Lately I’ve been trying to catch up with some of the major events that have occurred in the DC Universe.  Back in the fall I read about all of the comics composing the Blackest Night event, and I had planned on getting to its follow up, the Brightest Day, but never did.  That’s where I started last week, reading all of the comics in the Brightest Day crossover event.  And there were a lot.  Overall, I thought it was a pretty good ride, although in some places I felt the crossover links to the main event were rather weak and didn’t really help the story.  The Brightest Day collections were okay, and I more or less enjoyed those stories.  I also really enjoyed Justice League: Generation Lost, especially given that the narrative revolved around Maxwell Lord and his manipulation of what had been the Justice League International.  In addition, I found the Green Arrow stories to be engaging.  His relationship with the forest started off very well, although by the end of the series–both in the Green Arrow comics and the Brightest Day ones–I thought that the events surrounding the forest were becoming a little tiresome.  Both the Green Lantern: Brightest Day and the Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors stories were strong as well.  As with the Blackest Night comics, what made the Brightest Day narratives so engaging were the solid storylines, and even those that could stand on their own outside of the main Brightest Day event, such as Justice League: Generation Lost or Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, were strong in and of themselves.  Overall, reading the Brightest Day event was a lot of fun.

I also read War of the Green Lanterns and War of the Green Lanterns: Aftermath, since they followed up on what was going on with the Green Lantern world in the Brightest Day event (I didn’t want to be left hanging, not knowing what was going on with Krona and his plans to control the Guardians and have the Corps do his bidding).  The main story of War was fine, although the Aftermath left me flat.  Part of the reason for the latter was the art, which I didn’t find very good.

Although I more or less enjoyed the Brightest Day and the War of the Green Lantern events, I can’t really say the same for Flashpoint.   I had read the main story, Flashpoint, when it originally came out last summer, and it was okay.  I feel the same about it reading it a second time, it’s okay.  However, the main storyline was actually just one of two highlights of the entire event. And the other highlight, the Batman story “Knight of Vengeance,” was even better than Flashpoint.   Outside of those two narratives, the rest of the crossover event just fell flat for me.  I wasn’t impressed with the Wonder Woman/Aquaman storylines, the stupid Kid Flash narrative, the Abin Sur mini-series, the crossover with Deathstroke, or the Superman stories.  I was expecting a lot more from these comics, especially since this event set up the transition into the New 52.  All in all, I was disappointed, and I found myself while reading often anticipating when the stories would actually end.  Not a good sign.