44 and counting... (Finally!)

Here we are, with a much-delayed look at Countdown 44. Many thanks to Piper for picking this up for me.

This week I'm not going to do a page-by-page review of the issue.

From the start, I've been a supporter of the book. It started off with what I considered a really good kick-off. The story took a character whom nobody cared about since she was created by Bob Rozakis, and made us care about her -- and then promptly killed her off.

Not that I'm happy about the death of the Joker's Daughter, but it was well-done and started the series off with a bang. And it was well followed-up upon, what with Jimmy Olson visiting the Joker himself.

There was lots of character bits and plot set-up. And it's been good. But we're about eight weeks into the series and nothing much has happened here. Oh, things have happened, such as the death of Flash IV (Bart) at the hands of the Rogues, or the revival of Flash III (Wally) at the hands of the Legion of Super-Heroes, the attack on Washington, DC by the Amazons, etc.

But they've all happened offscreen! Here in Countdown we've seen the build-up to some of it, and the aftermath of other parts, but not the actual events. Granted, the place for the death of the Flash was in his own title, but here it feels so peripheral that it hardly justifies Countdown as being the "spine" of the DC Universe.

(As an aside, the death of Flash II (Barry) was done within the pages of Crisis on Infinite Earths, but in that case the Flash Comic was being canceled, and the story there ended immediately prior to Crisis.)

The problem with Countdown, it seems to me, isn't with the writing -- everything I've seen appears well-written, but it's poorly paced, and it appears (so far) that most of what Countdown consists of is interstitial material. Nothing that's critical to other series', but material that kind of fills in the blanks from other stories.

Now, there's story throughlines in Countdown that appear to be specific to the series -- Mary Marvel, Jimmy Olson, and (possibily) Holly Robinson. Everything else, though, seems to be just filler material for other series. Even Forerunner appears to be there to provide a lead-in to her own feature.

Head writer on Countdown is Paul Dini, so the slow (some might call it "lack of") pacing seems puzzling. Paul is a much better writer than this. I'm inclined, at this point, to ascribe the problems with pacing (and ill-handled interconnecting to the universe) to the book's editor, Mike Marts. I know he's basically unfamiliar with the DC Universe, but the principles of storytelling should be pretty much pan-universal.

I know there's a LOT of dissatisfaction with the book among fans, and I'm guessing that it has translated into flagging sales for the series. Given one thing that was announced last week, it looks like the Powers That Be at DC have taken note and are doing a mid-course correction.

Starting with the next issue (this week's forthcoming Countdown 43) Mike Carlin is joining as co-editor, and over the next dozen or so issues Mike Marts is transitioning off the book. Mike Carlin is experienced at the weekly thing, since he was editor of the Superman books some years back when the franchise was run as a de-facto weekly comic. Anyone remember the "corner boxes" (actually triangles) that showed where the books fell in sequence?

No disrespect intended to Mike Marts, but I'm guessing that he wasn't well-suited to doing the weekly-comic-with-lots-of-interconnections-to-other-editors-books thing. I'm certainly expecting the pacing to improve dramatically as Mike Carlin's vision begins to have a presence in Countdown.

And, oh, by the way, haven't we had enough crotch shots of Mary Marvel? We get the idea. Lets move on.

45 and holding... (Updated)

There may be a day or three delay in my post on Countdown 44. I don't have the book in hand yet, and it may be another day or two before I have a chance to pick it up. Oh, well. I'll be right back with my review and synopsis.

UPDATE: It's Sunday, July 1 and I still don't have my comics from last Wednesday. *sighs* Nothing much to be done about it just now, I fear. As a few of you may know, I've got some health issues going on, and they've been interfering somewhat with my doing things this past week.

I even tried, as an expedient for getting the write-up done, going to Demonoid and downloading the comic, but it seems their health this week is even worse than mine. Sheesh! Some weeks you just can't win for losing.

The Fastest Man Alive?

It should be taken as a given that everything on this blog is spoiler warning worthy. This post is, more than even the usual. You've been warned.

So.. In Flash #13, released yesterday, The Flash (Bart Allen) was killed. Kilt daid. Not that there aren't holes left so that, if the powers-that-be wanted, they could bring him back. He was killed in the presence of his grandmother, Iris West Allen, widow of the second (Barry Allen) Flash. Let's just say it wasn't a very happy issue.

In Justice League #10, also released yesterday, the Flash is brought back to life. This story has been ongoing for several months, straddling between Justice League and Justice Society, and it's been a few months since I figured out that it was leading towards reviving The Flash.

Only thing is, I was betting on it's being Barry Allen. Surprise! Who got revived was Wally West (Flash 3), his wife, Linda Park, and their twins (looking somewhat older than when we last saw them). Good going to them!

But... one little kicker... at the end, back in the Legion of Super-Heroes time, Brainiac 5 holds one of the lightning rods that were used, and a 'reflection' in the rod hints that Barry Allen is back, as well. Well, whaddya know?

45 and counting...

Given the cover of this week's Countdown, wouldn't you figure that Karate Kid and the Justice League would be kicking some butt this issue? Well, not exactly. I'll explain in a moment.

p 1-4: Now there's some serious butt-kicking. Donna Troy and Jason Todd vs Forerunner. It's kind of the finish to a scene interrupted in progress last week, so it's kind of oddly placed; the climax to an issue as the beginning of the next one. Still, it works as a scene, and I suppose it'll be a bit less out-of-place when it's in a collection and will read smoothly with the preceding part. I do wonder a bit, though, have collection sales gotten to the point where they are now the 'dog', and single issue sales are the 'tail'?

p 5-9: Jimmy Olson is being watched. And no, I'm not referring to the bearded man on the street. Look carefully at the building behind him -- the one where Sleez was killed last week -- there's someone watching out a ground floor window throughout the scene. Who? Hard to say at this point, but in certain panels the silhouette is suggestive.

