#35- Cyndi Lauper Spins in Her Cultural Grave

Oh goodness did this cover make me cringe. Not because of its execution, J.G. Jones does a fine job, but because it suggests that Countdown might be deciding to focus on its consistently poor portrayal of women. For the record, I'm guessing the lady to Donna's left is Singular Girl and Random Amazon is Holly (even though she's sporting a different helmet), but I could be wrong.

With a title constitutiing yet another outdated pop reference, Countdown makes the argument that when girls wanna have fun, they beat the ever-lovin' crap out of one another. Two and a half girl-on-girl fights in one issue. I'm fairly certain that's not what Cyndi meant.

Last issue's mystery claw is revealed as Queen Belthera, a sorceress queen with a bug fetish. Her Gregor Samsa job on Ryan Choi is plausible, but how she manages to enthrall "one of the most powerful sentients in all the multiverse" is unclear. In fact, for all their unlimited power, the Monitors in general (and Bob in particular) are kind of unimpressive. Has there every been a case of a Monitor clearly achieving his/her goals? The original Monitor got offed pretty easily and other than doing in Duella Dent, the combined forces of 52 Monitors have managed amazing feats of obvious plot exposition and not much else.

Funny we've had back to back issues featuring female characters with the power to enthrall. Little panicked regarding the ol' feminine wiles, Countdowners? I've been trying to think of a male counterpart to this, but all I can come up with is Bendis' supercreepy use of the Purple Man in "Alias" but in the DCU, enthralling seems to be a uniquely female ability.

It's funny that it took me this long to realize the significance of the "Jimmy Olsen Must Die" posters, but it wasn't til he asked the JLA to shove him in an airlock that it settled in. The multiverse apparently doesn't care much about Jimmy getting hurt, but will bend itself all out of shape to keep him from getting killed. The sparing use of Jimmy remains one of the better through-lines in Countdown and "It's like I got sunburned" is possibly the best line in Countdown so far.

The mysterious Elias Orr is revealed to be in the employ of the equally mysterious Checkmate, which is connected mysteriously to the Suicide Squad. Could this mean the Rogues' and KK's plots are linked? I'll have to read a couple more Wikipedia entries before I can say for sure, but it looks like Amanda Waller might be pulling strings on both plot threads.

I suspect it's so, but it'll be a shame if this issue marks Zatanna's exit from Countdown. Zee makes the highly irresponsible (which is to say out of character) decision to loose Mary onto the unsuspecting outer world, although she's at least temporarily de-powered. I'm no Eclipso scholar, but doesn't the black diamond have to be in contact or at least proximity to a person to exert its influence? Right now, Mary's under so many influences, I can't keep them straight.

Finally, we've got the mishmash of grecoromanism that is the Holly/Harley installment. Leaving aside the fact that the Greeks didn't engage in gladitorial combat of this kind, the most important development in this storyline takes place (surprise!) outside of Countdown. For those of you (including me) not following Amazons Attack, it turns out Athena has actually been Granny Goodness all this time. Of course, no mention of that here, just thought you guys should know.

Also from the department of "thought you should know", the origin of Forerunner or of the Forerunners or some such, was revealed in the "I Can't Believe It's $4!" Spectacular of "Countdown to Adventure". If you are a fan of Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man or Buddy's portrayal in 52, do not buy this comic. If you are a Countdown completist, do not buy this comic. I'll run it down for you: Adam Strange is replaced as Rann's hero by a borderline psychotic movie star, while Buddy returns to stunt doubling and hires Starfire as his nanny. Wackiness will, no doubt, ensue. As for Forerunner(s), it seems that on Earth 48, Earth was used as a WarWorld (nope, not that WarWorld) where other planets hashed out their differences gladiator-style. The losers got dead and the champs got...well, they got stranded. All of which lead to a whole lot of interbreeding among the strongest and meanest representatives from a bunch of planets, producing (ta-dah!) the Forerunners. The whole project was engineered by the Monitors, who have since wiped out all of the Forerunners except...um, Forerunner...using shadow demons and some lady who has the power to (wait for it) enthrall! Once again, the "How powerful are these weak-ass Monitors anyway?" question comes up, as Forerunner insists that a handful of Monitors could never take out a pack of Forerunners. And all of this comes out in a tender, getting to know you moment between Forerunner and Monarch.

