#40- Better Late Than Never

Sorry about the delay with this post, I've been spending all of my computer time editing a friend's master's thesis. Which is roughly as fun as it sounds. Of course, part of the problem is there was not much in this issue that had been rushing to the blogotron.

The most awesome thing in this issue: My Three Monitors. Way in the back of the backup feature, we get a couple Monitors sounding off. "On my earth, people wear shoes on their hands and hamburgers eat people!" The pointy-ears on Vampire Monitor were pretty precious, but that hastily drawn-on mustache hanging under the nose of Industrial Revolution Monitor? Sooo cute!

Joking aside, this does bring up a question that's been in the background for a while now. Bob the Monitor is from a universe full of noble superheroes doing their darnedest, and he is pretty noble and doing his darnedest. The Monitor from the vampire universe is a vampire. Is it too much of a jump to suspect that the trouble makin' Monitor might hail from Earth-3, home of the Crime Syndicate of America? And if that's the case, that a predominately evil universe carries with it a predominately evil Monitor, don't you think maybe the other Monitors would kick this guy out of the clubhouse?

Getting to the issue itself, the search for Keith Giffen has finally ended! Which means the art on "Countdown" might hit a level of consistent competence it's thus far fallen short of. I wonder if the folks in editorial realized how easily they could avoid fans confusing this story with the most recent issue of "All New Atom" by simply dropping in a line from Ryan along the lines of "Hey, this tiny universe is oddly similar to the not nearly as tiny universe I was just in the other day. How odd". Problem solved. A new problem arises from the fact that Jimmy Olsen's costume looks strikingly like Ryan Choi's. So much so that if you were flipping through this issue quickly, you might miss the jump from the Palmerverse to Metropolis. Given the lack of action we've seen in "Countdown" so far, it might have been nice to see Mr. Action's debut a little more directly, but I'm not one to call for 22 page fight scenes.

For those of you without the energy to track these things down, the person spying on Darkseid is Forager, a member of the Bug underclass of New Genesis, who sometimes get tasked by the New Gods to run errands and generally, y'know, forage for things. He has all the abilities of a humanoid bug, which means he's the Spiderman of slave labor.

Maybe it's that I'm coming off two days of reading a paper on class, gender and race, but let's take a pause here and discuss the depiction of women in this series. We've got your scantily clad Athena recruits, your fishnet sporting Zatanna, your practically skirtless Mary Marvel and...Donna Troy. This issue we get the brief addition of Darkseid's concubine, with the throwaway line about the removal of vocal chords (prompting a pretty unpleasant discussion between the dudes over at CBR. Guys, after you've both stated you'd buy a Mary Marvel/Zatanna one-off just for the ass-shots, the "silence my concubine" jokes have got to go). And the only member of the big three who has yet to make an appearance, despite the putative importance of the Amazons in the DCU right now, is Wonder Woman. I've said it before, but let me stress it here: the inclusion of women in this series so far has amounted to poorly rendered cheesecake. This story presents multiple opportunities to develop strong female characters, and so far we have yet to see a single female demonstrate anything that even resembles agency. To run it down:

Donna- Roped into a mysterious journey by bad boy Jason Todd, who has found her doing such superheroic feats as staring at a gravestone and sitting contemplatively.

Mary- Has Black Adam's powers more or less inflicted upon her and is finding her personality overridden by them.

Holly- Shrugged and okayed her way into the Athena's Bathhouse for Wayward Girls and almost kind of raised her voice when Harleen kicked a mother and her child back out into the streets.

Add to the list Wonder Girl's bloodthirsty rant at Bart's funeral, Forerunner who is bred to be a slave and the 100% personality-free-zone that was Duella Dent and you've got pretty much the whole female cast thus far.

I haven't yet read Dini's take on Zatanna in "Detective" but she seems to have grown into more than just a pair of legs, and "52" developed Montoya (I'm not ready to call her the Question just yet) into one of DC's stronger, fully realized female characters. I'm hoping with the addition of these two to the mix, the writers might actually show us a bit of heroism from the ladies.

Of course, it looks like all of the Monitors are dudes, so I'll keep my hopes in check for now. Talk to you kids on Thursday.

Short, but oh so sweet...

So DC just announced that the Final Crisis "Countdown" is counting down to will be illustrated by JG Jones and written by Grant Effing Morrison.

It should be mentioned that Grant is quite possibly my favorite comic book writer and his attachment to this project has renewed my faith that "Countdown" must be going somewhere. Anywhere.