So, Jimmy's going to enter "Who Wants To Be a Superhero?" Umm. No. He does seem to want to recapture the feeling, in the worst way, though. I suspect he may end up doing so, in the worst way, of course.

p 10-12: Many years ago, when I lived in Indianapolis, I attended a showing of the stage play(s) WARP! (I was going to link here to Wikipedia, and for the first time EVER found a topic upon which they don't have coverage!) During an intermission, I was standing in the lobby, looking at some photos from the play, when another audience member sidled up to me, looked at the pictures for a few seconds, then without preamble turned to me and said "I just love women with knives." Needless to say, I beat a hasty retreat.

I get a similar vibe when I see some of the comments on Donna Troy with the machine gun. I just feel a bit icky and want to take a long shower -- not at the sight of her with the gun, but at the tenor of some of the remarks. Yick!

p 13: Short Holly Robinson scene here. Nothing much worth mentioning, except that the shadowed figure is definitely NOT the same person who was watching Jimmy. Not unless the person is both a shape changer and able to be two places at once.

p 14-16: So, both sides in the little intramural Monitor scrap are considered renegades. And yet, the greater body of monitors seem content do do nothing but bitch at the warring two.

p 17-18: We finally see the Justice League and 'guests'. It's mostly a character-expository scene, no butt-kicking here. I do like the "Sarah Conner" comment.

p19-20: Forerunner feels disgraced, shreds her hair, and, oh, yeah, by the way, Monarch shows up. Nice cliffhanger, this time.

Musings...

So, a few hints out of the weekend-o-cons. Nothing has really been nailed down, but they've definitely laid out much more of their plans.

I'm not going to even try and summarize things... just go to the Newsarama site and there'll be a lot more detail than I can provide.

I'm interested in a lot of the things they talked about. There's the re-started Flash series, with Mark Waid writing. Can we all agree that this past series was botched from day one? Not to slam the creators, but they never seemed to be on the right wavelength for the character, surprising since they were the creators of the Flash TV show, which I'd thought was pretty good.

There's the (planned) change in writers for Justice League. Brad Meltzer had never made a secret of when he planned to leave, but now we know who'll be following him up. Dwayne McDuffie is a pretty good choice, though I'm not totally happy there'll be a roster change already. *sighs* Ah well, each writer on a team book brings his or her favorites with them. I'm hoping Prince Brion isn't one of the losses, though. I'd love a clue what's up with him -- especially since he's back to the original costume, the only one which has ever looked good on him, despite the bad memories.

I'm happy to see Doctor Fate getting a book, though only a limited series for now. I know it's related to Steve Gerber's illness, but I do hope the good doctor gets an unlimited series soon. And, of course, I wish the best for Steve.

Now, who's going to do something about giving Ralph and Sue Dibny their own book? Hell, if nobody else wants to, I'll volunteer to do it myself. (Hey, DC Folk, are you listening?) I can think of several interesting angles for their stories, and after all that was invested in their characters in 52 (indeed, as much as the readers invested themselves into the characters) it seems a shame to let them lie fallow.

DC announced that it has bought in to Flex Comix, a Japanese publisher of Manga, with a heavy concentration of on-line comics. Is it just possible that, among other things, it's DC's way of testing the waters for on-line distribution? As a former retailer (with a chain of five stores) I can see where a move like this might frighten the retailers (and moreso frighten Diamond), but there's a lot of potential revenue being foregone because neither they nor Marvel are tapping that stream. I know there's a LOT of fans who get their weekly comics via torrent sites and buy only collections in paper. With some sort of iTunes-like structure, they could bring much of the potential revenue back in-house.

Enough random musing for now. There's lots more news, and I may be talking about more of it shortly.

Field mouse follies...

Latest news, such as it is... there's a field mouse habitat been established at the edge of our yard. First discovered by my dog, it seems to be housing at least a few of the furry little fiends.

Penny (the doggie in question) isn't exactly the most territorial of dogs. Many is the time she'll go outside and there will be one or more bunnies out grazing at the salad bar, and she'll totally ignore them. Well, till they decide to run. Then she (seemingly) decides they're playing a game, and she'll chase them as far as the edge of the yard.

Squirrels she likes to 'play' with, chasing them whenever one has the effrontery to step into the yard (at ground level, at least), and even follows beneath when they're leaping about from tree to tree, as they cross the mighty rivers of... sorry. got a bit distracted there.

But field mice? Here she reverts to type. Penny is half Chocolate Lab and half mystery dog, and she looks so lab-like we've never been able to figure out what the mystery half might be. I'm starting to think it may be some sort of terrier, because she's taken a more than playful interest in these mice. Whenever I take her into the front yard she strains at her leash to get to field mouse country -- strains so hard it's more like "Let's take mommy for a drag across the yard."

She goes straight for the hole, and starts trying to figure out how to fit herself into a burrow the size of a mouse. Surprisingly, she's been able to grab a couple of mice and carry them out of the burrow. And yes, I'm too tender-hearted for my own good. I make her drop the mice so they can scamper back to their hidey-hole. *sigh*

I'm not sure what the proper thing is to do about the mice... traps, I suppose, though I think I'll let that part of the operation to Piper. In the meanwhile, Penny has found her own solution to the mouse problem. The past day or two, whenever she goes out there, she pees on top of the burrow!