The funny thing about the recurring theme of characters being controlled by others is how nicely it parellels the set up of this series. 52 was an assemblage of character driven arcs about self-discovery, but Countdown is precisely the opposite: a bric-a-brac of non-characters slotted into story-driven arcs, where the expected endpoint of discovery is not personal but (multi)universal. It's no wonder, then, that half our characters have been enthralled (Mary, Bob, Trickster, KK), literally manipulated by another, at some point and all of our characters have been represented as pieces on a chessboard, which is not exactly a metaphor for individual agency. Dini, Carlin and Didio might be unconsciouly showing their hands by portraying at a plot level exactly what's going on at an editorial level: the manipulation of characters by forces outside...in the dread dimension of the DC Editorial Offices.

#36- The Problem With Suspense

Once again this week, we have a perfectly serviceable issue that accomplishes pretty much nothing and leaves us with nearly every member of the cast in moral peril.

Come to think of it, Countdown has been chock full o'mortal peril, but this issue is especially overflowing with it.

But before we get to the subject of peril, let's address the gaping hole between this issue and the last. #37 ended with the most significant development we've seen in Countdown to date: Jimmy's discovery that Clark is Superman. This is a major story beat that's been subsequently dropped from this issue. I was willing to go along with the idea that Jimmy suddenly "knew" Clark's secret, but the writers have made a huge jump from there to Jimmy's JLA induction. It's implausible enough that Jimmy would come off his Titans rejection thinking he was JLA material, but if the writers are asking us to believe he essentially blackmailed his pal Supes into getting him a membership card, and that Supes went along with it, some amount of convincing is needed. One more ball dropped by Countdown, not that anyone's still keeping score.

This brings us pretty directly back to the idea of the cliffhanger as deployed in the book. I hate to keep comparing the structure of Countdown to 52, but the latter managed to exist almost entirely without cliffhangers due to its real-time structure. Only a handful of issues resorted to the 24 trick of having a momentous event occur at the perfect moment in time to carry over into the next issue (thinking here of Lex's switching off his newly minted metas). Countdown, on the other hand, has been an almost endless string of cliffhangers that seem based on the Batman TV series model. Will the Rogues escape the clutches of [whoever the hell has captured the Rogues this week]? Will Black Adam maul Mary Marvel? Will Forerunner disembowel Donna? Tune in next week to find out!

Granted, leaving a character in mortal peril is a standard device of serialized storytelling. But it's not the only device available and it's kind of the cheapest one out there. Last issue's cliffhanger, for example, hinged on the reader caring about the emotional lives of Jimmy and Superman/Clark. It required a knowledge of their prior relationship and a vested interest in whether or not their friendship could survive this revelation. The kick off to the series demonstrated another kind of hook: a pure narrative hook, the introduction of some sort of mystery. Something like this can be character driven, but can also just be an intriguing story idea. Countdown has tried this a couple times, ending issues with a question posed: What happens when A GOD DIES? What happens when AMAZONS ATTACK? Of course, they failed to follow up on either of these questions, but I'm just saying, it's a way to create suspense, as long as the reader is interested in the answers to the questions posed.

Cutting a story the moment before a character is stabbed/punched/shot/dismembered requires none of this. Given a situation where someone is about to be grievously injured, regardless of the person, a reader is going to feel some compulsion to find out what happens. In fact, this device works equally well for characters the reader cares nothing about or openly dislikes. Take the example of 24's "Kim is trapped by a cougar" cliffhanger (let your memory drift back, dear reader). A character the writers had rendered as unbearably idiotic, to the point most viewers could do little but wince every time she spoke, found herself in a completely ridiculous predicament that was in no way germaine to the plot. In the unlikely event the viewer still cared about the character, they'd be forced to return the next week to see if she escaped mortal peril. In the more likely case that the viewer kind of wanted to see Kim get eaten by a cougar, they'd still need to tune in the following week.

