Um... Are These Zombies Too???

Following Blackest Night, this week comes Brightest Day. After several dead heroes have returned from the dead (spoiler alert), peace has returned to the DC universe. But alas, peace is fleeting (since it would mean the unemployment of many writers and artists and the abundance of disposable income for nerds such as myself) as those who have been resurrected by the white light of creation must deal with their personal issues associated with their rebirth.
Among those are Aquaman, and his strange ability to only summon dead sea creatures; Firestorm, who can no longer split apart into his separate personalities; and Deadman, who now wears the white ring as it guides him to its true bearer. All these stories and more are interlaced throughout this year long, twenty-six issue arc.
Naturally, the main flaw with this is since these stories are often unrelated (especially in the beginning), some stories are the focus for an issue than completely ignored for another issue or so. This makes keeping track of the story difficult as the reader is required to remember several small threads that the recap fails to consistently cover. Not to mention that the cliffhangers are a real bummer seeing as it’s anyone’s guess when that particular storyline will be continued.
Furthermore, as more characters are introduced, more separate stories intertwine with the rest, making it extremely complicated for the weekly reader. I find myself feeling as I read that this is a story that needs to be read in one sitting to truly appreciate everything that is going on.
Another issue is that as a person who is unfamiliar with the DC universe (I prefer Marvel and some independent publishers. I was only in this for Green lantern who sadly was mostly absent) Many of the character’s backgrounds were of vague knowledge to me. This made it difficult as each character went on a soul searching journey that involved them digging far back into the continuity as DC tends to do in their larger stories. Thus becomes confusing to newer readers that don’t follow multiple books at once.
What was good about Brightest Day is that it does keep the suspense rolling from Blackest Night. With the white light in lantern form, I find myself eager to find out what roll it will now play in the DC universe if any. With Deadman running around with the ring, and the ring itself giving cryptic messages to “fight” or “live” (which was discovered to mean go get a hamburger for those of you who were wondering about how cryptic that can really be), I want to know how such a powerful tool will mainly affect the other lanterns.
Overall, I felt Brightest Day fell short after the spectacular Blackest Night. Despite this being somewhat expected as an aftermath piece that deals with many character issues resulting from Blackest Night, it definitely could have been handled better to avoid confusion.