First off, if any of you are buying Countdown rather than reading the Sinestro Corps War or Ellis's Black Summer, shame on you. Get thee to a comic book shop and pick them up. This week's Sinestro installment manages to be frustrating and nifty at the same time. While the Countdown franchise takes an entire issue to chronicle a series of non-confrontations between C-list heroes and a universe full of characters barely on the publishing schedule (I'm looking your way, Colon: Blow!), Green Lantern uses a NYC-destroying throwdown between the JLA and the Sinestro Corps as a backdrop. Where's the tie-in mini, kiddoes? Interesting pacing choices but an overall great read that keeps things focused on the book's central characters.And Black Summer is the best stuff I've read from Ellis since Planetary. Oh, Planetary, where is that denouement, anyway?
Ahem. Okay, back to the subject at hand. If you happen to be a huge Karate Kid fan (for instance, if you happen to be Ralph Macchio or...his mom?), you might be tempted to pick up this issue for red-hot Daniel-san vs. HAL action. I'd hold off if I were you. KK and Singular Girl show up for one page in which they fail to kick anything at all. They do get vaguely scanned again though, so if you like scanning, check it out. Hasn't KK already kicked a hologram on a Countdown cover? Oops, looks like he actually punched that hologram. Point is, dude hates holograms.
Something I'm enjoying outside of the book itself is the fact that fellow Countdown blogger Kim Em and I seem to be doing this gradual Statler and Waldorf thing with our opinions on the book. Kim's been vocally pro-Countdown since the beginning and now seems to be souring, while I'm just now warming to the book.
Piper and Trickster sit down for a Grand Slam Breakfast with Double Down, who has the creepiest case of shingles in recorded history. The man flakes off playing cards, which makes it pretty amazing that the Rogues can keep down their Moons Over My-Hammy while he incessantly shuffles his scabs. He lets them in on a secret that DC solicit fans like myself are already hip to, namely that villians are disappearing. While in the van outside Denny's, someone ominous lurks. That should be the tagline for Countdown: "Someone ominous lurks."
Holly and Harley arrive at Paradise island. That's it.
Jimmy runs into the Newsboy Legion in the sewers who, instead of Morrison's multi-ethnic hallucinatory version are back to the All-Caucasian Squad from the Superman books. Sigh. In Countdown's continuing battle of Kirby vs. Morrison, rack up another one for the King.
In a pretty neat reversal of Isis's role in 52, Mary Marvel uses her powers to help the hell out of some folks. She helps them till it hurts. I don't know about you guys, but I don't entirely trust that Eclipso chick.
Did I miss an issue where Mary went from "prone to tantrums" to "derranged and sadistic"? I thought the standard model for the hero-goes-bad story was that a point is reached, a decision is made and a line is crossed. Mary just suddenly went supervillian on us. Although Carlin insists she hasn't killed yet, even if a certain headless statue might beg to differ.
Lord Havok and the Extremists look like the stepped out of a second rate mid-nineties Image book. A cursory Wikipedia search on these cats (which is, incidentally, the same source editor Mike Carlin went to for info) reveals that their original confusing and uninteresting origin has been rendered irrelevant. Despite the ad's claim that "The Most Dangerous Villians in the Multiverse are Back!", it appears we've never really seen these guys before. The lowdown: they're a group of Marvel villian parodies who have taken over Earth-8 and kicked the collective asses of the Challengers. Which seems to happen a lot. Upon capturing our intrepid protagonists, LH and his crew proceed to torture them in their sleep, which anyone will tell you is pretty ineffective. But this momentary bout of unconsciousness somehow allows Bearded Monitor (remember him?) to locate the Challengers. Despite spending the past twenty-some issues in committee meetings with the rest of the Monitor crew, BM decides to face off against the single greatest threats to the integrity of the Multiverse on his own, Charles Bronson style! Maybe he's trying to fit in with Extremists by being a Punisher knock-off? One of the most powerful sentients in the so on and so forth manages to fire off two shots, which both MISS! The first frees the Challengers from Havok's Sleeptime Torture Machine and the second offs the character find of 2007. So long Jokester, we hardly used ye as a minor plot device.
(I know I said I was going to review Colon: Blow! Crime Society, but since it's twenty pages on the origin of a character who just got shot in the back, I'm going to pass on that. By the way, Jokester was Duella Dent's daddy, but how she got from Earth-3 to New Earth was never explained. There you go.)
Luckily, the Challengers manage to evade the detection of both Bearded Monitor and Bad Sabretooth knock off by teleporting ten feet away.
To add to the craziness, Monarch and Forerunner show up and...float in the air menacingly, issuing vague threats to end someone! Probably one of the Monitors. That Monarch guy hates Monitors almost as much as Karate Kid hates holograms. I sort of forget why that is. But he does manage to convince the Most Dangerous Villians in the Multiverse to get on board his Big Red Train of Doom!
In behind the scenes news, this is Mike Carlin's first solo issue as editor, which doesn't make much difference since it's pretty clear Mike Marts has been off the book for awhile. The rumor is that the unknown big name artists that are supposed to show up to pull this book's fat out of the fire are putting the current artists out of work, raising the question, "How the hell is there a work shortage at DC?" I can imagine there being a work shortage at Marvel due to Bendis and Brubaker writing every book that gets published, but DC is adding titles, subtitles and specials left and right. Give the Countdown artists work, preferrably on books I don't have to read.
4 comments:
You know, I actually glad that they went with the classic Newsboy Legion, not because I prefer them, but because the Countdown writing team poison everything they touch. So since they can't use Morrison ideans even on a average level (Exhibit 1: Klarion the Witch Boy, king of the Sheeda, doing a Goblin's Market imitation), is best that they don't do at all.
The worst with Countdown is that they can't even get right their own distorted characterization: is bad that Mary Marvel gone all "Brains!" on us, something that she would shake off and defeat on less then 22 pages on "good old days" of Jerry Ordway's Shazam (and even before actually). But is worst that not even "the villain's journey" is done right. One moment she is slightly deranged, the one she gone completely psycho.
Personally, I would prefer to read a Mary Marvel book designed to imitate a shoujo manga like Fruits Basket or Fushigi Yugi. Hell, even a Tania Del Rio's Sabrina - The White Witch knock-off would be better.
As for the Countdown artists... make no difference to me. Actually, no, it makes a difference. Please they should never again give a job to Jim Calafiore who did issue 36. Awful art.
You went over my head with the manga references, which is cool, and generally I'd agree with you about the Newsboy Legion. Except that since Countdown is reestablishing the Kirby versions of a pack of characters Morrison had been given the go ahead to mess around with, I'm assuming the Kirby versions are now the canonical or "correct" DCU version. Personally, I thought his Joker and particularly his version of the New Gods offered new story potential for characters that had become a little tired. Instead we get the promise that Darkseid will be reestablished as a "major villian". I can't even begin to list the characters we've seen beat the crap out of Darkseid. He no longer works as a major power player, but could be used as something else if anyone at DC had the mental capacity or intenstinal fortitude to try something different.
In returning to the Kirby versions of these characters, DC is going back to versions that haven't worked for anyone but Jack. Which is all a set up for Jim Starlin's "Euthanasia of the New Gods" series, but what follows?
"Singular Girl"! I LOVE it! heh
But also, is it just me, or is there another character in place of Buddy Blank on this cover as shown at the end of 28?
whoops. sorry, i meant Countdown 30's "next ish" cover for 29.
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