This kind of suspense is cheap and easy, and used far too often in Countdown at this point. What makes it even worse is that the cliffhangers' resolutions more often than not fall into the gutter between issues. 52 handled this smoothly, partly because the passage of time was so transparent and the issue ending cliffhangers less dire. We leave Ralph at a crisis moment and return to him weeks later, with an explanation of the intervening time. With its muddled and broken sense of narrative time, Countdown attempts to do the same thing with emotional cliffhangers and fails (Jimmy's story this week, for example), but more amazingly, fails to do this with the mortal peril-style cliffhanger as well. Next issue should pick up with one of two things, followed immediately by the other:

1. The MM/Zatanna throwdown
2. The KK/Equus throwdown

These two storylines need to pick up in the next moment to generate or fulfill any sort of suspense, while the predicament of the Rogues and the Challengers can wait a couple beats. But so far, Countdown's track record doesn't really indicate this is going to be the case. I'm betting with at least one of these storylines, the narrative is going to jump the next moment and drop us into an already resolved situation with little explanation of how we got there.

Are there positives here? Yes. There is a talking moose! It feels as if MM's storyline has finally hit the break point it's been creeping up on since she got Black Adam'd. KK and singular Girl actually find the object of their quest, unlike some folks I might mention. The Challengers fall into the clutches of an evil...hand. Any guesses on the prickly hand in question? Maybe it's just because Equus is here, but I'm reminded very vaguely of Jim Lee's version of Zod in the "For Tomorrow" storyline. Could we stress, as an aside, how much both the magic storylines would benefit from John Constantine's presence in the DCU? I understand editorial's position on this, I'm just saying. In and of itself, the one-page Jimmy appearance plays out well. The story beat with the Rogues moves well, even if Ivy's motivation for capturing Trickster and Piper has inexplicably changed since last issue. Piper being saved from Ivy's influence by his power of homosexuality could have been handled with a little more subtlety and I'm not sure it's been demonstrated that Ivy's pheremone tricks work only on those who'd be sexually into her to begin with. I was relieved the writers didn't feel the need to drop an even more blatant "Hey, this guy's gay" comment into Trickster's mouth here. Thank god for small favors.

On the Deathstroke origin: how many evil kids does this cat have anyway? Seems like a lot of action for a prematurely gray pirate assassin.

Absolute last word: the DC nation page should either be filled or dropped. Even though Dan Didio has been absent from the page for months, at least we've gotten a next issue teaser image. If Mike Carlin is going to complain there's no space for editorial to step in with some "See Also..." notes, maybe he should think about this little spot?

Oh, and I know this is a little late in coming, but for those of you not reading every book in the DCU, here's the casualty list on the New Gods:

1. Lightray (in Countdown)
2. Sleeze (in Countdown)
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Deep Six (in Countdown)
9. Speed Queen (in Outsiders: Five of a Kind)
10. Grayven (in Outsiders: Five of a Kind)
11. Knockout (in Birds of Prey)

So there you go.

#37- Building a Mystery?

Holy Crap! Two stories in Countdown kind of sort almost maybe brushed up against one another!

KK's mystery virus may be an omen of the Great Disaster, according to Singular Girl. Of course, watching characters fight a virus is about as exciting as watching hackerbattles, unless the virus fighters happen to be virus-sized. Like as in maybe Atom-ic?

I'm really trying to give this stuff the benefit of the doubt, folks. Really trying.

I missed the issue where Babs became a doctor (she became a lawyer during the fairly intolerable "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" storyline, courtesy of Harvard's rarely publicized Correspondence School of Law, but the idea of Correspondence Medical School gives me a rash) but she certainly has a lot of medical type gadgets, accompanied by a shelf full of manilla folders. I would have thought Babs would have a more complex filing system. Like maybe some cabinets.

The Lost Legionairres are sent off in search of Elias Orr, who's made minor appearances in some of Brian Azarrello's Superman work as a shadowy shadowy presence. As far as I can find, no one other than Az has worked the character into a story. Essentially, he created the supervillian Pilate out of the cancer-ridden Father Leone and makes some sort of offer to the Toyman, representing himself as Chechnyan. Clever me thought Elias Orr was an anagram of "Solaris" and then actually checked that. Turns out it's an anagram for "Solar Ire", which means, well, nothing at all. Leaves one wondering why Babs wouldn't send KK to check in with the folks at St. Camillus before pawning him off on an evil scientist who may not even exist.

