39 and counting...

Countdown 39 (from DC Comics, in case you haven''t been paying attention) doesn't flow quite as well as the past few issues, but it's still a big step above the early issues of the series.

Karate Kid and Una break into Oracle's 'inner sanctum, only to find that someone is doing a fair job of hacking her system. This is a bad thing beyond what you might expect, since she's got one of the world's most comprehensive databases of information on superheroes -- including their true identities. Ouch!

Piper and Trickster are still hiding out beneath the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge. After a nice meal (courtesy of Penguin) they're interrupted by the Suicide Squad. Plus, Trickster suffers another attack of homophobia. Their squabble ends abruptly when they're confronted by the Question and Batwoman.

Traveling deeper into the, um, Palmerverse (no ego problems there, either, I guess), Donna Troy, Jason Todd, Ryan Choi, and "Bob" end up in what looks a lot like Frank Brunner's version of a Doctor Strange dark dimension. I guess they shoulda taken a left turn at Albuquerque.

Mister Action seems able to handle street-level crime easily enough, but he's not really too attentive to the details. Getting distracted by the grateful -- and somewhat passionate -- thanks for saving a woman's purse, he begins mulling joining a team. In the process he forgets about the perp, who rapidly (and cautiously) slinks away. Jimmy's got hero potential, but he's also got potential to become a joke.

Holly Robinson is starting to see through Harley Quinn's facade. Yes, she's no longer idealizing the Joker and emulating his behavior, but she now seems to be devoted, in the same unhealthy way, to Athena.

Athena explains to Holly that her facility isn't designed to be able to handle persons with family responsibilities. Holly's "somewhat dubious" about all this, and Athena invites her to sit in on a "self-esteem workshop". I'm wondering just what goes on in the workshops. I guess we'll find out shortly.

By the way, as you may have notices, I'm generally not covering the back feature, the serialized History Of The Multiverse. Mainly this is because it's not really a story. It's basically an illustrated discourse on how we got from the original Crisis On Infinite Earths to the present. As such it's a fairly good precis. As a story, though, well, it's a dead zero. The way it's structured we have the Monitors standing around telling each other what they already know. It's pure exposition with no real story attached. As such there's nothing really to go over. I'll probably mention it if there's anything new that's worthy of note. It'll be ending soon, anyways, as the back feature turns to biographies of the villains.