Blackest Night. It focused on the White Lantern and the heroes that had been ressurected at the end of the previous event.
Brightest Day was the event immediately following theHistory
At the climax of Blackest Night -- Nekron's attack on the living world using the so-called Black Lantern Corps -- a number of deceased heroes and villains returned to life through the agency of the Entity. The Brightest Day event refers to the resurrected's search to understand the Entity's reasons for bringing them back, and to deal with other consequences of their returns.
Characters
The Brightest Day Resurrected include:
- Aquaman
- Boston Brand (the former Deadman)
- Captain Boomerang ("Digger" Harkness)
- Hawk (Hank Hall)
- Hawkgirl (Shiera Hall)
- Hawkman (Carter Hall)
- Jade (Jenni-Lynn Hayden)
- Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onnz)
- Maxwell Lord
- Osiris (Amon Tomaz)
- Reverse Flash (Eobard Thawne)
- Ronnie Raymond (one half of the Firestorm Matrix)
Others characters intimately involved in the events of Brightest Day include:
- Aquaman's wife Mera
- Siren, Mera's sister
- Black Manta
- Hath Set, the ancestral enemy of Hawkman and Hawkgirl
- Dove (Dawn Granger), Hawk's superheroic partner
- D'Kay D'Razz, a Green Martian
- Jason Rusch and Martin Stein who both have shared the Firestorm Matrix with Ronnie Raymond
Generation Lost
Soon after the Brightest Day resurrections, the Earth's super-heroic community organized a global manhunt to apprehend Maxwell Lord. The architect of the OMAC Project, Lord had once subjugated Superman, and had murdered Ted Kord (Blue Beetle). Wonder Woman killed Lord to stop his use of Superman as a weapon in the months before the outbreak of the Infinite Crisis.
To escape the manhunt and further his own goals, Lord pushed his mind control abilities to unheard-of levels and caused nearly the entire population of Earth to forget he had ever existed. The only people to escape Lord's rewriting of history were four former members of Justice League International, who were at "ground zero" when Lord performed his mind wipe. These four were Booster Gold (who successfully deduced Lord's location, but was beaten into unconsciousness) and Fire, Ice and Captain Atom (all of whom responded to Booster's call for aid).
Booster, Fire, Ice and Captain Atom found themselves isolated from the rest of the super-heroic community. Not only did no one else remember Lord, but any attempt to prove his existence was met with dismissal or suspicion. Soon, Fire lost her status in Checkmate, Ice was accused of trying to kill her former lover Guy Gardner and Captain Atom was accused of dereliction of duty. Booster, meanwhile, found that his own reputation was bad enough that no smear campaign was needed to keep him isolated.
Setting out to locate and stop Max Lord, the four heroes soon found themselves alongside Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) and Rocket Red (Gavril Ivanovich), both successors to deceased JLI members. This seemed like happenstance at first, but was in fact the work of Lord, who decided to use the reunited JLI for his own purposes. This only drove the heroes further in their desire to bring him to justice.
The Entity revealed its reason for resurrecting Lord, telling him to "Stop the war before it starts." Lord understood this "war" to be a disastrous possible future in which generations of heroes would battle one another, the younger heroes led by the maverick hero Magog. (This possible future of New Earth is sensibly the same as the actual timeline of Earth-22.) To accomplish this goal, Lord (purporting to be speaking on behalf of Checkmate and the United Nations Security Council) ordered Magog to pursue and eliminate Captain Atom. To help him do so, Lord armed Magog with a modified lance.
Magog caught up to Captain Atom in Chicago, where he and the other Leaguers were following Lord's tracks. Magog's new lance -- firing exotic radiation blasts -- proved capable of harming Atom and their battle soon escalated to the point that it risked causing a radioactive detonation that could destroy Chicago. Lord then appeared, turning his mind control abilities on Magog. Forcing Magog to turn his lance on himself, Lord also twisted perceptions so the world would believe Captain Atom responsible for killing Magog. The modified lance then caused a large detonation, killing several hundred innocents. Only Captain Atom's energy absorbing abilities prevented the blast from killing many more (notably, he removed any lingering radiation).
The Entity confirmed that Lord has accomplished his mission to "stop the war", but Captain Atom discovered he would start another. Indeed, twice during Brightest Day, Atom absorbed massive amounts of energy, which temporarily threw him forward in the time stream. There he discovered a future in which Lord waged a largely successful war against metahumans, one that started with his murder of Wonder Woman. Atom returned to the present determined to stop this from happening.
Although Lord's vendetta against Wonder Woman faced unexpected complications -- namely that she too had been eliminated from the memory of most of humanity -- he was able to accomplish other goals. Using the actions of the reformed JLI, Lord managed to take over the espionage agency Checkmate and have it stripped of its UN charter. He regained his own private espionage agency under no one's authority but his own. Lord also developed several powerful new weapon systems, including the updated Creature Commandos and a revived OMAC Project. Notably he employed a mind-controlled Professor Ivo and a relocated Project Cadmus.