Mary Marvel has apparently developed both the ability to regenerate her costume and to enlarge her eyes to the size of dinner plates. Zatanna gives her the tour her fairly large estate which conceals an even larger estate! Zee makes the mistake of showing Mary the two paths to power: laborious, disciplined study or stealing stuff from a glass case. Not that Mary would find "enough magical energy in that case alone to do pretty much anything you could imagine" tempting.

A gripe here: if this had been another weekly comic, a setting like Zatanna's house would be loaded to the gills with references to other magical aspects of the DCU. The book titles, the objects in the case, the posters on the walls, the physical appearances of the servants; everything would have constituted a little in-joke, a tiny reward for readers who were paying attention. Even something as blatant as a butler who looked like Oliver Queen. Instead Zee has her own performance posters on the walls, the book spines are unlabeled, and the objects in the case are a vague collection of pan-ethnic ephemera. The magic aspect of the DCU opens itself up to so much cross-referencing and just plain fun, it's a shame to see this bit done so dryly.

Moving on.

There's a little more play in this week's Challengers installment, as the kids run into a collection of wizards who are bailing due to the looming Great Disaster. Hey, someone else was worried about a Great Disaster just a couple pages ago! The Challengers are about to be attacked by clicking bug-like things for no apparent reason. No luck finding references on Queen Belthera, by the way. Again, it would have been nice to see one recognizable DCU magic-user in this flock, but no such luck.

Piper and Trickster get captured again. For no good reason, again. Which will probably have no consequences again. Ivy's behavior is totally inexplicable and without motive, as we've never seen her acting murderously protective of fruit in the past. Granted, she's never been the most consistent character, but this is just bizarre.

This week's installment of the Athenian women's shelter amounts to panty shots and girl on girl action. I guess since Mary Marvel's just walking around, this was the only plausible way to work this in. You've got to admire that kind of committment to an aesthetic mistake.

And finally we have what might be the first major event in Countdown so far: Jimmy's out-of-the-blue revelation that Clark Kent is Superman. Thus is the most obvious secret identity in the world revealed! But to stress the fact Jimmy has the investigative prowess of a tossed salad, he doesn't so much deduce Clark's secret as he is hit by this knowledge from elsewhere. Way to go, James!

And way to go Action Comics for totally blowing this issue's big reveal! I thought only in-house ads and solicits were allowed that kind of spoilering. That aside, this is the strongest end of an issue we've seen so far, which almost assures that it won't be touched on next issue.

#38- Hackers and the Creature from the Black Lagoon

Six out of 22 pages dedicated to a conflict between two characters with no real tie-in to "Countdown". Not so keen, and once again Countdown gives us a repeat ending: last week we closed out with KK poised to ask Oracle for help and thie week we close out with...KK poised to ask Oracle for help.

According to solicits, the Oracle vs. Calculator storyline will pay off in "Birds of Prey" in October. In case you're interested.

I vaguely remember the Deep Six from Peter David's run on Aquaman. Their appearance involved a spawning chamber and an explanation of how the characters managed to constantly resurrect themselves. Through spawning. But this runs up against the problem with the death of the new gods: almost all of these characters have already died. Multiple times. Which takes away a little of the impact of their deaths here. That and the fact they haven't appeared in a comic since I was in high school. The Monitors make reference to the New God death count hitting double digits, anyone know who the tenth is? I've got Lightray, Sleeze and the Deep Six. I feel as if there's one I'm forgetting, but not two. Any help?

The blinding at the hands of Mary Marvel was a little rough, however. At this point, Mary's lived through a couple lightning strikes and what looks a lot like an Omega beam. I like that Mary's moving magic around a bit, which should either set her up to accept a couple pointers from Zatanna or move even furher towards the Dark Side of the Force. Yet another ominous shot of Eclipso gives a little hint as to which it might be.

By the way, if the folks on Countdown want to see how to do an ominous villian shot, they should scope out last week's Superb...err, Prime appearance in Green Lantern. I know it's been said other places, but right now the Sinestro War storyline looks more interesting and potentially world altering than anything in Countdown.

