The "Dark Avatar" (Brightest Day BIG SPOILERS)

[dreamreaver]

Brightest Day #23. Three-and-a-half pages.

(mods: don't add character tags, please, it would spoil the reveal/s)





The White Lantern Entity initiates a funky transformation scene where the resurrected champions fuse with their most closely associated classical element (Firestorm = fire, Aquaman = water, Martian Manhunter = earth, Hawkman and Hawkgirl = air).

GUYS, NOT EVERY CLASSICAL ELEMENT REFERENCE IS A CAPTAIN PLANET JOKE, ALL RIGHT?





So Swamp Thing proper (through some kind of memory swap? [with who, I don't know...Nekron?]) has been corrupted into the "Dark Avatar" the Entity's so scared about, and Holland himself is the new champion.

Comments

[auggie18]

CAPTAIN PLANET!


Oh jeez, so sorry but I just had to. It was right FREAKING THERE!

[dreamreaver]

Too bad it was in the wrong order >_>

[runespoor]

This.

I regret nothing!

[sherkahn]

Who is HEART?

[dreamreaver]

The new White Lantern Champion, of course!

(best guess?)

[aaron_bourque]

. . . so what if Billy Batson and Captain Marvel had a fight?

[auggie18]

It would be over really, really quickly?

[icon_uk]

It always has been on the occasions it's happened, surprise, surprise.

[silverzeo]

Dark Avatar? No Airbending quips or reference?

[dreamreaver]

Don't feel like it.

[beoweasel]

I was thinking that!

[aaron_bourque]

What the movie would have been like in the Bizarro Universe.

[ebailey140]

Wouldn't Geo-Force or Poison Ivy or Wonder Woman have been better representations of "Earth" than a Martian?

Yeah, I know none of them were availiable. Just saying...

I think Red Tornado would represent "Air" more, though.

[misterbug]

None of 'em were dead, recently, either.

[starwolf_oakley]

Well, there's Terra. Recently dead and, well, crazy.

Speaking of which, they ever clear up who that other Terra was? There was a fan theory about a long-lost twin sister Geo-Force had never been told about, but I don't know the specifics.

[mrstatham]

The 'other' Terra who looked exactly like the first one was revealed to be someone from the same place as Terra III, Atlee - Or so I recall. Apparently, she had some sort of brainwave-thing take place where she had exactly the same personality as Terra I, or something, and it made her crazy or something. Geo Force found out about it eventually.

It was all dealt with in the new 'Terra' mini, which preceded Palmiotti, Gray and Conner's work on Power Girl.

[flash_fan]

Terra (Atlee) needs an ongoing. I'd read the hell out of it.

[mrstatham]

I'd want Palmiotti, Gray and Conner doing the work on the series, but I definitely agree. Since they created her, they're the only ones that really get the character, I feel. Her other appearances by other writers have been a bit lacklustre, to say the least.

[darkknightjrk]

I think it's a reference to Martian Manhunter's "future," where after battling Darkseid over it, J'onn literally fuzes with the planet Mars. So while those guys may have been more solid representations, J'onn works pretty well too. Same with the Hawks, what with their flying and all.

[feyandstrange]

Yeah, motto and WTF. I'm pretty sure there were dead people who would have worked out better, even though I'm always glad to see my fave Martian.

I suppose it could've been worse if he was Fire though.

[ian_karkull]

Oooh... so I guess Holland has to merge with the evil-for-some-reason Elemental Thing in order to recreate a Swamp Thing with a human personality and thus become the Earth Elemental once more (possibly laying the Foundationfor a new Parliament of Trees) and bring a "new, improved" Swamp Thing back to the DCU proper, apparently.
I... actually, I have no opinion on that. It is far too convoluted to have any sort of opinion on it.

I'd like Swamp Thing back in the DCU proper (any form of publication, really), where it belongs, but I couldn't possibly stand (yet another) "Swamp Thing: Rebirth" penned by Geoff Johns.
I do hope Abby shows up at some point though. Being reborn in one universe with your wife still stuck in another would kind of suck.

[jcbaggee]

"They call me the Swamp Thing. They don't know what a joke it is. I'm not a Thing. I'm THE SWAMP."
Actual line from SWAMP THING: REBIRTH*




*may not actually be an actual line.

[arbre_rieur]

Dead on impression.

[ebailey140]

I do hope Abby shows up at some point though. Being reborn in one universe with your wife still stuck in another would kind of suck.

The only Vertigo titles not set in the DCU are the creator owned ones.

[ravenous_raven]

Anyone else disappointed Mera wasn't the avatar for water? I know Aquaman was dead and brought back to life and all, but I would have thought Mera's control of the sea and her disappearance would mean that she was chosen...and ok, I also want more women in this fight besides Hawkgirl and Dove.

