#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.