31 and counting...

Countdown 31... and I am feeling better, thank you very much.

We begin this week, with the Challengers. Now on Earth-3 and looking for the long-missing Ray Palmer, they immediately run into the Crime Society.

The Crime Society is an intriguing new version of Grant Morrison's Crime Syndicate, itself an update of the old Earth-3 Crime Syndicate. All these, of course, are alternate versions of the Justice League.

They fight the Society, and spend about as much time bickering amongst themselves, finally leaving when "Bob" determines that Ray Palmer isn't there. When they leave, they have an addition, the Jokester.

This is one time when I wish there wasn't so much advance promotion. Between the internet news sites and DC's own site, we have a fairly good idea what's coming up -- heck, I've already read next week's Challengers segment, where they visit Earth-15. The problem with all the promos and advance peeks is that there's very few surprises left. We know the broad outlines of what's coming, and just wait for it to play out.

The Jokester could have been quite a delightful surprise dropped into the mix, but we already know he's a 'good' version of the Joker, going to join the team, and the father of the late, lamented, Duela Dent (aka The Joker's Daughter also aka Harlequin). Kinda takes the edge off those revelations, doesn't it?

I'm not suggesting going back to the old model of telling us nothing until the book is released, but there has to be a happy medium. Doesn't there?

Monarch, by the way, stops by Earth-3 to recruit the Crime Society to join his forces. Countdown: Arena tie-in?

Oh, by the way, Captain Carrot (pictured somewhere to the right if all works correctl;y) is part of the Countdown mix. I'm not sure which earth is his, but the coming Captain Carrot And The Final Ark miniseries is a Countdown tie-in.

Holly Robinson is leaving for Paradise Island. She knows something is wrong here, but can't quite put fer finger on it yet. She sends a letter containing her suspicions to Selina Kyle (Catwoman), but makes the tactical error of mailing it from the shelter's front desk, where it's promptly destroyed.

One suspects she should be a little less trusting of those whom she's suspicious. One ongoing theme buried in the subtext of Countdown is the question of "Who can you trust?". Who are your friends and who are your enemies? As we've seen amply demonstrated, everyone who helps you is not your friend, and everyone who thwarts you is not your enemy.

Mary Marvel would do well to realize this, but I'm thinking it's a bit too late for that at this point. She kills three security guards by turning them to stone. It's pretty much done without remorse and without reflection. Yeah, in theory she (or some other magic-user?) could reverse it, but that's a false argument. Eclipso makes sure one is really dead by breaking off his head with the flick of a finger.

One thing -- in comics, how can things like this be reversed? Once they're dead, well, turning their bodies back to flesh would just leave you with fleshy corpses, wouldn't it? Think of how many times the Spectre has killed using just this kind of transformation. (I'm especially reminded of the Michael Fliescher/Jim Aparo days in Adventure Comics -- what I consider pretty much the definitive Spectre run.)

Jimmy Olson is being tested at Cadmus. Ever noticed these things always go wrong?

We've got a first look-in at Mxyzptlk walking his, um, fish and chatting with his girlfriend. For those who came in late, Mxy is a resident of the 5th dimension, and has this thing for amusing himself at Superman's expense. He gets, well, sucked through the 'walls' of his dimension and vanishes.

One thing I'm trying to figure out, there once were two of him. You had Mxyzptlk and Mxyztplk, one from the fifth dimension of Earth-1 and one from the fifth dimension of Earth-2. So, nowdays are there still two fifth dimension and two Mxy's? Or is it just the one?

Karate Kid and Una find the home of Buddy Blank, and ask for information about Omac and Brother Eye. They also meet (and scare) his grandson. The grandson looks suspiciously familiar. Suppose he might be the once-and-future Kamandi?

Finally, the Monitors meet (or, conceivably, are still meeting. Don't these folks ever go to the bathroom?) and discuss the Jokester's joining the Challengers. I dunno, though. I've been wondering about the Monitor who has this monomania for stopping the Challengers and the "aberrations".

I think he's one of two things: either a proxy for Darkseid, or a new (alternate?) incarnation of the Anti-Monitor.

Dexter... (aka 32 and holding...)

My review and comments on Countdown 31 will be slightly delayed because of health issues. In the meanwhile, here's a little plug for Dexter, a great TV series airing on Showtime. The first episode of season 2 will be on this next Sunday evening. Check it out!

32 and counting...

Welcome to the batchelorette party... But first:

Mary Marvel discovers she can't trust Klarion. Why she jumped to the snap decision that she could in the first place is a mystery, considering she just met him moments before. Her emotional reactions have, as we've seen, been regressing from a reasonably mature level towards those of a small child... Or, to put it into somewhat politically incorrect terms, those of a severely emotionally retarded person.

