Brightest Day has been stamped down upon by the majority of the comic book reading populace for being “not as good as Justice League: Generation Lost.” This is true, in many respects, but while the latter concentrates on its isolated storyline, regardless of how good it is, the former is developing the key storylines that will shape the DC Universe for the next few years.

That said some of the storylines within Brightest Day have been unbelievably boring. Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi are two of the best writers working at DC right now, but there are some characters even they can’t make interesting. Still, it’s been a good month or two since we’ve seen anything to do with Hawkman and Hawkgirl, though, and while it’s almost guaranteed that they’ll be back soon enough, the book has benefitted from their almost complete absence.

This issue focuses on the developing Martian Manhunter, Firestorm and Deadman stories; when the book began, Deadman was easily the most enjoyable arc, with the nicest art, and while there’s only one page of it in this issue, it’s still the best part of the book. The Martian Manhunter story, meanwhile, has grown in strength, and the last few issues have increased the tension surrounding the other Green Martian to the point where this instalment felt perfectly natural and the fact it filled up roughly two-thirds of the book was a blessing more than a curse. The weakest of these three stories still remains the Firestorm arc, though, and while it is the least enjoyable, the recent Black Lantern story developments within it make it just as fun to read as the rest of the book.

The artwork is often talked about in these weekly books as being unattractive and poor. 52 didn’t have the best art team, but the story was fantastic, and the art fit the characters. Countdown had some nice art, but the story was pitifully bad. Trinity had a weak story, and some of the worst art of Mark Bagley’s career. Wednesday Comics was perfect. Justice League: Generation Lost has been almost consistently great. This book has its ups and downs. The Ivan Reis page is certainly the best, while the Patrick Gleason art only whets the appetite for his upcoming Batman and Robin run with Tomasi. The rest of the art by Scott Clark and Joe Prado, meanwhile, doesn’t really feel that great, but suits each story.

For a fortnightly series, Brightest Day has managed to keep an even pace, and engages more often than not. The cliffhanger of this issue is so obvious that it’s actually shocking to see it, to the point where it actually feels perfect. But, hopefully, we’ll get more issues like this and less involving the characters that don’t warrant our care and attention.