Counting Off: The Lightning Saga

So in the interests of completism, this column should discuss some of the books that form required reading for "Countdown". This is leaving aside the issue of whether or not "Countdown" should be self-contained. It isn't, and we can either continue to complain about it (which has its merits, don't get me wrong) or deal with it and move on.

Any entry labelled "Counting Off" will cover this territory. Like the last entry on the Flash and this one here.

In the case of full storylines (like "Amazons Attack" and "Sinestro Corps War" I'll be letting them play out at least to the halfway point before checking in on them, unless something really big happens in a particular issue.

I will also be upfront in saying some these comics I've obtained through downloading. I buy a lot of books and want my dollars to go both towards my local comic book store and to books I like. If at times, the interest of this column dictate that I read books I'm less keen on, there's a chance I may just torrent them. Which is to say, this is by no means an attempt to encourage everyone to buy every DCU book associated with "Countdown" which the folks at Newsarama have caluculated would cost you about $320. Nuff said.

On to "The Lightning Saga".

I'm not a big fan of the future. Or at least the far-flung future. A quick survey of the technological progress of just the past ten years should amply demonstrate the inability of the average person to predict the course of future events in the short term, so the idea of speculating what life might be like in the 30th century suffers from a severe disconnect with current reality. A disconnect some people are into. I'm not.

So I've never been a Legion fan, it's just a section of the DCU I have no interest in. The only Legionaire I've read much of is Thom Kalor, both in James Robinson's "Starman" and the current run of "JSA". As a result, I was not overly excited that a posse of Legionaires would be at the center of a JLA/JSA crossover.

What I ultimately liked about this story was that I never felt I was being pushed towards reading a Legion comic (with the exception of the mysterious face in the lightning rod). The writers use minimal exposition to tell us who the Legion are and play it for maximum effect by stressing their connection to Superman. Superman's time with the Legion forms the emotional crux of these stories: his affection towards them drives the two teams to seek out the missing Legionaires and the sense of duty and betrayal they have towards Supes necessitates the secrecy in which they finally carry out their plan.

The other aspect I enjoyed was the brief tour of the DCU, with a trip to Thanagar and Gorilla City. But again here, the writers are clever enough to show us these places through the characters they resonate with most. Vixen's reaction to Gorilla City and Red Arrow's take on Thanagar are perfect in-roads for the reader to what might otherwise be cold concepts of foriegn cultures.

But the strengths of this story only serve to point out some of the weakness of "Countdown" at this point in its run. All of the central characters in "Countdown" have longstanding, complicated relationships with established DC characters, characters who don't need to be explained. Put simply, the way to get us started caring about Jason Todd is to make it clear Batman cares about him. The same goes for Donna and Wonder Woman, Holly and Catwoman, Jimmy and Supes, and Mary and Captain Marvel. So far, only the latter two pairs have interacted at all (and unfortunately I'm so unclear about what's going on with Billy Batson at this point, the interaction between he and Mary came off like muddy exposition of a muddy situation). Launching Jimmy's story with Superman watching over him was a great move, it immediately attached the audience to a minor character by asserting that character's importance to a minor character. If Jason, Donna, Holly or Mary had been introduced in similar fashion, a lot of the "who is this and why should I care" reaction from fans might have been alleviated.

Granted, these characters' distance from the iconic characters is important to the story, but a one page interaction ending in a severing of ties would have gotten the job done.

The other major problem is one of timing. "All Flash #1" makes it clear that the events of "The Lightning Saga" occur at the same time, within minutes even, of the death of Bart Allen, a fact hinted at in Guggenheim's Flash story. In "Countdown" we get Bart's funeral with Wally absent, a fact which it seems will never be adequately explained. We also get Karate Kid's escape with Una nearly a month after the same scene in "Justice League". Editor Mike Carlin has turned downright hostile when interviewed about these timing gaffs, which is hopefully a sign they were leftover problems from the previous editorial team. More importantly, readers shouldn't have had to waste time with KK or the Rogues in "Countdown" before the events in the JLA/JSA crossover and the Flash played out. These stories were big enough that if these characters had walked out of them and into "Countdown" for the first time afterwards, readers could have been caught up with minimal exposition and WOULD HAVE ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS FROM THE BEGINNING. It's pretty common knowledge at this point that Kyle Rayner is being put through the ringer over in GL before being dropped into "Countdown" and yet the writers have felt no need to drop innane conversations with Kyle and Guy Gardener into "Countdown". The characters should come into the story when the writer is ready to use them and hit the ground running. I think what makes the most recent issue of "Countdown" marginally more satisfying is the sense that some of the characters finally have.

Staying positive, though. Rumors have been dropped about shoe-in artists coming up in "Countdown" and something big (or "biggish") going down this week, and having given up on thinking of "Countdown" as a start-to-finish quality read, hope springs eternal every week that the story might jumpstart itself.