Brightest Day #21

Mars Attacks

Writers: Geoff Johns & Peter J. Tomasi
Artists: Patrick Gleason, Ivan Reis & Joe Prado
Inkers: Mark Irwin, Keith Champagne, Norm Rapmund, & Christian Alamy
Color: Aspen MLT's Peter Steigerwald & Nathan Eyring
Cover: Gary Frank & Nathan Eyring
Variant Cover: Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, & Rod Reis
Letterer: Rob Clark Jr.
Associate. Editor: Rex Ogle
Editors: Adam Schlagman and Eddie Berganza

Our cover shows Martian Manhunter on fire against a white background. It's a striking image, although I do have to say that since fire is J'onn's weakness, he seems to be lit on fire a lot more often than any other hero in the DC Universe. Anyway, I'm a big fan of Gary Frank's style, and I am pleased with this cover.

Our variant cover doesn't do much for me, though. It shows Martian Manhunter battling an evil female Martian named D'Kay, who had apparently impersonated J'onn's wife for a while. I don't really know, and I certainly don't care, since none of that plot line involves Bart Allen. Anyway, the execution of this cover is fine, but I guess the bland red background kind of bores me. I know, it's weird how I like white backgrounds but not red backgrounds, but there you go.

Our story opens with the Atom investigating the apparent deaths of Hawkman and Hawkgirl at the Stonechat Museum in St. Roch. He's reporting his findings to the Flash, who is working with the JLA, JSA and Teen Titans to help clean up a beach in Miami after an Aquaman/Black Manta fight, in which Aquaman also apparently died. But what's perplexing our heroes is that the evidence indicates that their friends are being killed by the very force that brought them back in the first place — the White Lantern.

The rest of the story details J'onn's fight against D'Kay, wherein he sacrifices himself to kill her, but then is resurrected once again as a White Lantern, but then something weird happens to him with Deadman at the end. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't affect anything else going on in Bart's world. So we'll just move on.




The credits on this comic listed some really big names — some of my favorite creators at DC — but this was still a comic-by-committee, which I very rarely can tolerate. The whole Brightest Day event managed to be even more bloated and convoluted than Blackest Night, and it makes for a very frustrating read, especially when one realizes how the fast-approaching Flashpoint will render this story void.

But I will say I was happy to see our Titans, ever so briefly, actually engaging in some cleanup work for a change. Superboy is tending to a small boy, and Bart is in three places at once, handing out blankets to wounded bystanders. That's something we often overlook in these stories, but whenever there's a big super villain battle, there will be casualties. There will be injured people that need to be loaded up in ambulances, dead people to place in body bags, destroyed trees and buildings that need to be cleared away. And I think it's nice to see our heroes deal with that reality every once in a while.

Ironically, even though I hate Brightest Day, I am kind of sad that we didn't get a crossover with the Teen Titans series. When J.T. Krul took over the book, he promised to bring in the new Aqualad somehow. Brightest Day #20 was the perfect opportunity to do so, but Krul missed his chance. And we never got to see what he had planned for that character and the Teen Titans.

Next time, we'll do something a bit more light-hearted with Superboy #5.