Brightest Day, Blackest Night (2002)

Before television, before Internet, there was radio.

Radio was, literally, the voice that captured imaginations, entertained the masses and informed the world.

Today radio is more relegated to vehicles.

Brightest Day, Blackest Night (2002)

If Gugliemo Marconi couldn’t visualize what his creation was to become, neither could Nikola Tesla, who demonstrated the first radio in 1893. Hard as it may be to believe, radio wasn’t first envisioned as a communication device. It took many minds and hands to determine a functional use for the invention.

Lee de Forest made the first public transmission via the new device in 1910. In 1920, the first radio news program was broadcast out of Detroit, MI.

All of this has led to National Radio Day. Our host is Golden Age Green Lantern alias and radio announcer Alan Scott.

The 2002 Brightest Day, Blackest Night one-shot pre-dates the zombified and reunified titles of the later part of the decade.

This flashback showcases Scott and his golden oldie persona battling Nazis and Solomon Grundy at the behest of the Justice Society of America.

Radio station WGAH plays a minor character in the opening act setting the stage for the drama to come.

Scott was introduced in the pages of All-American Comics issue 16 in 1940. His skimpy eight-page introduction to the comic book reading universe was given the nod by legendary four-color pioneer Max Gaines.

Green Lantern would quickly become a member of the Justice Society and given a sidekick, taxi driver Doiby Dickles. Their exploits would continue to 1949 when disinterest in the mystery men would shelve the character for 12 years.

Radio would endure, even if Green Lantern would not – at least for a short publishing period.

Currently it is estimated 71 percent of the driving public listen to the radio while in their vehicle. At least 67 percent listen on a daily basis. Of those, 48 percent admit to singing along to the music broadcast; over half of them being women.

Today, turn on, tune in and drop the pretense: it’s National Radio Day. Spin the dial and find a good soundtrack for Brightest Day, Blackest Night.