There's something great about the idea that Trickster carries around a Trickster puppet in his coat. Maybe it's just that I'm waiting for the second season of the Muppet Show to show up from Amazon and have puppetry on the brain. Next month's cover is giving me the impression that the entire Rogue storyline might amount to a repetition of "They get caught, they escape in wacky fashion." In the hands of certain writers, this might work. Right here it's getting stale.

Jimmy's attempt to join the Titans was pretty well done and demonstrated the relative silliness of his superpowers. I'm actually glad the open mocking implied by the cover never actually came about and the confrontation with Tim Drake brought home what a well-developed and sympathetic character Tim Drake has become over the past couple years. I'd like to see someone do an Elseworlds-type story (although I guess Elseworlds no longer exist) that posits Tim as Batman. Either that or an in-continuity story of Tim finding a calling outside the cape-and-cowl set. It's just nice to be reminded that Tim is something more than a Dick Grayson clone.

And Darkseid's chessboard is taking on a little more importance as the big D makes his bid for Multiversal Dynasty. Good luck with that!

Overall, not a lot of progress in this issue, with antagonists slowly coming out of the shadows. Allow me to again recommend the Sinestro Corps War storyline for an all-stops-pulled epic, while Countdown continues the slow build.

First Quarter Rundown

Since the oppressive heat in my apartment is making it impossible to finish the chapter I'm supposed to be working on, it seems like the perfect time to do a first quarter breakdown of "Countdown" so far. We're thirteen issues in now, so there should be an opportunity to start making overall assessments. Unless you're a member of the DC editorial and writing staffs, who seem to believe no such assessments can be made until the very end.

Let's start out with time of possession. The complete lack of crossover between storylines makes this an easy enough assessment. With pages of comics in print, raw scores are as follows:

Jimmy Olsen: 60 pgs.
The Challengers: 54 pgs.
The Rogues: 49 pgs.
Mary Marvel: 41 pgs.
Karate Kid: 21 pgs.
Forerunner: 21 pgs.
Holly Robinson: 19 pgs.
Darkseid: 10 pgs.

As far as narrative yardage, let's start with

Darkseid: So far we know that Darkseid has both an army and a chessboard. He may be manipulating certain events on earth, as the series starts off with him placing Duella Dent in proximity to Jason Todd, but there's been no further evidence of his involvement. We know that there's currently an opportunity to destroy him. Oh, and according to a two page spread, he's apparently one of the "New Gods". Huh, you don't say.

Holly Robinson: Like most of our characters, Holly's on the run. For the moment, she's serving as the voice of reason, or at least the voice of derisive sarcasm in the Athena Women's Shelter, which is either in Gotham or Metropolis, but seems to have settled into the latter.

The Athenian storyline that Holly's our window into may or may not be related to the big "Amazons Attack" event, but from what I can tell, that storyline is such a clusterfuck, I'm not going anywhere near it. Aside from not getting her ass arrested, Holly doesn't seem to have any motivation or drive and her predominant character trait seems to be "pluck". As the first quarter ends, Holly is about to go to an Athenian Self-Esteem-Building Workshop. This storyline has also given the artists a chance to draw entirely gratuitous panels of young women bathing.

Forerunner: With a hairstyle lifted from the "Star Wars" prequels, Forerunner is supposedly the character find of 2007. Her interests include honor and killing stuff. According to Monarch, she is the "forerunner" to a race known as (wait for it) the Forerunners. A race the Monitors bred for killin' and have apparently decided to wipe out entirely, using one woman as their proxy. We haven't seen 'runner lately, but last time we did, she was heading across the multiverse to kill whoever offed her people. Could be a long trip.

The confusion of Forerunner/Forerunners is just one more of the fascinating inconsistencies of "Countdown". I know there's an impulse to call them "mistakes" but let's wait til all the facts are in. Oh, and Monarch's face being fleshy instead of Captain Atom-y under the mask? Yeah, that was a mistake.

Karate Kid: When KK entered the scene, he was posing as someone named Trident and taking swings at Batman. He spent some time imprisoned by the JLA, spent some more time imprisoned by the JLA, spent some time not quite as imprisoned but still fairly imprisoned by the JLA. He chats with a couple JLAers, which amounted to "Hey, something sure is wrong here, huh?" He joined up with One Third of a Triplicate Girl and ran off, ending up in Oracle's personal space looking for answers as to what might be wrong. Because apparently it's wrong with him, in particular.