Now, having seen in the past how Black Adam (the source of her powers) viewed the world in stark black and white, and was always hyper-sensitive to taking offense at the least provocation, one can't help wondering if this emotional immaturity is endemic to this version of the powers? Somewhere, I'm thinking, one of the "gods" who contributes their powers isn't quite what (or who) we've been led to believe.

Eclipso finally reveals herself, and I'm guessing she knows more about the nature of Mary's powers than anyone else. How? Not sure, though since Eclipso's powers themselves are rooted in God's powers, it may be a carry-over from that. I don't usually comment on the back feature, but in this case it (the backstory of Eclipso) it's quite pertinent. And, I'll note, it does go into some depth on the Godly source of Eclipso's abilities.

Jimmy Olson, who's looking increasingly frazzled, winds up at our old friends The Cadmus Project (another Jack Kirby creation). He starts to unburden himself of the reasons he wants to be a super-hero. You can feel the earnestness, and the feeling that he's an outsider wanting to join the fraternity. It's interesting how his storyline here careens between low humor and pathos. I'm sure it's on purpose, but it certainly complicates getting a handle on his storyline.

The Challengers of the Undefined take a wrong turn at Albuquerque and end up on Earth-30, in which there's a Soviet-era Superman. They get out of there posthaste, and end up on Earth-3, the home of the Crime Syndicate. This is the world where their equivilant of our heroes are evil and rule the world.

Of course they immediately run into the Syndicate.

When did Kyle Rayner change from the Crab-Face to the more traditional Green Lantern garb? One suspects there was a degree of miscommunication on the art side. Either that of there's been a degree of miscommunication on the reader side. Isn't this why there's supposed to be editors? Perhaps they should be less involved in the plotting of the story (Leave it to the writers? What a radical idea!) and more involved in making sure the product is ready to go out the door?

Pied Piper and Trickster manage their escape from Zatanna's house, but in the process they manage to create a fair amount of pandemonium at Black Canary's batchelorette party. I wonder whose Porsche they stole?

At to the party itself, there's way too much going on for me to even begin to summarize. The highlight for me was Supergirl and Stargirl's attempts to get their hands on some alcoholic beverages. Heh.

Buy it. The party itself is worth the price of the issue.

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Now playing: Bread - Mother Freedom
via FoxyTunes

33 and counting...

Starting with the cover, there's a new element in Countdown 33. Kyle Rayner is on the cover, and he's back wearing the 'crab-face' version of the Green Lantern uniform. Am I the only person who liked the crab-face mask? Back when he was the only Green Lantern, and his original costume didn't match the traditional Hal Jordan version, there was a lot of flack tossed DC's way. I liked the different costume. It looked good, and in the time-travel issues (where Kyle fights side-by-side with a young Hal Jordan) Kyle's design stood up well against the traditional model.

Inside? Yes, it's Kyle! The Challengers Of The Whatever are trying to get Donna Troy back from the evil Queen Belthera, and failing, when Kyle drops from the sky seemingly out of nowhere (durn, the Guardians Of The Universe really are omniscient!), he grabs right into the portal and drags Donna back.

It seems Kyle has been sent by the Guardians to tell Bob The Monitor that Ray Palmer (the previous iteration of The Atom) has left the nanoverse and headed out into the multiverse. Given that Bob is a Monitor, and the departures don't seem to have been all that recent, Isn't Bob supposed to know all this already? After all, monitoring things is supposed to be what the monitors do best. Between Bob and the rest of the Monitors, there certainly seems to be a pronounced lack of omniscience. Good thing the Guardians are on the ball.

Kyle seems awfully friendly to Donna Troy, considering that, last time I looked, he was her ex-boyfriend. Gee, it's nice to know they still get along so well.

Ryan Choi (The.. oh, you know who he is.) get snagged up by a giant hand. Where the hand might be coming from, I dunno. Considering they're in the nanoverse, at least two levels deep, it can't be someone from "our" level of reality. They've not bug sized, they're sub-atomic in scale. So where's the hand coming from? More importantly, who? If not for the bare skin on the hand, I'd almost suspect The Spectre. But no, despite the Neal Adams-inspired art this issue, I seriously doubt he'd be brought into this mix, especially at this late date.

Once The Atom is taken, the majority opinion is to forget him and move on in the search for Ray Palmer. I understand how important finding him may be, but I tend to agree with Kyle that one doesn't just leave a man behind. For good or ill, it comes across as much too cold. It definitely tends to prejudice me against the team. I thought a big part of the reason for the series of crises was to remove the moral ambiguities from the heroes, and let them be heroes again. This certainly isn't helping.

