Brightest Day #16

Summary

Aquaman and the new Aqualad go to reclaim Jackson’s birthright; meanwhile the greatest minds of the JLA and JSA try to find a way to stop Firestorm destroying the universe. Also, Deathstorm gives Jason’s father a chance to save his son, but it comes with a price.

What I liked

· Aqualad’s origin: Most of the plot holes are filled-in and I can now accept him as a proper superhero, with enough of a back-story to be interesting.

· Jason’s Father: There is a really cool scene in this issue where Deathstorm gives Jason’s father an opportunity to kill Deathstorm, but it means taking his own life as well. Although the ending is a bit of a cop out, it is really interesting to see just how far this man is willing to go in order to save his son. This in turn makes us care more about the fact he has been captured by Deathstorm.

· Aquaman/Aqualad heart to heart: Although it is a bit brief, we do have a nice little bit of interaction between Arthur and Jackson about stepping up to responsibility. Why do I feel more and more like Aquaman is the most rational character I have ever come across in a comic book so far.

What I didn’t like

· Weird artistic choices: Every now and then in the Deathstorm scenes the art style dramatically changes, like any part with the gun for example. It just seems like some of these scenes belong in Killer7 and not in Brightest Day.

· Not much happens: This is a bit of a nothing-issue, but I am not going to condemn it for this. It takes some time to go over some of the finer points of Aqualad’s origin, just don’t go into this expecting crazy things like the cover suggests.

· Ronnie and Jason will argue about anything: Guess what? Ronnie and Jason argue again. After being told that arguing will make them destroy the universe (wow that sounds really dumb). You’d think that they’d be a little more reserved and tolerant of each other. This isn’t the case.

· There is not a fight between Aquaman and Aqualad: Don’t get me wrong, Aqualad attacks Aquaman, but Aquaman quickly sorts him out. But then again, I’m not reading Brightest Day to see two people on the same side having a full-on fight.

· Stupid cliff hanger: This series has done this a few times, where we have been shown something so ludicrous that we know it cannot be true. This ending is an example of this. However, it does still raise some questions, like “what the hell is actually going on?”

Verdict

It’s another one of those run-throughs where it looks like I hate the issue, but in fact I thought it was alright. Not much happens plot-wise, but it does put Aquaman and Firestorm in place for what feels like the conclusions of their stories. There are some cool instances of inspired-dialogue in this issue and it is quite a pleasant read all round.

6/10