Greetings @LanternCorps!
We’re reading through Brightest Day. The plan is to read 3 or 4 issues a week. Please avoid spoiling anything from issues beyond this week. If you missed last week, you can check it out here
The issues for this week are:
Feel free to use any, all, or none of the questions below as discussion starters.
Birds of Prey #1 was my favorite this week. It’s a run that has been on my list to read for a long time. I was happy to read the first two issues this week.
I haven’t read too many books from this time period so I was unaware that Dinah’s identity as “Black Canary” was an open secret.
I’m assuming this question means, ‘which member is my favorite’, if not, I answered that earlier. But my favorite member right now is Barbara. She is the character I know the most of, but I am happy to change my opinion as the series goes on.
Overall, I liked the issues this week. I’m not entirely sure why Bird of Prey is part of this crossover, besides Hawk and Dove being there. But I assume it’ll be explained later.
Edit: I just realized this is Gail’s second run on Birds of Prey, not her first… I’ll be adding both series to my to-read list.
Oh and hey, if anyone would like to, there’s a new fresh BOP club, too!
Birds of Prey had a decent start, but I think I preferred the Brightest Day issue. I’m a sucker for Martian Manhunter.
Given my only understanding of the characters come from the CW show, I was not expecting White Canary to be a villain.
Probably Black Canary.
Birds of Prey, without a doubt. I remember when Brightest Day was first revealed to be an event to come after Blackest Night, the thing I was most excited for was a relaunch of Birds of Prey with Gail Simone back writing them, and from this arc, it definitely didn’t disappoint. The writing was as sharp as ever, the art by Ed Benes was great (the pick-up work by Adriana Melo kinda stood out, but was still decent), and the characters both acknowledged the changes since they last were teamed up, but still had great chemistry together. Plus the addition of characters like Hawk & Dove help make things more interesting.
Don’t get me wrong, the Brightest Day issue was okay, but I mostly focused on this Hawkworld thing that kind of just felt like Johns trying to put a band-aid on continuity more than actually telling a story.
I was surprised by the seeming murder and suicide of Savant and Creote, because I remember how much of a big deal this was when this came out. For those who don’t know, it was heavily implied that Creote was in love with his partner Savant, and at a time when LGBT representation in comics was…sort of “take what you can get,” a lot of fans really held on to them.
So seeing them appear to have died in the second issue was a bit of a controversy in the LGBT readers because there’s a habit in media, especially at the time this was published, of gay and lesbian characters being killed off over and over again for shock value, because LGBT people always have to have tragic lives, I guess. It even has it’s own trope name, “Bury Your Gays.”
Of course, what’s funny is (spoilers for later on), Gail was actually subverting the trope, and we find out later that the two are not only alive, but responsible for the whole plot.
Oof, that’s a hard one. They’re all so good! I literally don’t think I can really decide.
