An Extra-Sized Review But With Less Exposition
Brightest Day ends with something between a bang and a whimper. Swamp Thing has made his return to the DC Universe, and he is not the only one. The resurrected, or most of them, are left free to continue their lives with some foreshadowing of what is to come for them. And all the Brightest Day storylines dovetail into exposition and environmental policy.
It is no wonder this is an extra-sized issue, because it takes a whole lot of exposition to wrap this series up. The issue begins with a crash course in the history of Swamp Thing for the uninitiated, who were probably left more confused than excited by last issues cliffhanger reveal of someone named Alec Holland. The exposition does not stop there, though. It continues from the Entity for a great deal of the issue as it basically explains what is going on. This is all due to DC's decision to save Swamp Thing as a big surprise. Because of that, they could not risk explaining anything during the course of the series, and that leaves us on the receiving end of this massive infodump in the final issue here. Was that decision worth it? Not really. Speculation about Swamp Thing was already out there anyway, and it was leaked just before the big reveal, which still fell a bit flat last issue. All the secrecy has really accomplished is leaving us with a ton of things needing to be explained at the very end.
Some exposition is also dedicated to explaining the Entity grand plan. Anyone who has been reading Brightest Day can guess how well that turns out. No, it does not make sense. Yes, it all is rather stupid. I think most readers have already made their peace with the fact that the Entity and its plan has been nothing but a plot device with decisions based more on drama than reason. The Captain Boomerang and Hawk scene shows fairly well how convoluted and pointless the Entity's plans are.
Thankfully, the exposition does accomplish its task of explaining who Swamp Thing is and what is going on. The Captain Planet vibe is very strong throughout all this, but it really does work. There is no arguing that Swamp Thing does not make sense in his role. It is really silly that the a cosmic being like the Entity cares so much about one planet's environment, but if the story is going in this direction, it is at least going with a good choice of character.
Deadman's story comes to a predictable end. As soon as his romance with Dove began, it was a bit clear this is what it was all leading to. That said, predictable does not really mean bad. It would have been disappointing for it to end any other way. It actually succeeds in giving Deadman one of the strongest end notes of the series.
For those who are sensitive to how female characters are treated, it is easy to see them having problems with this issue. Female characters really do get treated poorly. Dove role is only about being the damsel in distress, which honestly makes no sense given that she is the one with the fastest reflexes. Jade role in Brightest Day is left completely irrelevant, and the explanation for her role the Entity tries to give us is laughably weak. And Shiera Hall definitely gets the short end of the stick in the final development for the Hawks. Mera, who only briefly appears this issue, stands as the only female character to come off well in this series. The only other strong female character was D'Kay, who strangely ended up being killed off.
The last several pages are dedicated to setting up what is next for some of the Brightest Day characters with the big reveal at the end being something that will get a lot of people talking. For the most part, these setups do look promising. I am definitely waiting for the Aquaman series to start, and I assume we may be getting a Justice League title featuring some of these other characters.
A personal annoyance for me this issue (and this will be a tiny spoiler) is that Aquaman gets his hand back. It does make sense that he would, but it takes away any sense in him losing it in the first place. Apparently, it was just for a moment of cheap drama. And since I am someone who loved the harpoon hand, I feel jerked around.
While I would not say Brightest Day ended strongly, I would not say it ended poorly either. The story thread about the Entity's plans was always one of the weakest of the series, and this wraps it up basically as well as it could have been done. The exposition is heavy enough to drag the issue down but also a necessary evil because we readers were really not prepared to understand much of this. Where it leaves all of its resurrected characters is a mixed bag with some really strong ends lifting up a bunch more mediocre or seemingly pointless ones. And the big final development of the series depends on how readers feel about Vertigo returning to the DC Universe. Some are against it, and others are for it. Then, there are people like me who are pretty ambivalent about it, even after reading this.
Brightest Day comes to a solid end that would have be better if the series had properly built up to it rather than try to shroud it in so much secrecy. It shoots itself in the foot, banking on the reputation of Vertigo's characters being enough excite readers all on its own, and it leaves all but a few of the resurrected characters it was built upon feeling neglected.
