Brightest Day #20
Summary
This is it!! The Conclusion!! ... (of Aquawar). Can Aquaman defeat Black Manta and Siren single-handedly (HAR HAR), is there any hope of turning the tide of this battle (that one was unintentional) or will everyone Aquaman knows and loves be sleeping with the fishes (...and back to the intentional puns).
What I liked
· Best Issue of Brightest Day so far: No Joke, this issue is so good! Sometime fast paced action scenes leave you feeling a bit empty afterwards. However, this issue has action with purpose, which is to say that they come to a resolution through fighting. Okay, there are a lot of cheap gimmicks that make the scenes seem more epic, like someone bleeding out of their eyes when concentrating really hard, epic speeches and double-page spreads, but it’s just too much fun to get wound-up about!
· Team Aquaman!!!: I really love how this group of outcasts have banded together to become a formidable team. This isn’t your classic JLA or Teen Titans, full of different perspectives and walks of life, this is a solitary unit which are all in synch and sometimes that’s nice to see.
· Aquaman – Top Bloke: Aquaman is the most realistic character in Brightest Day. He isn’t freaking out every five minutes or making stupid choices. He’s staying on task and acting like a rational human being.
What I didn’t like
· This isn’t a war: This is not a war; it is a scrap on a beach...When you think “War” you think two sizeable forces going against each other, however this is basically a fight with Aquaman, Aqualad, Mera and Aquagirl on one side and Siren and Black Manta on the other. Ignore the Xebel soldiers, they’re just fodder and do nothing.
· Mera is dead: Or rather Mera is not dead. In the previous issue Siren said that she killed Mera – Shock, Horror, Mera is dead. Only we find out in this issue, literally pages after we have been told this, that it was a lie. I really don’t care if that spoilt it for you, that was a cheap stunt pulled by DC and it was the only gimmick that really wound me up! I can imagine this looking really bad in a trade as well.
· Resolution?: The White Lantern ring needed Arthur Curry to come to terms with who Mera really was; in order for him to fulfil his mission. However, I never really felt that Aquaman minded that Mera was a spy, because that’s quite obviously not who she is now. It feels this white lantern stuff really has to force out its reasoning behind how events are unfolding.
Verdict
This issue is crazy good and really delivers on both the action and the resolution (in terms of the local story), but is let down a bit by the macro Brightest Day interference. I’ll say it for the hundredth time; this story should have been a solo, Aquaman only story without any of the Blackest Night or Brightest Day stuff involved. That said, read this issue!!
9/10