The art, by the way, has picked up in the last week or two, and the Neal Adams style rendering isn't bad, though there's a few panels with some clumsy interpretations of Keith Giffen's layouts. All-in-all, though, they're improving greatly in the art end of things.

Turning away from the sub-atomic realm, Wally West (The Flash) is still dealing with Trickster and Pied Piper. He becomes convinced of their innocence, takes them to a safe place, and warns them to stay put -- or else. Of course, Trickster's first instinct is to escape, and, well, that turns out about as well as anything else he does.

Mary Marvel and Klarion -- I'm having some trouble following just what happened here. Mainly what I got from it is that he's being controlled by Eclipso.

Jimmy Olsen is running for his life from folks who turn out to (arguably) be his friends. Not much more to say here.

The editors are finally throwing us a bone with a page of notes on story crossovers so far. It's a big help in finding where stuff is going on that's not shown in the book. I'd still like to see embedded editor's notes or a regular page of notes, but this is at least a big step in the right direction.

34 and counting...

And then there's Piper and Trickster, hanging upside down many stories above the streets of Gotham. As we all know, that's going to be the least of their problems. First a confrontation with the Batman, followed in quick succession (sorry!) by the Flash. To say Wally's pissed would be quite an understatement. After all, Pied Piper was his friend, and to have Piper participating in Bart's death was beyond unforgivable.

Still, Wally's reaction seems a bit -- off. When they claim that Bart's death wasn't their fault, and they were acting undercover; then tell Flash what Poison Ivy and Deathstroke are up to, he turns darker and angrier, possibly on the verge of murder. So, is this really Wally? Our Wally? What's really up here?

Jimmy Olsen, meanwhile, is being examined by John Henry Irons (aka Steel). They're using machines that are supposedly CAT scanners, albeit "metaphysically different", that look more like iPod-enabled barber chairs. Things, ahem, go wrong, and Jimmy, with swollen head (one suspects this is an evolved Future-Jimmy from the silver age) overloads and 'attacks' the machines. I'm just guessing here, but I think the core of Jimmy's issue is that he's carrying the Anti-Life Equation around in his head. This can't be good.

The Challengers of the Clueless are still dealing with Queen Belthera. There's a fight (You don't say!) and Donna Troy pushes the Queen into a portal into which the queen wanted to go anyways. At the last instant, Belthera grabs Donna and drags her through the portal with her. Why? I don't know, he's on third, and...


Aside from the senselessness of dragging Donna with her (and leaving Bob the Monitor behind), there's the question of when/how/why was Ryan Choi turned human again. One senses that Queen Belthera might be powerful in her magic, but isn't the brightest bulb in the fixture.

Aside from that, though, the change back obviously did happen, somewhere between issues. A lot of elements in Jimmy Olsen's story have been happening between issues, as well. Jimmy rips Clark Kent's shirt open, exposing the Superman Suit, and next we see, Superman is introducing Mister Action to the Justice League of America.

The Powers That Be say that what happened between wasn't shown because it was too obvious. Well, yeah, we can guess most of what happened, but why should we have to? Many things, interesting happenings and even discussions might have happened. After all, Jimmy now knows Superman's Secret Identity. Maybe they did in one of the Superman titles. I wouldn't know. I'm way behind on reading them, and shouldn't need to in order to know what's going on. This is just basic storytelling, people.

Again, here's where either an editor's note or a page-of-references would be invaluable. In a title like this, I'd really like that page. Something like Kurt Busiek did in Power Company. It'd point to the backstory elements and where they came from, as well as pointing the reader to connected happenings in other titles. I know Dan Didio doesn't like them, but they are really needed in order to make the book accessible, and to help it be the 'spine' it was meant to be.

Holly Robinson is still fighting in the arena, and her foe turns out to be, as expected, Harley Quinn. Athena tells the two of them that they've 'passed', and they're to be taken to Paradise Island to become full Amazons.

There's just one little detail. It's been revealed elsewhere, but not in Countdown, that this isn't really Athena.

Athena is being impersonated by Granny Goodness, one of Darkseid's minions, who's recruiting humans to form a new Female Furies. Kind of important stuff to know, and it's not as though it was being held as a surprise. After all, it's already been revealed in another title. Editor's note, anyone?

Mary Marvel encounters Klarion, and at least there's enough in the dialogue to tell us what's going on. To be continued...

Finally, Karate Kid and Una finish their meeting with Elias Orr, who tells them of Brother Eye, and directs them to a scientist named Buddy Blank. We're obviously getting closer to the world of Earth A.D.

Once they go off on their merry way, we discover who's Orr's employer. It's Desaad, another of Darkseid's minions. Seemingly on New Earth, all roads lead to Apokolips.

35 and holding...

It didn't strike me until today that comic shipments were going to be late this week because of the holiday. Whups! More tomorrow...