Is it the lack of personality? Could KK's lack of a perceptible personality lead to the Final Crisis?

Like our girl Holly, KK is on the run, but unlike Holly there is no apparent reason why. Even if you've read "The Lightning Saga", you're left with no idea who KK is hiding from. Can't be Batman, he was chatting up Batman a couple issues ago. Probably not Supes, they go way back. Also like Holly, we've got no real sense of whay KK might be running towards. Hopefully Babs can shed some light on this mess.

Okay, those are the really messy storylines. With the exception of maybe the Forerunner thing, which despite its flaws seems to have some direction in front of it. Let's move on to the bigger stories and see how we're doing.

Mary Marvel: You know, except for the ass and crotch shots, this storyline's not going too badly. Mary wakes from a year long coma and finds herself powerless and sets out to get some powers. And she does, but they might not be what she expects. So at the urging of the Riddler, she goes looking for guidance and is about to meet up with Zatanna. Look, kids: it's a narrative arc!

Granted, it's a little hobbled by the fact that the ad campaigns have been touting an Eclipso'd MM since back in the "52" days, but Mary's got a lot of the qualities the above-mentioned characters so far lack. Personality and clear motive to their actions. Everytime MM shows up (usually descending on the camera-eye crotch-first), we know why she is where she is, which is pretty refreshing. I'm not sure how this storyline ties into the Great Disaster/Final Crisis noise, but it's an interesting enough story to keep reading.

Plus it hasn't yet required me to read a single comic outside of "Countdown"

The Rogues: Seriously, these guys should not have shown up until after the Flash got offed. The early Rogues sections drove me up a wall with their half-assed Tarantino dialogue, repetetive homophobia is funny motif and general lack of any edge whatsoever. Every appearance before issue 44 is entirely discardable.

Since then, a little better. The writers seem to have a slightly better sense of Piper and Trickster than they did the rest of the Rogues, and the reintroduction of the Suicide Squad, who clearly have some agenda involving making villians disappear, has made this story tolerable. Actually, the mere fact it's gotten Montoya back on the page makes it tolerable. But it still feels like a story only barely started.

The Challengers: If I was betting on a story to lead most directly into a Final Crisis, my money would be on this one. It's got scope, even if it got off to a rocky start with Jason Todd making pretty uncanny logical leaps to determine he and Donna are being hunted by the Monitors. Speaking of logical leaps, it would be nice if the readers were getting some clues as to what the trail of Ray Palmer is.

Overall, I'm okay with this story. Donna's character needs to be fleshed out a bit more (this is not a call for bigger breasts, folks at DC. Female characters can also have "well-developed" personalities), and hopefully the inclusion of Kyle Rayner in the group will contribute a little more in the way of personal dynamics. How they're getting Kyle out of his current state and into "Countdown" has got me riveted. I hope someone told Paul Dini that Kyle Rayner is, how you say, super evil right now.

And finally...

Jimmy Olsen: This storyline started out with promise and has sort of jumped the rails since. Jimmy investigated the death of Duella Dent for about ten minutes, then investigated the death of his friend Lightray for about ten minutes, then decided to take up sewing. I was excited at the possibility that lowly Jimmy Olsen was going to put together the puzzle of the Great Disaster, but what we've gotten instead is clear evidence why Jim is a photographer and not an investigative reporter.

But here's the thing about Jimmy.

As of right now, Jimmy is the only player in "Countdown" who retains ties to the superhero community. Everyone else is on the run from something or other. Narratively, this holds possibility. Big events are in the offing, and while the Big Five (formerly known as the Big Three) would be well equipped to stop them, all the puzzle pieces lie in the hands of outcasts and fugitives. If I was making a guess, I'd say Jimmy's story will idle in superheroic tomfoolery for a bit until something puts Jimmy on the run like the rest of the cast. I'm casting my vote now for a Jimmy Olsen/Forager team-up.

