to life. It leads to a sort of twisted infatuation that probably doesn't qualify as love except for maybe in Ancient Greece, Ancient India, Soviet Russia, and Texas. But it does have that underlying Adam and Eve theme too it, except in this Eve was made by Satan while strung out on a three-day cocaine bender.

This Martian wants J'onn to bring Mars back to life and maybe get a cheap hate-fuck out of him in the process. They wrestle in ways that may qualify as Martian porn. It's not clear who is winning, but it does seem that J'onn gets the upper hand. Then it gets stranger, as if a battle between two Martians with one of them being more unbalanced than Van Goh without his meds. Out of nowhere the Justice League shows up and attacks J'onn because he's supposedly trying to terraform Mars at the expense of Earth. Now if this were true it would give a reason for J'onn to be subdued just a little, but the Justice League appearing out of nowhere comes off as one of those contrived elements that only seem to appear in lesser comics where writers pull 99 percent of the material out of the recesses of their colon. But this is Brightest Day. It's a book that earns the benefit of the doubt and it's not something that means eyes should start rolling just yet.

There's already a sign that this fight is a result of J'onn eating too many Martian shrooms because Firestorm, who appeared in the sudden assault, is already engrossed in his own battle. In the last issue, the Black Lanterns made a comeback with the Black Lanter Firestorm (now going by the must more badass sounding name, Deathstorm) leading the charge. Ronnie and Jason (the non-badass Firestorm) still haven't stopped arguing despite Professor Stein warning them that it could cause another Big Bang. They're pretty much flying around with two thumbs up their ass trying to figure out what they're going to do. Then the Black Lanterns beat them to it, saying they need to find the White Lantern. It's not clear where this idea comes from, but they make a very fashionable escape and the previously mentioned thumbs are now even deeper in Ronnie and Jason's ass.

We finally get another glimpse of Boston Brand again, who hasn't shown up for a few books. His last appearance had him actually picking up the White Lantern and trying to use it to get some answers. It led him to cross paths with Aquaman. Now he's trying to find everyone who crossed paths with the White Lantern. He also has a hot chick helping him, so that's a plus. Although it also seems that he's sensing what the Black Lanterns are doing so that's probably going to kill the mood faster than an incontinent stripper with a spastic colon.

While the Black and White Lanterns are on the mood, J'onn is still in the middle of his psuedo-battle with the Justice League. They try to basically bury him, but at this point he figures out that the whole thing isn't real. It's not too surprising. It would make a lot less sense if the Justice League actually had shown up to contain J'onn, even if it may have been more awesome. Once again, a psycho bitch proves to be even more disorienting than a shot of tequila laced with paint thinner. At this point J'onn finally pushes back. He fights off the other Green Martian and finally flashes a little White Lantern bling, which he seems to believe will resurrect Mars. It's also a bit disorienting because wasn't this the same shit that psycho chick warned him about? And he's going through with it? It almost feels like that part of Inception when you're not sure if the dream was just a dream or if the dream is just meant to look like a dream. Fuck, now I'm confused too!

Confusing or not, there's no denying that J'onn looks pretty bad ass using his White Lantern power. What's even more disturbing yet uplifting is that he sort of succeeds. The same White Lantern powers that brought him back to life have now brought his planet back to life. So in this case the psycho bitch was right. Somehow that doesn't seem to bother J'onn, but it still makes for a pretty neat montage.

So it seems that J'onn has finally succeeded. He has his home back. Could this be the rare and beautiful thing that comic book fans so rarely see? That strange old thing called a happy ending? Most aren't familiar with that term outside an Asian massage parlor. Yet here, everything seems right. J'onn used the White Lantern power to resurrect Mars. That's a happy ending, isn't it? One without the mess you have to clean up with kleenexes and baby wipes. Well seeing as how this is Brightest Day we're talking about, it's not that easy.

Remember that psycho bitch? Well it turns out she may have won this fight after all because after a tearful reunion with his wife and children, it seems as though J'onn has been basically tricked by the earlier psycho bitch. He basically stops fighting her and starts loving her. It's disturbing and grotesque, but like a donkey show in Tijuana you can't look away. It basically means J'onn is now pussy whipped and mind-fucked, which if he's connected to the White Lantern is going to seriously fuck shit up with Firestorm and Boston Brand. It's a nice setup at the end and one that fully respects the tradition of awesome that Brightest Day has established.

So the story moves forward, now with a psycho bitch in charge. It's yet another element that makes Brightest Day awesome. This issue was a lot easier to follow than the previous issue. While it was a little disorienting at some points with the whole Justice League showing up to fight J'onn, it all made sense at the end and didn't try to be too mind-blowing. Not every story can have a Matrix feel to it and Geoff Johns didn't overshoot. It moved J'onn's story forward while also moving the story of the White Lanterns forward. You really can't ask for much more of a book.

Now some elements were lost in the details. What happened with Aquaman wasn't clear and the whole struggle with Firestorm and Deathstorm was somewhat underdeveloped. There really wasn't much hint of what was guiding these guys and why they were doing what they were doing. It's clear this is J'onn's story, but how it ties into the other stories isn't as well-crafted as it could have been. At least some connections were made. The White Lantern remains at the center of it all so there is that binding force with each story. Even if they aren't fully developed, they still make plenty of sense.

Going back to my points about consistency, Brightest Day continues to show that it can deliver the goods issue after issue. It's like a quality hooker that never charges extra for the same great service. You can't ask for much more in a book like this. It's a compelling story with compelling characters and compelling twists. Plus it has a psycho bitch now! That seals the deal for this book. Brightest Day #12 gets a 5 out of 5, another perfect score to add to it's trophy case. I know it has many, but like Tiger Woods this series is never satisfied. Only in this case, everyone can share in the orgasmic awesome! Nuff said.

Brightest Day #9 - Fiery Awesome

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