With the aid of Power Girl and Batman -- both former JLI members who came to throw off Lord's mind wipe -- the Justice League members thwarted Lord's attempt to assassinate Wonder Woman and defeated OMAC Prime, the robotic weapon developed for that purpose by Lord and Ivo. Captain Atom -- once again absorbing enough energy to become unlocked in the timestream -- threatened to take Lord with him unless Max undid his global mindwipe, thus restoring the world's memories. Lord himself escaped, however, thanks to a teleporter.
In the aftermath, Lord -- still a fugitive -- left a message for the world in which he cleared Captain Atom of the murder of Magog, laid the blame for the OMACs on Professor Ivo, and announced to the world that he and Checkmate would continue to function as a guard against meta-humans and other costumed heroes and villains. The heroes who had defeated him were left with the very uncomfortable feeling that he had gotten what he really wanted all along.
Batman encouraged Booster Gold to keep the reformed JLI together.
Issues
Brightest Day
- Brightest Day #0
- Brightest Day #1
- Brightest Day #2
- Brightest Day #3
- Brightest Day #4
- Brightest Day #5
- Brightest Day #6
- Brightest Day #7
- Brightest Day #8
- Brightest Day #9
- Brightest Day #10
- Brightest Day #11
- Brightest Day #12
- Brightest Day #13
- Brightest Day #14
- Brightest Day #15
- Brightest Day #16
- Brightest Day #17
- Brightest Day #18
- Brightest Day #19
- Brightest Day #20
- Brightest Day #21
- Brightest Day #22
- Brightest Day #23
- Brightest Day #24
Crossovers
- Adventure Comics #516
- Adventure Comics #517
- Adventure Comics #518
- Adventure Comics #519
- Adventure Comics #520
- Adventure Comics #521
- Birds of Prey (Volume 2) #1
- Birds of Prey (Volume 2) #2
- Birds of Prey (Volume 2) #3
- Birds of Prey (Volume 2) #4
- Birds of Prey (Volume 2) #5
- Brightest Day: The Atom Special #1
- The Flash (Volume 3) #1
- The Flash (Volume 3) #2
- The Flash (Volume 3) #3
- The Flash (Volume 3) #4
- The Flash (Volume 3) #5
- The Flash (Volume 3) #6
- The Flash (Volume 3) #7
- Giant-Size Atom #1
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #1
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #2
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #3
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #4
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #5
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #6
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #7
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #8
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #9
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #10
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #11
- Green Arrow (Volume 4) #12
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #53
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #54
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #55
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #56
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #57
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #58
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #59
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #60
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #61
- Green Lantern (Volume 4) #62
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #47
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #48
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #49
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #50
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #51
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #52
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #53
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #54
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #55
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #56
- Green Lantern Corps (Volume 2) #57
- Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #1
- Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #2
- Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #3
- Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #4
- Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #5
- Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #6
- Justice League: Generation Lost #1
- Justice League: Generation Lost #2
- Justice League: Generation Lost #3
- Justice League: Generation Lost #4
- Justice League: Generation Lost #5
- Justice League: Generation Lost #6
- Justice League: Generation Lost #7
- Justice League: Generation Lost #8
- Justice League: Generation Lost #9
- Justice League: Generation Lost #10
- Justice League: Generation Lost #11
- Justice League: Generation Lost #12
- Justice League: Generation Lost #13
- Justice League: Generation Lost #14
- Justice League: Generation Lost #15
- Justice League: Generation Lost #16
- Justice League: Generation Lost #17
- Justice League: Generation Lost #18
- Justice League: Generation Lost #19
- Justice League: Generation Lost #20
- Justice League: Generation Lost #21
- Justice League: Generation Lost #22
- Justice League: Generation Lost #23
- Justice League: Generation Lost #24
- Justice League of America (Volume 2) #44
- Justice League of America (Volume 2) #45
- Justice League of America (Volume 2) #46
- Justice League of America (Volume 2) #47
- Justice League of America (Volume 2) #48
- Justice Society of America (Volume 3) #40
- Justice Society of America (Volume 3) #41
- Justice Society of America (Volume 3) #42
- Justice Society of America (Volume 3) #43
- Titans: Villains for Hire Special #1
- Titans (Volume 2) #24
- Titans (Volume 2) #25
- Titans (Volume 2) #26
- Titans (Volume 2) #27
- Titans (Volume 2) #28
- Titans (Volume 2) #29
- Titans (Volume 2) #30
Aftermath
- Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing #1
- Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing #2
- Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing #3
Recommended Reading
Links and References
Green Lantern Storyline This event or storyline specifically revolves around the Green Lantern of Earth, or the Green Lantern Corps as a whole. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the Green Lantern Storylines category. |