Monday, October 2, 2023

Brightest Day #22 (Late May, 2011)

One last flash-forward as we enter spooky season. Deathstorm had stolen the White Lantern Battery and brought it to his master, the Anti-Monitor. It made a little sense in context, but over a quarter-century after Crisis on Infinite Eartths? Such a dumb name. Anti-Monitor is Galactus but universes, so he planned to use the Life Entity to cook up meals that would make him infinitely powerful. Despite having a whole-assed Black Lantern team, Deathstorm was still jerking around with Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch, ultimately killing Raymond's partner in the original Firestorm matrix. After Professor Martin Stein was turned to salt, Ronnie overcame his insecurities to reform The Nuclear Man, and... the White Lantern destroyed all the Black Lanterns in a single blast? Even though Ronnie was always a headstrong idiot who rushed into danger, so this was par for the course? Make it make sense. Oh, and for added anti-climax, the Lantern transported Firestorm back from the Antimatter Universe, so that the Anti-Monitor could sit on a shelf until another big event instead of being addressed in this one.

"The End and the Beginning" was by writers Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with art by Scott Clark & company. A White Power Battery obsessed with "purity" against the darkies? Are our heroes headed to the GOP primaries? Also, by the end of this two part micro-series, Aquaman will be "dead" too. Not looking good for Martian survival...

2 comments:

Kevin from New Orleans said...

That GOP line was fucking awesome! I just found out that Alan Moore wanted to do something with M.M. but DC said no because he was returning to the Justice League. I was trying to find out what the pitch for the book was but can't find anything. Did you ever hear of this?

Diabolu Frank said...

Yeah, it was Moore and Dave Gibbons before Watchmen. I don't recall if any story elements were ever revealed, but last I heard Moore still had the art produced for the proposal. It would have also conflicted with Jemm, which switched from Mars to Saturn to accommodate Gerry Conway's JLofA plans.