Brightest Day, Vol. 1 [Hardcover]

Geoff Johns (Author), Peter Tomasi (Author), Various (Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: December 7, 2010

The follow-up to the best selling comics event BLACKEST NIGHT, written by Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi!

Once dead, twelve heroes and villains have been resurrected by a white light expelled deep within the center of the earth. Called a miracle by many and a sign of the apocalypse by others, the reasons behind their rebirth remain a mystery.

Now, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Firestorm, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Deadman, Jade, Osiris, Hawk, Captain Boomerang and Zoom must discover the mysterious reason behind their return and uncover the secret that binds them all in this first volume of a three part series.

This volume includes issues 0-7.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Geoff Johns has written Infinite Crisis, 52, Green Lantern, X-Men, The Avengers, Superman, and much more. Peter Tomasi is the writer of The Light Brigade as well as stories for Outsiders and JSA Classified. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics; First Edition edition (December 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401229662
• ISBN-13: 978-1401229665
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 0.7 x 10.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Geoff Johns originally hails from Detroit, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University, where he earned a degree in Media Arts and Film. He began his comics career creating and writing Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. for DC Comics.

His first comic assignment led to a critically acclaimed run on the The Flash and JSA for DC Comics. Since then, he has quickly become one of the most popular and imaginative writers in comic books today, working on titles including a highly successful re-imagining of Green Lantern, The Flash: Rebirth, Superman: Secret Origin, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Teen Titans, Justice Society of America, Infinite Crisis and the experimental breakout hit series 52 for DC with Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid. Geoff received the Wizard Fan Award for Breakout Talent of 2002 and Writer of the Year for 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 as well as the CBG Writer of the Year 2003 thru 2005 and 2007 and 2008 and CBG Best Comic Book Series for JSA 2001 thru 2005. Geoff penned the acclaimed "Legion" episode of SMALLVILLE. He also served as a writer for the fourth season of ROBOT CHICKEN. Geoff is currently working on film projects with Warner Brothers to be announced soon.

Geoff recently became a New York Times Bestselling author with the graphic novel Superman: Brainiac with art by Gary Frank among many others.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Anthology Series December 9, 2010

By Patrick Harrington

Format:Hardcover

Hopefully this doesn't contain spoilers because I try not to, but it might so be careful.

Brightest Day coninutes right after the mega-event Blackest Night, and explores the new lives of most of the reborn heroes and villains(Max Lord is postlighted in Jstice League: Generation Lost, Zoom & Captain Boomerang in Flash, Jade in JLA and GLC I think.) I does a big amount of jumping around between characters at first but then goes into large chunks of story being focused onto one character. The larger chunks that are fosuced on just one or two characters are great and do a little bit of retconning to provide new wrinkles to the characters or new threats, especially in the case of Firestorm. The story telling is great at points but personally I don't really care for the Deadman/Dove storyline. It just doesn't appeal to me. I never really got into these characters before this series but find myself really enjoying the stories. I never thought I'd be excited about a Hawkman or Aquaman story. The art team also does a good job of blending their styles to fit the story-telling.

Just because it says Brightest Day doesn't mean the stories are light either, so expect the same gritty kind of story-telling that you usually read in other DC books. I am really liking the direction that Johns and Tomasi are taking these characters and look forward the the future of them as well. Also, check out the other books under the Brightest Day banner like Green Lantern, Flash, and Justice League Generation Lost.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Slow Start, but Very Good December 8, 2010

By JME2

Format:Hardcover

"Blackest Night" was a grand achievement for the Green Lantern franchise. It brought the long-brewing War of Light storyline to a head and propelled Hal Jordan and the GLC to the forefront of a major company-wide event. The ending also had repercussions for both the Green Lantern Corps and the larger DC mythology as 12 heroes and villains were resurrected in the climax, a resurrection that drives the end of the Blackest Night and the dawn of the Brightest Day...

"Brightest Day: Vol. 1" opens immediately following the end of "Blackest Night". The War of Light is over and Nekron and his legion of Black Lanterns have been stopped. While the rebuilding begins, The Twelve are busy re-acclimating to the land of the living. Some are delighted to have been given a second chance at life while others wish that they were still buried and dead. But all of them are haunted by the same questions. Why did they return when other dead heroes and villains did not? Why were they chosen by the White Entity? The search for answers will shape both their futures and the future of the DC Universe.

