For starters, an apology. The combination of a busted hard drive, a death in the family and a looming book deadline moved Countdown to the back burner for quite a while.Anyway, let's get back into it. After last issue's recap -fest, we're focused in on Karate Kid and Singular Girl as they are inexplicably accompanied by an elderly man and a small child through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With the help of Firestorm, they hold off a couple of the Atomic Knights who've been patrolling Bludhaven since it done got blowed up. Not patrolling well, mind you, just patrolling. After a little bit of blood-specked chop-socky from KK, Firestorm remembers that he has the power to change any element into any other element, which is a handy skill to have, and the intrepid group proceeds into the bowels of Command D.
The Atomic Knights, by the way, show up in some of the post-Great Disaster stories, being all knightly and stuff. They also put Captain Atom into his current Monarch suit and we can see how well that went.
The Rogues once again escape from imminent capture through the stupidest means possible.
Over on Apokolips, it seems Jimmy Olsen's mysterious power-provider isn't the only one who cares if this little chucklehead lives or dies. Darkseid lays some Omega beams down on one of his own slavedrivers for messing with the kid. A nice gesture, but I've got to say, I just don't trust that Darkseid fellow. Something about his tendency to vaporize employees.
Mary Marvel, or Crazy McMiniskirt, gets the sales pitch for the Dark Side from Darkseid. Who can resist the thrills of "true darkness", you ask? Once again, we are confronted with the absurdity of self-aware evil. Darkseid is hoping to check one more item off his list of "Evil Things to Do Today..." But Mary looks a little wary. I mean, teaming up with the Wrath of God who happens to be inhabiting the body of the woman who trampled on your friend's brain is one thing, but...actually, I forgot where I was going with that.
Where are the Challengers? They're off in a tie-in issue. How about Holly and Harley? I'm not sure, but I'd bet whatever they're up to includes the phrase "scantily-clad".
And finally, KK, Singular Girl and the gang reach the super-secret caramel center of Command D, where the find Desaad, who is torturing an old guy! But not just any old guy, Professor Stein, who used to be the sciencey old guy portion of Firestorm. And by torturing said old guy, Desaad manages to take over the Firestorm matrix! Which I thought only had room for two people, but is currently housing three. Firestorm (or possibly just the Firestorm matrix) is not just an Elemental (which means he gets to hang around with Swamp Thing) but also contains part of the Life Equation, which is like the Anti-Life Equation only Life-ier. Despite his amazing powers, Firestorm is in the running for Most Killed DC Character. I'm pretty sure he died a couple times in Infinte Crisis and once got offed in Manhunter, which all of three people were reading anyway. You would think total control over the structure of atoms would keep you more or less intact (remember the Metamorphing Girl in Sandman?), but Firestorm and Metamorpho seem to be arguments to the contrary.
Before I sign off, let me just mention Ron Lim's art, which is wonderful, clear and makes the most of Keith Giffen's layouts. At some points it reminded me a bit of Matt Wagner's work on Mage, which is fairly high praise. A well-focused issue, which advances at least one of our stories a bit. At this point in Countdown, that's about the best we can expect.
Incidentally, I'm not picking up any of the Search for Ray Palmer specials. Salvation Run led off well, but it was Bill Willingham that got me in the door on that one, and Rucka's Crime Bible book is nice and sparse in the way Rucka's early Batman scripts were. Of course, all of this was trumped by the one-two punch of The Black Dossier and the new Scott Pilgrim. But you knew that, didn't you?
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