Apologies for not having written on "Countdown #40" yet. Most of this week has been spent arranging things so that I can go see Sonic Youth play "Daydream Nation" tomorrow night in Brooklyn and my computer time has been limited, especially since I want to actually break down this last issue a bit. Monday, I promise, once I recover from having my face rocked off.

Counting Off: The Lightning Saga

So in the interests of completism, this column should discuss some of the books that form required reading for "Countdown". This is leaving aside the issue of whether or not "Countdown" should be self-contained. It isn't, and we can either continue to complain about it (which has its merits, don't get me wrong) or deal with it and move on.

Any entry labelled "Counting Off" will cover this territory. Like the last entry on the Flash and this one here.

In the case of full storylines (like "Amazons Attack" and "Sinestro Corps War" I'll be letting them play out at least to the halfway point before checking in on them, unless something really big happens in a particular issue.

I will also be upfront in saying some these comics I've obtained through downloading. I buy a lot of books and want my dollars to go both towards my local comic book store and to books I like. If at times, the interest of this column dictate that I read books I'm less keen on, there's a chance I may just torrent them. Which is to say, this is by no means an attempt to encourage everyone to buy every DCU book associated with "Countdown" which the folks at Newsarama have caluculated would cost you about $320. Nuff said.

On to "The Lightning Saga".

I'm not a big fan of the future. Or at least the far-flung future. A quick survey of the technological progress of just the past ten years should amply demonstrate the inability of the average person to predict the course of future events in the short term, so the idea of speculating what life might be like in the 30th century suffers from a severe disconnect with current reality. A disconnect some people are into. I'm not.

So I've never been a Legion fan, it's just a section of the DCU I have no interest in. The only Legionaire I've read much of is Thom Kalor, both in James Robinson's "Starman" and the current run of "JSA". As a result, I was not overly excited that a posse of Legionaires would be at the center of a JLA/JSA crossover.

What I ultimately liked about this story was that I never felt I was being pushed towards reading a Legion comic (with the exception of the mysterious face in the lightning rod). The writers use minimal exposition to tell us who the Legion are and play it for maximum effect by stressing their connection to Superman. Superman's time with the Legion forms the emotional crux of these stories: his affection towards them drives the two teams to seek out the missing Legionaires and the sense of duty and betrayal they have towards Supes necessitates the secrecy in which they finally carry out their plan.

The other aspect I enjoyed was the brief tour of the DCU, with a trip to Thanagar and Gorilla City. But again here, the writers are clever enough to show us these places through the characters they resonate with most. Vixen's reaction to Gorilla City and Red Arrow's take on Thanagar are perfect in-roads for the reader to what might otherwise be cold concepts of foriegn cultures.

But the strengths of this story only serve to point out some of the weakness of "Countdown" at this point in its run. All of the central characters in "Countdown" have longstanding, complicated relationships with established DC characters, characters who don't need to be explained. Put simply, the way to get us started caring about Jason Todd is to make it clear Batman cares about him. The same goes for Donna and Wonder Woman, Holly and Catwoman, Jimmy and Supes, and Mary and Captain Marvel. So far, only the latter two pairs have interacted at all (and unfortunately I'm so unclear about what's going on with Billy Batson at this point, the interaction between he and Mary came off like muddy exposition of a muddy situation). Launching Jimmy's story with Superman watching over him was a great move, it immediately attached the audience to a minor character by asserting that character's importance to a minor character. If Jason, Donna, Holly or Mary had been introduced in similar fashion, a lot of the "who is this and why should I care" reaction from fans might have been alleviated.

Granted, these characters' distance from the iconic characters is important to the story, but a one page interaction ending in a severing of ties would have gotten the job done.

The other major problem is one of timing. "All Flash #1" makes it clear that the events of "The Lightning Saga" occur at the same time, within minutes even, of the death of Bart Allen, a fact hinted at in Guggenheim's Flash story. In "Countdown" we get Bart's funeral with Wally absent, a fact which it seems will never be adequately explained. We also get Karate Kid's escape with Una nearly a month after the same scene in "Justice League". Editor Mike Carlin has turned downright hostile when interviewed about these timing gaffs, which is hopefully a sign they were leftover problems from the previous editorial team. More importantly, readers shouldn't have had to waste time with KK or the Rogues in "Countdown" before the events in the JLA/JSA crossover and the Flash played out. These stories were big enough that if these characters had walked out of them and into "Countdown" for the first time afterwards, readers could have been caught up with minimal exposition and WOULD HAVE ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS FROM THE BEGINNING. It's pretty common knowledge at this point that Kyle Rayner is being put through the ringer over in GL before being dropped into "Countdown" and yet the writers have felt no need to drop innane conversations with Kyle and Guy Gardener into "Countdown". The characters should come into the story when the writer is ready to use them and hit the ground running. I think what makes the most recent issue of "Countdown" marginally more satisfying is the sense that some of the characters finally have.

