Brightest Day #23 pages 16 & 17

I first saw this in Brightest Day #23. I loved the image then, and thought I would love to purchase it when it showed up on Spencer Beck's (Ivan's art rep) website. It never showed up there. Then Ivan Reis created a page on deviantart and posted this image. In the description he stated that his editor decided NOT to have the pages inked, but to print them as they were instead. This meant that Ivan was the ONLY person who touched that splash. Now I LUSTED for the pages and sent a message as well as posting a comment asking if the pages were for sale. I never received a response. This lead me to believe they were in his permanent collection and that I would never have a chance to see them in person, much less actually own them.

HeroesCon 2012. Ivan Reis is one of the guests. I was looking over his table and what to my eyes should appear but this very splash. I asked if I could look at it and was told yes. When I picked it up, I still thought it was just to be looked at and not actually for sale. I asked if it was for sale and was told yes. !!!!!! REALLY?!?!? I made an offer that was accepted, and so it was that on Friday, the first day of the three day HeroesCon, my convention reached it's apex and I floated on that high for the rest of the weekend.

I've never used the term "Grail" before when referring to comic art, mostly because I feel that people overuse the idea of the word without really understanding what it means. I can think of several pages that would be a "Grail page" for me, but they truly are very, very few. I already own one page that holds that title. This splash is another.

For those who don't recognize the characters who are the Elementals, here they are from left to right:
Fire Elemental - Firestorm
Earth Elemental - Martian Manhunter
Water Elemental - Aquaman
Air Elementals - Hawkman and Hawkwoman