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!
4 comments:
I had many of the same thoughts you did as far as "why aren't they explaining this/reminding us of this in the story?" instead of in the online interview.
And all the gay heroes in an alley in the DCU? It must have been Danny the Street!
My hope is this is leftover damage from the former editorial staff and once Carlin is fully at the helm. it'll stop. It's difficult to tell how much was set in stone before the switchover.
I have to say, I admire your tenacity. I gave up about seven weeks ago. In fact, at this point it seems like 'Countdown' was the last straw in my dropping visits to the comics store altogether. It wasn't just that it was that bad--although it was--it was that it seemed to be a symptom of the current trend in comics, negotiating in bad faith.
By which I mean, current DC and Marvel comics seem to be perpetually promising, "We're going to do just one more big event that's so absolutely big, so utterly life-changing, that it'll justify your shelling out huge sums of money for a crossover. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, can't-miss-it event!" Followed, of course, by another once-in-a-lifetime event three months later. And if people don't like the repercussions of the life-changing event, they can always just change it back...
Eventually, you come to a point where you just stop caring. And 'Countdown' did it for me.
Understandable, John. I think part of it is that sometimes it's fun to assess why a thing isn't working, especially something as large-scale as this. More and more, I think "caring" might be at the center of the problem. Aside from immense talent, one thing shared by the "52" writing staff was a deep affection for the characters they were working with and the story they were telling. I wonder if the ultimate problem with "Countdown" won't be that it's merely functional, a cold emotionless brick set between "52" and "Final Crisis".
That said, I hope there are still comics out there you find worth caring about, the ones you're still psyched to see on the shelves. "Countdown" may be an intellectual excercise for me at this point, but it still makes my week to see a new issue of "Y The Last Man" show up. Hell, a new issue of Dylan Horrock's "Atlas" would practically make my year.
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