Staying positive, though. Rumors have been dropped about shoe-in artists coming up in "Countdown" and something big (or "biggish") going down this week, and having given up on thinking of "Countdown" as a start-to-finish quality read, hope springs eternal every week that the story might jumpstart itself.

Counting Off: "All Flash #1" & the Death of Bart Allen

Barry Allen is evil.

I guess there's probably a narrow slice of the reading public who've felt that way, but it so happens my first Flash story was the "Return of Barry Allen". As a teenager, it's no wonder the story had me riveted. Young Wally West, who has spent the last several years not just grappling with the loss of his beloved uncle, but fighting his way out from under the shadow of Barry Allen, is suddenly faced with Barry's return and Wally's outright dismissal by his idol. Who of course turns out to be Professor Zoom, but at the time, my introduction to Barry Allen was that Barry was pretty much a dick.

A lot of my foundational superhero experiences centered around the big upheavals at DC. The death of Superman, the breaking of Batman (each issue of Knightfall was read allowed to my little brother, who was left in a state of absolute panic for two weeks that Batman might be dead), the corruption of Hal Jordan. Torches were being passed every which way in the DCU when I was a kid and I was on board for all of it.

But my favorite superhero books, by far, were James Robinson's "Starman" and Mark Waid's "Flash".

I still think that these runs showcase one of the things DC has that Marvel doesn't. The idea of the legacy hero.

Peter Parker is Spiderman. This is an identity statement and is meant to be reciprocal. Spiderman is Peter Parker. If something happens to Peter Parker, Spiderman ends. Ditto for the members of the Fantastic Four, the individual X-Men, Iron Man and the Hulk. The only Marvel hero that could be considered for the title of legacy hero is the Marvel U's most recent casualty, Captain America, and so far Marvel is making the very clear case that Steve Rogers is/was Captain America and Captain America is/was Steve Rogers.

Incidentally, if no one's already told you you should be reading "Captain America", let me be the first. You should be reading "Captain America".

That isn't the way in the DCU. The Flash isn't necessarily Barry Allen, Green Lantern isn't necessarily Hal Jordan, Wonder Woman isn't necessarily Diana Prince. If Batman gets offed, there's a whole list of candidates to pick up the cape and cowl. I know plenty of people who aren't down with this, who want the Marvel costume=person equation to be enforced in the DCU, but books like "Flash" and "Starman" demonstrate how many amazing story possibilities the idea of a legacy hero opens up.

(I'll mostly leave off talking about "Starman" here, with an eye towards perhaps talking about Robinson's saga of the Knight family at a later date)

During Waid's run on the title, Wally West developed from snotty little ingrate into full-fledged hero through fighting through the influence of his predescessor. I remember a whole sequence around the revelation that Wally had limited himself because he didn't want to be faster than Barry. Not content to stop there, Waid introduced another father/mentor figure for Wally in Jay Garrick, a guru-type mentor in Max Mercury, another legacy in the Quick family and finally, a young ward for Wally in Bart Allen.

In short, a Flash family, tied together by blood and speed. "The Flash" became not just one person, but a kind of floating concept, a sort of heroic idea that was open to particpation by any number of individuals, each of whom could bring their own style to the role of the Flash. Flashes could mentor each other, teach each other how to handle the powers they'd picked up.

This meant that the concept, the legacy, could be constantly reinterpreted and, therefore, reinvigorated. It's easy to say that DC got rid of folks like Hal Jordan and Barry Allen was for the sake of cynical money-grubbing, but there's also a distinct possibility that at the time, folks had just run out of stories to tell about Hall and Barry. But the red suit still looked pretty damn cool, a magic ring powered by will and imagination was still compelling, so what to do? DC has built in a system where, if a concept works but a character's gone stale, you just switch out the character.

If only Marvel was able to do this, we'd have been saved a load of unbearable Spiderman stories. It's been the case for years that no one's been able to think up a decent Peter Parker story, as evidenced by the fact that the most compelling Spiderman comic in the past ten years was "Reign", dealing with a retired and elderly Peter Parker.

