It Had To Happen Eventually
Brightest Day new pattern of focusing only on one or two of its running plots per issue was bound to result in a weaker than normal issue that focused on one of its much less impressive plots. Here it is. This issue is almost entirely devoted to the ongoing story of Hawkman and Hawkgirl in Hawkworld.
The Hawk story in Brightest Day actually began very promising. Carter and Shiera's quest to hunt down and kill Hath-Set was compelling and made a lot of sense for the newly resurrected pair. But then the story got horribly derailed the moment they all traveled to Hawkworld. For lack of a better way to put this, Hawkworld is stupid. All of a sudden, we were thrust into this world of manhawks, mancats, manlizards and Shiera's original mom. The Hawks' story never really recovered from taking this drastic turn.
The story continues to go careening over the edge in this issue with the really questionable decision to recast the Hawks' main enemy as Queen Shrike, Shiera's ridiculously evil mother. Hath-Set is cast aside as an underling in both this story and through retcon, in the Hawks' long history. The switch from Hath-Set to Queen Shrike seems pointless, because it just leaves us with a slightly different story of betrayal. There's no gain here. The fact that she is Shiera's mother doesn't make things more interesting due to Queen Shrike being so unrepentantly evil that the any bond between mother and daughter is nonexistent. The design of her character is okay, with her freaky non-wings. But the power she is revealed to far is... again for the lact of a better way to put it, stupid. Her power is very reminscient of what happened in Doomwar with Dr. Doom and his nonsensical mastery over vibranium. So when it comes to their primary villain, the Hawks have just traded down.
This is also apparently why Shiera has been resurrected instead of Kendra. This story simply would not work with Kendra Saunders as Hawkgirl. This is really beginning to seem like another switch the Hawks traded down on. Very little has actually been done so far in Brightest Day with Shiera's character, and really, it should be a priority to focus on her character to justify her resurrection. She has yet to really show any personality traits beyond being a female version of Hawkman and apparently a damsel-in-distress.
The one entertaining thing about this issue is seeing Hawkman tear through his enemies like the winged Wolverine he is. Depicting Hawkman as basically a barbarian scholar has always made him a unique presence in the DCU, and it is good to see that this personality hasn't been lost.
The issue ends with a scene touching on the ongoing Deadman plot. This is probably the other weaker plot in Brightest Day. This isn't because the plot is bad. Its weakness is that nothing ever seems to happen in it. Ever. It is nothing but this continuous tease as Deadman tries to figure out what the Entity wants. What happens in this issue? Deadman and Dove try to find who the Entity wants them to find and don't find who the Entity wants them to find. This is one of those annoying plots that depends completely on something being unnecessarily cryptic to work.
Brightest Day is not perfect. Out of its half dozen or so ongoing plots, it would be unfair to expect them all to be winners. This is just an unfortunate issue that narrows in on the two weakest plots. Hopefully, either both of these plots somehow get better or another issue doesn't come along that focuses only on them.