Overall, it's not as bad as it could be. It's sluggish, yes. The art has been inconsistent and the editorial gaffs really do have to stop; there are four editors currently on the title, one of them should be reading it. But on reading it all together, I don't hate it. In fact I kind of like it. This may be due more to speculation on what's to come on my part, but I'm pretty firmly on board, and the issues seem to be getting better as time goes on.

To contrast this with the quarter mark in "52", by that point I was in love with the series, had a firm grasp on several well-developed (personality-wise) characters and, rather than speculating, was anxious to see what the writers would come up with next. There were scenes that were out and out brilliant and most everything else was at a consistently high quality level. Four of the top writers in the industry with a universe-wide, year-long sandbox to play in will do that for you.

To contrast this with what's going on currently in the "Green Lantern" books, they took a bunch of characters I couldn't care less about (not a Corps fan, me) and had me on board within the first few pages. I'm buying books I wouldn't have even leafed through two months ago and they're at the top of my read pile. Clear motivation will do that for you.
Not that we're comparing.

Writer Tony Bedard promises everything will be batshit crazy by #30. Which is good, this title could use a little more batshit crazy. Not to mention the "higher caliber" artists Mike Carlin's teasing folks with ("52" got in a nice rhythm of competent art broken up by occassional guest work by guys like Jiminez and Robertson. Anyone approaching that level would get me through an extra month of "Countdown" even if the plot didn't pick up). And less ass shots. Please, again, enough.

#39- Cooties from the Future

So apparently Val Karate is carrying a computer virus? How do I know this? Because Mike Carlin told me so over at Newsarama (which seems to have disappeared and been replaced with last week's). Unfortunately I can't find any mention of it in an actual comic, so the whole raid on Oracle's hideout was wasted on me. All I can think of is the conversation between KK and Starman a while back, when Starman mentions that Dr. Impossible is responsible for Val's condition, but that seems sketchy at best. The deadly virus from the future thing has been done before, of course: readers will remember the future tech virus concept from "DC One Million" and a whole lot of the Valiant Universe. Which is all I can say about the Valiant Universe without risking litigation.

Mike is also nice enough to explain how the Challengers are managing to follow Ray Palmer's trail. I was under the impression they were simply following the advice of that helpful monkeyman.

And when Carlin explains these things, they're simple enough to understand...so why don't any of these explanations make it into the comic?

(Incidentally, the Newsarama features have taken on such an antagonistic quality, they make for a riveting read. Sometimes more interesting than the comic, to be honest).

The Suicide Squad sequence seems like a forced beat, especially since we end up with the same cliffhanger two weeks in a row, Montoya about to round up the Rogues. I wonder how Trickster feels being surrounded by the sum total of DC's homosexual community (I'm assuming one of those shadows is actually Obsidian)?

I'll need to check some "All New Atom" back issues, but isn't Ryan Choi supposed to be Asian? As such, should he really have blue eyes? I'm having trouble synching up the Searches for Ray Palmers going on here, in "Atom" and the upcoming "Countdown Presents" series, but for right now, Gail Simone's take on things is much more interesting. It includes a Jet Pack Hitler, which is better than monkeymen riding robot frogs any day.

I did enjoy Athena's "I'm just a god, my resources are limited" speech and I'm hoping her self esteem workshop comes off as a cross pollenation of a Dianetics brainwash session and a feminist response to Tom Cruise's Frank TJ Mackie bit in "Magnolia". That's a hope, mind you, not a guess.

For the second issue in a row, however, all the good stuff seems to be in the back. In three pages, we get an explanation of the Source Wall, Anti-Life, the Bleed and the shadow demons. Hooray for exposition!

If this week's review seems a little scattershot, it's only in reflection of the issue at hand. Over the next week, I'll be putting together a first quarter wrap up with page counts, summaries and comments on each of the story arcs. I'll be holding off on any sort of overall report card, but as many of these posts have probably indicated, DC is currently getting poor marks for Effort. These constant discrepancies would be minor if they were less commonplace, but it seems like an issue doesn't go by without a careless error (Ryan's eyes, Monarch's face, Montoya's bald cap), or an outright conflict between this book and other events in the DCU. In the immortal words of Archie Bell and the Drells, Tighten Up!