All of which is meant to bring us to "All Flash #1". I think DC made an unfortunate move by offing Bart Allen; it seems to me there were plenty of stories left in the character and it's too bad that his brief run as the Flash was botched by an ill-fitting creative team. Credit to Marc Guggenheim for his efforts to salvage the character, even knowing Bart was doomed. But I'm thrilled at the pairing of Mark Waid and Wally West. If Mark can tell good stories about Wally West, then Wally's return is warrented and removing the character from the stage for a bit to change his context, to further allow for fresh storytelling, is laudable. The wringer DC put Hal Jordan through have made an interesting character out of what had been a narrative dead end, and even if you disagree with the Parallax-to-Spectre-to-GL course of Hal's career, you'd be hardpressed to argue that a lot of the Green Latern stuff near the end of Hal's first career was pretty crappy. The introduction of Kyle Rayner made a whole lot of people care about Green Lantern again and opened up the idea of what Green Lantern could be. And it means fans could choose their favorite. Back in the day, a Flash reader could throw his loyalty behind the zen parables of Max Mercury, the Greatest Generation steadfastness of Jay Garrick, the entreprenuerial zeal of Johnny Quick or the single synapse antics of Bart Allen. Hell, next month, Kyle and Hal are throwing down in GL. Evilness aside, I'm rooting for Kyle.

Some characters may be inexhaustible. There may always be new amazing stories to write about Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, but having other characters take on the role (thinking here of Knightfall and Reign of Supermen) can give the audience and the characters the opportunity to reexamine what Superman or Batman could be. Comic books are perpetually caught up in stasis: characters die only to return, characters go decades without aging. But by rendering its iconic characters as roles that can be adopted, abandoned, in short, changed, DC allows at least the potential for change and, at the same, the assurance of permanence. Whoever's behind the mask, there's always going to be a Batman, a Green Lantern, a Flash.

Call me semi-old fashioned, but for right now and until it gets dull, I'm glad it's Wally West in the red tights.

#41- I Just Thought the Nanoverse would be...smaller.

Maybe it was just an overflow of DC-related goodwill after readind "All Flash #1" (about which more shortly), but I really liked this issue. I really did! A little scattershot, sure, but there were jokes that were successful and I actually didn't feel that a single page was wasted. Let's get into it.

Two people falling out of a plane together is a great way to start a story. Just ask Salman Rushdie. While it's probably too much to ask that the "Countdown" writers move the Rogues storyline in a "Satanic Verses" direction (although a hospital for characters who've been written over would work perfectly here. Read your Rushdie, kids!), the flying boots save was nice, if predictable. And the "You wear one, I'll wear the other" solution is exactly the kind of begrudged teambuilding this storyline is going to need to make it work. The image of Piper and Trickster walking down a Gotham street in ridiculous, soaked costumes in broad daylight is pretty brilliant and since the villians teaser image links Trickster and Penguin, it'll be interest to see what comes out of their meeting.

Thank god for these two Jimmy Olsen pages. I was starting to worry that Jimmy's story was going to move in a serious direction. Not that the inherently silly Silver Age material can't be used in serious storytelling, butit takes the gentle hand of a talented writer to carry it off. Since Mary Marvel's clearly marked for the grim and gritty treatment, I'm all for Jimmy spending a couple weeks as Mr. Action, with the amazing superpower of narrowly avoiding getting killed. Granted, this power seems limited applications, but the narrative possibilities of a character who only has superpowers when he's about to die are practically endless. Jimmy dropping himself out of a plane above a kitten stuck in a tree, maybe. Should we assume Clark can see Jimmy's costume? I remember reading a rather amazing article regarding the operation of Superman's x-ray vision that suggested Superman, having grown up with the ability to visually penetrate surfaces might have developed an entirely different concept of "surfaces", such that objects would not be so much encased in visual "shells" as they'd be a series of perceptible layers. Which is to say, looking through Jimmy's clothes would be somewhat natural and not superpervy.

After reading the most recent issue of "Blue Beetle" (which was a kick and has me planning to pick up more issues), I'm a little confused about the Eclipso storyline. In "BB" Jean is trying to pull a David Bowie by Eclipsoing a magic baby (there's a sentence I never thought I'd write) because Eclipso's weakness has always been the moral flaws in its hosts. Maybe Mary isn't morally flawed just yet, but you've got to think that vacuuming someone into space for robbery doesn't necessarily go down in the ethical plus column. Eclipso better get to seducin' if she wants to catch Mary in the innocent phase.

I am so far from understanding the cosmology and politics related to the Wonder Woman/Amazons Attack stuff that I don't feel I should even touch this storyline just yet. Yes, having the power of Athena on your side is a good thing, but can anyone sound off on where Athena (or any other member of the Greek pantheon) fits into the "Amazons Attack" story?

