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is Holly (even though she's sporting a different helmet), but I could be wrong.With a title constitutiing yet another outdated pop reference, Countdown makes the argument that when girls wanna have fun, they beat the ever-lovin' crap out of one another.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.
2 comments:
Excellent breakdown of this issue. Is quite funny how the people at DC does things time and time again never noticing that they by virtue of repetitiveness they are establishing a pattern for the readers. I mean, it is possible that they don't have a conspiracy to kill the Giffen League, but since they have almost no variation on supposedly c-listers characters being killed (no forgotten teen titans, foreign dc heroes, etc, etc) it comes to a point when this is the almost the only conclusion a fan can think.
The same with misogyny/gay-bashing. It is not that nothing bad can't have to these characters... is that when only bad things happen to them, is really hard to maintain suspension of disbelief.
Since all 99% of the females on the DC universe are either victims or sexual/psychic predators, is easy to think that is how they see all woman, even the ones on the real world.
You see, the DC Universe as a whole lacks the same things Countdown is lacking currently: over-arching supervision, purpose and direction.
While the whole "let the creator do what he wants" gave us lots of great stories, it also gave us things that lack verisimilitude. It just doesn't look possible that all female heroes were raped. It is a statistical impossibility. So if a hands-on, in command editor just said: wait, you writing another rape will make the number of stories on this particular subject go over a quota that we decided is reasonable... or this story just don't have anything new on this particular theme.
Well, things would be really different, that is for sure. And maybe comics would be only the province of a small, retrograde group of fans, with a pinch of nice people mixed in it.
Stories of rape/sexual assault are always going to be highly emotionally resonant, if cheap and exploitative. It's like doing a story about the Holocaust, even if it's done poorly, it has the mark of emotional legitimacy, kind of a short-hand for, say, creating three-dimensional female characters with complex, layered emotional issues.
An editorial mandate would be ideal in stemming the (over)flow of such stories, but of course comics have long been invested in finding the most direct route to emotional resonance.
The repetition of both rape and "female mind control" is troubling in part because there seems to be a kind of equivilence set up: the sexual violation of a female character's body equivilent to the violation of a male character's mind. But then, most male characters are enthralled by a female character they were already sexually attracted to (Ivy's power, for instance, doesn't work on Piper and can be resisted by that bastion of willpower over sexual desire, Batman) and are generally only forced to punch someone they would have at some point punched anyway.
What seems like an equivalent situation (mental or physical domination) highlights the problem of characterization we're talking about. Male characters are more primarily mental, while female characters are almost always primarily bodies, exaggerated and highly sexualized.
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