The book is very much a spiritual sequel to the landmark "52" that followed "Infinite Crisis", but there also similarities with the infamous "Countdown to Final Crisis". "Brightest Day" is the central mini-series of DC's current company-wide event. While The Twelve all appear at various points, only six of the Twelve are the main focus here: Aquaman, Deadman, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, Hawkman, and the Martian Manhunter. The book overlaps with other titles connected to "Brightest Day", especially the forthcoming "Green Lantern: Brightest Day", but it is not essential to read them. Readers have the option of either following the main storyline here or instead focusing on their favorite characters across other books (Captain Boomerang's story, for example, is covered in the forthcoming "The Flash: The Dastardly Death of the Rogues").

Like "52", this opening volume is primarily character-driven and it's a joy to see the lesser-known or less popular DC characters take the spotlight. Character arcs set up in "Blackest Night" -- and in the case of the Hawks, threads from Geoff Johns' 2002-2004 tenure on Hawkman -- continue with great drama and characterization. Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi's writing is crisp and a slow build, but it leads to a great payoff for this introductory volume and in the next two collections. The artwork from Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, and others is equally varied and perfect.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Is This Really DC's Brightest Day? August 1, 2011

By Simon

Format:Hardcover

When DC's summer event Blackest Night ended, it left readers with an incredible tease - 12 heroes and villains resurrected in a brilliant flash of light, all revived for a specific-yet-unknown purpose. Now learn the fate of the 12 as Brightest Day Vol. 1 kicks off with issues #0-7 in the series. I'd held off on reviewing this anthology series until the final issue was out - after all there's no point in advising readers to sink coin into volume 1 if the story doesn't live up to expectations (the whole saga in collected form will span 3 volumes total). And really, at the end of the day this is a conflicted review - there's a lot to like about Brightest Day, but whether it lived up to its full potential (and is worth your money) is up for debate.

First, the good. Having already gotten several year-long series under its belt, DC has learned from experience and banked some of its best talent for this project. Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi co-write Brightest Day, bringing the same accessibility and ease of prose that made the current Green Lantern books such a success. Artistic collaborators Ivan Reis and Patrick Gleason are also on board, as well as Scott Clark, Joe Prado and Adrian Syaf. It's an impressive roster, and unlike 52 and Countdown to Final Crisis, here each artist is assigned a specific set of characters and their story arc. So all the Aquaman segments are drawn by Reis, all of Martian Manhunter's odyssey is handled by Gleason, and so forth. In addition to maintaining the visual continuity, the breakdown of artistic chores gives each artist a bit more time to refine their pages. You'd never know Brightest Day was running on a twice-monthly schedule with its quality of art. DC also rethought the way their year long "spine" titles should operate - whereas 52 had the benefit of operating in its own continuity bubble and Countdown to Final Crisis tried and failed to mesh disparate elements from various concurrent titles, here Brightest Day is the focus with the other titles brancing out and taking notes from it. You'll never feel like you're missing a plot point because you're not reading Justice League of America: The Dark Things, The Flash, Vol. 1: The Dastardly Death of the Rogues, Titans: Villains for Hire, Green Arrow Vol. 1: Into the Woods (Green Arrow (Graphic Novels)), etc. The focus on 2nd-tier characters is appreciated. Johns has made a career at DC out of resurrecting the intriguing-yet-underused players, and it's great seeing Aquaman, Deadman, Firestorm and Hawkman handled with the same reverence as the big guns. All the arcs are generally intriguing with their own highs and lows, my favourite being the Aquaman story. The occasional revisionist history (a staple of Johns' work) is a concession most fans have learned to live with.

So why the 3-star rating? I mentioned I generally liked all the individual story arcs, but the series doesn't make a strong case for why they needed to be presented together (as opposed to individual minis with bookends, much like Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory series. None of the arcs really tie into each other, and in turn the pacing suffers when you spend time away from one set of characters to focus on another. There's not a lot of logic in how Brightest Day chooses to dictate its focus. And without spoiling the ending, Brightest Day sets up a sense of reader involvement that it never really pays off. This is, at its most basic level, a missing persons mystery story. There's the detective (Deadman) the suspects (all the returnees, and a few others) and a person to find (the Chosen One). But unlike other stories in the genre that lay out clues along the way and reward readers for paying attention to details, there's really nothing here in the beginning that is relevant in the endgame. There are several opportunities for Johns and Tomasi to layer in foreshadowing, and none of it is really taken advantage of. This is a *huge* disappointment in a story that purposefully asks readers to guess a mystery character, and undermines what should have been the high point of an exposition-heavy volume 1.

The trade edition comes with a variant cover gallery, as well as the special character-themed variants from all the tie-in books that form a larger spread. I can't totally write off Brightest Day, but it's also not the crowning success that all the talent involved could've made it to be. At the very least wait for paperback - DC's attempt to peddle this out in 3 volumes versus 2 (see the companion series : Justice League: Generation Lost, Vol. 1) reeks a bit of money grab.