Wednesday Comics: Up from the depths
©DC Comics
This dramatic scene takes up pages 12 and 13 of Brightest Day #1. (The cover date is “Early July 2010,” but it actually came out a few weeks ago.) The size limitations of the blog don’t really do this splash page justice, but you should be able to tell that there is something not quite right about this monstrous squid, and I’m not talking about its unrealistic size. It appears to be dead, or, rather, undead. Now for some context…
Brightest Day is DC Comics’ follow-up and continuation of last year’s epic Blackest Night event. These stories spin out of the Green Lantern titles, but they pretty much span the entire DC Universe. I’m not going to try to summarize everything (if I even could), but, basically, the dead were brought back through the power of mysterious black rings. These vile Black Lanterns—superpowered zombies, essentially—wanted nothing less than the destruction of all life. Among there number was Aquaman, who had died in the pages of Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #1 (the 2007 revamp of the title, which itself was the spawn of yet another big DCU event). Blackest Night ends not only with the defeat of the Black Lanterns, but with the resurrection of a select number of previously deceased characters, including Aquaman.
©DC Comics
This brings us to the Brightest Day mini-series and issue #1. Aquaman and his wife Mera are attempting to rescue a group of children from the clutches of pirates. Aquaman calls on a giant squid for assistance, but to his horror, the titanic animal that answers his summons is a rotting undead monster. In fact, all the sea life that Aquaman calls end up being zombies…which is exactly what happened back when he was a Black Lantern. So, what is wrong with the newly alive King of the Sea? Presumably this is one of the many mysteries that will be answered during the course of the series.
Brightest Day #1 is written by Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi. No less than five different artists are credited, so I’m not sure if this page was penciled by Ivan Reis, Pat Gleason, Adrian Syaf, Scott Clark, or Joe Prado.
A few comments on the squid itself…Aquaman referes to it as a “giant squid,” but this leviathan is obviously no ordinary Architeuthis. Its arms are lined with hooks, not suckers, so maybe it’s actually supposed to be a Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis) instead, but still…this thing is freaking huge! I think that “Kraken” is as close to an identification that we can make. It is only a comic book after all…
Tags: Aquaman, Brightest Day, DC Comics, Kraken, monster, Wednesday Comics, zombie squid