[icon_uk]

Naiad, the ACTUAL water elemental for Earth (and thus on a par with Firestorm and Swamp Thing) would have been a natural choice.

[ravenous_raven]

Ah, didn't know about her. The name itself is proof enough though, isn't it?

[icon_uk]

I should add The Elemental War from the only Tom Mandrake Firestorm series to my list of "Stuff I should post samples of for s_d", it was good stuff as Swamp Thing, Red Tornado, Firestorm and Naiad face off against each other.

[crabby_lioness]

"I knew Alan Moore. I grew up reading Alan Moore. Alan Moore was a major influence of mine. And you, Mr. Jones, are no Alan Moore."

[ebailey140]

"I knew Alan Moore. I grew up reading Alan Moore. Alan Moore was a major influence of mine. And you, Mr. Jones, are no Alan Moore."

Moore didn't create Swamp Thing. That was Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson. Moore just did the run many of us consider definitive. But, there were great runs on the book, after.

[crabby_lioness]

I know. Len Wein hired Alan Moore to write Swampie. That's good enough for me.

(I cackled insanely when Stephen King ripped off Wein/Wrightson's original Swamp Thing run in his X-Files episode.)

[pyrotwilight]

Not sure if giving the Dark Thing earth to grow on or water to feed off of is a good idea. Fire and Air combining to burn it faster is good, the others, not so much.

[thanekos]

"And I shall shed my light over dark evil, for the Dark Thing cannot stand the light.."

[lieut_kettch]

"... the light of the GREEN NECK-BRACE!"

[icon_uk]

for the Dark Thing cannot stand the light

Is that why they said I'd go blind if I didn't leave my dark thing alone?

[slim-summer.livejournal.com]

Silly question but didn't the White Light kill the Hawks? and Aquaman too if I remember correctly?

[brushwoodthicket]

More like absorbed them, turns out. And now spit them out with groovy new powers.

[aeolos_sakya]

I imagined they weren't dead at all. It seemed... too obvious to buy it.

[proteus_lives]

"He's a hero, gonna take pollution down to zero...."

[philippos42]

I can't be the only one thinking Magic: The Gathering here.

Evil swamp creature fighting radiant "White Light" who has allied four elemental powers?

[featheredserpent]

Where's a Northern Paladin when you really need one, yes?

I wonder...

[aeolos_sakya]

Since Aquaman's Elemental form has both hands, could it mean that at the end of it he'll get it back? Or am I being just too optimistic?

[mistersandman]

I guess this represents the last nail in the coffin of China Mieville's Swamp Thing project, since it looks like this whole event has been building up to DC shuffling Swamp Thing back into the DCU proper. :(

[alchemyprime]

China Mieville was supposed to do Swamp Thing?


... Shit, now I hate this. I was all for it, it almost seemed like Johns was going "Okay Internet, you want Captain Planet? I'll give you Captain Planet!" But now I'm sad, I wanna Mieville Swamp Thing.

[mistersandman]

http://www.swampthingroots.com/news_06-03-10_china-mieville-hints-at-his-swamp-thing-run.html

Yeah, I didn't hear about it until it was scrapped, but the loss is pretty heartbreaking, especially if the immediate tradeoff is a Captain Planet joke.

[recognitions]

We still consider Alec Holland to be Swamp Thing? I know Abby still calls him Alec, but he's not.

[jlroberson]

We don't, and though I thought at first Johns had re-confused the issue, it seems he's going with the Holland-as-template-for-Swampy thing. I think, I hope, because it would really piss me off if he crapped on one of the "retcons" that nobody ever, ever minded.(though not so much that as a use of the potential of already existing facts, something everyone who's followed Moore in this seems to often miss) Especially given Johns' propensity to exploit concepts Moore left DC with but hasn't used much.

I also forgot that Holland's corpse actually was revived--god knows how, it was blown to hell and rapidly consumed by the swamp, though as I recall Swampy found the skeleton and buried it--in a recent iteration of the series--was that Diggle's run? So his body coming back here isn't completely out of the question.

I will say I'm sick of this Aristotelian-elements thing.

I Call Ass-Pulling

[jlroberson]

Monstrum ex machina. See. this is what I don't like about Johns, the way he pulls crap out of nowhere right and left stage at the climaxes of his "epics." This is exactly what happened in BLACKEST NIGHT but in that case the various tangents had set-up. There's so much of "this, then this, oh this too, and look at this, then over here this, stop, repeat" and that has no dramatic weight--though it does stretch out a spotty plot.

To bring a character like THIS out of nowhere with no real lead-in is pretty slapdash.