Flashback Friday: Rann-Thanagar Holy War, Tradepaperback volumes 1 & 2

I had trouble sleeping last night and grabbed these two books from the shelf.  I had read Mystery in Space about the newly reborn Captain Comet and The Weird.  It was really cool, so when I saw these at the used bookstore I grabbed them.  Many cosmic characters involved in this story.  One of the pluses is that while mired in DCU history, one does not get lost in the story.  What will lose you is the few pages in the first volume that are placed wrong.  Not sure if it is just my issues or if this was a trade collected problem.  I figured it out and many astute readers should as well.


One thing that this story does is draw the Lady Styxx character and the religious group from Mystery in Space into direct conflict.  Both the Rannians and the Thanagrians have adopted the religions.  Thanagarians are being duped by the Eternal Light Corporation Church for nefarious means and the Rannians follow Lady Styxx because of the remnants of her virus that made them follow her.  They have a rose colored glasses view of this monster that kills and eats her followers.


Seeing Bizarro was a neat surprise.  Away from Superman it provided a different perspective on the weird copy of the Man of Steel.  All the various characters are well represented.  The roll call is Starman, Tigor, Tyrone, Comet, The Weird, Starfire, Animal Man, Adam Strange, and Hawkman.  This mixes some interesting personalities to play with as the tale progresses.  Bad things happen.  Worlds are decimated and genocide occurs.  All the while a cosmic entity struggles to see a plan to fruition.


The Nameless or Demiurge is a complicated character filled with pseudo-theology and mythology while wrapped in time paradoxes.  Make your head hurt yet?  Like Miles O'Brien always said, "I hate temporal mechanics."  Just go with the flow in volume two when the time flux stuff kicks in.  The action makes it worth it.  All the battle and sacrifice makes for a new status quo in the end and a place where some future DC writer can play with some characters in new and exciting ways.


A good read all around.


BDS

This Is Just Cool

 

Been a bit scattered during the year's end.  DC has been busy though.  The letters pages return, they locked prices at $2.99, and gave us this panel from Brightest Day.  Pretty cool.  I need to get some things caught up and done.  Hopefully I will get some posts up soon.  Oh, and without spoiling too much, I was right.

BDS 

Brightest Day #12 & #13

            I will double up on this quick review of the Brightest Day series.  It has been good so far, slow in places.  Here in these issues we get two of the faster paced parts of the story.  In case you have been under a rock and do not know what this is about I will give you my explanation.  The end of Blackest Night saw a number of individuals brought back from the grave permanently, kinda.  See we learned that each has a task to perform to remain alive.  Boston Brand, or Deadman, is one of the people brought back and he now has a mission to find the new Guardian of Earth.  He has a White Ring as well.  The series is the tale of his mission and the tasks that the others are to undertake.

            Issue #12 is a Martian Manhunter centric story that also has Firestorm in it.  The Firestorm story has a Black Lantern return in the form of Deathstorm and a crew of Black Lanterns that we all thought gone.  It is the Martian Manhunter story that is most tragic and intriguing.  He is apparently able to return “the Green” to Mars.  The problem is that another Green Martian is there on the planet as well.  They are a former Martian Murderess that had escaped the destruction of the race of Green Martians.  She wants J’onn to be her mate.  She wants to repopulate a genetically designated race to replace the flawed one she was glad to see gone.  There is fighting.  There is a surprise resurrection.  There is a twist ending that chills the spine.  Poor J’onn is all I can say about it.

            The central characters of Issue #13 are Hawkman and Hawkwoman.  There is a great telling of their history and how the current state of them and Hawk World came to be.  All the secrets that currently were hidden are revealed.  We see some gruesome fighting as Carter Hall battles to his love.  She is facing her mother and the reason apparently for all the troubles the Hawks have faced over the centuries.  Really cool story here.

            Boston and Dove are the other part of the book.  They are looking for the new Guardian and I think they are kind of sweet on each other.  The big twist here is who might be this Guardian.  The newly returned……well that would be telling would it not?

BDS