Bob the Monitor, Jason, Donna and Ryan go down the Rabbit Hole of Mutual Appreciation. You want to know why I like the fact they named the Monitor Bob? Because he's travelling with superheroes named Jason and Donna. It's a post code-name team-up! Throw Kyle in there in a couple issues and you'll have the least exciting line-up names ever. Jason, Donna, Kyle and the unimaginable power of Bob! Together, they are the Challengers of Suburbia! When Bob was talking about the Nanoverse (I will not call it the Palmerverse, I just won't), I kind of thought it would be...well, supertiny. Not that "slightly smaller than a blade of grass" isn't plenty tiny, but I wanted atoms to look like pumpkins. If "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" taught me anything, it was that shrinking to slightly smaller than a blade of grass does not lead to transuniversal travel. Ryan must be getting tired of being assaulted by tiny frogriders at this point in his short career, but wait...these folks are riding BIONIC frogs. Much more terrifying.

I keep trying to read up on the history of Legionaires (a word I can't use without thinking of the disease and the Decemberists' song), but I get through about a reboot and a half before my head explodes. Karate Kid's storyline finally catches up to where it should have been a month ago. Note to DC Editorial: since you've started printing the Countdown numbers on tie-in titles, readers might start to expect some sort of correspondence, maybe. Anyway, we get a replay of the escape to the future from the last issue of Justice League and the new fact that KK's partner will be Una the Singular Girl. Wait, if we've got an Una and a Troia...oh forget it. I spend a part of this afternoon trying to figure out if one-third of Triplicate Girl had any kind of powers at all, but the above mentioned cranial explosion occurred.

I've already heard complaints about this issue being too scattered, that a couple storylines should be backburnered for each issue to give others room to breathe, but frankly, I would be happy with this style of pacing so long as each two or four page check-in advanced the storyline in question. This issue felt quick, light and was fun to read, which is more than can be said for a lot of the previous issues. I'm waiting til thirteen issues in to give a first quarter evaluation, but if this is the end of the first act, I might be willing to forgive a lot of the initial pacing missteps. If this is Mike Carlin's hand at work, someone give that man a raise.

Oh, and DC released yet another teaser image. It's a poorly rendered portrait of some of the big DC heroes (Supes, Bats, WW, Flash, Hawky and GL) looking big and heroic. It confirms that we're counting down to something called "Final Crisis" which pretty much anyone who cared knew already. It sports the tag line "Heroes die. Legends Live Forever." Which I'm not mentioning because I think it's a good tag line (it isn't) or because the teaser gives any hints related to "Countdown" but because it segues into the post I'm about to write on "All Flash #1". And I do love me a good segue.

#42- Snakes on a Plane (sorry, I'm undercaffeinated)

Just in case you've been having "Countdown" and no other comics shipped to you under a rock, this issue opens up with a kind-of replay of the death of the Flash. Leading into yet another gratuitious Mary Marvel crotch shot, with Mary's unmentionables occluded only by the shadow of her own ass.

Seriously, guys, this is ridiculous. Cut it out.

Not much to comment on this week. Oh how I long for the days when Keith Giffen layouts were packed with little clues and references to decode. All of our plots move ever-so-slightly forward, except for the Karate Kid plot, which seems to move slightly backward from where we saw him at the end of the "Lightning Saga". Jimmy's contemplating being a hero (again). Donna, Jason and the Mutton Chop Monitor pick up the All-New Atom and finally head into the nanoverse, which may also indicate them moving out of "Countdown". Mary Marvel uses even more excessive force against Clayface, sending him whirling out into orbit for robbing a bank, leading her to...well, not quite question the nature of her powers. But almost. And the Rogues get chained together and thrown out of a plane.

Which was actually pretty cool.

I'm working off the assumption that Deadshot and Multiplex are working for the Suicide Squad, since they go all governmental and make an arrest. Not that it matters, since they manage to incarcerate Trickster and Piper for approximately five minutes. Two major questions come up in this issue, one posed out loud by Holly Robinson: what is Athena's motivation for gathering up scantily clad, acrobatically advanced women from all over the world. Is the Goddess of Wisdom hip to the fact there may be some deity vacancies opening up and getting set up for a power play?

More interesting to me is a little quirk in the backup feature, where Superboy's name is studiously avoided. There were rumors floating around that DC no longer had the rights to use the name Superboy and that this might have motivated the offing of Connor Kent. PsychoSuperboy's new moniker as "Prime" seems to back this up, although DC has on occassion stopped using characters that had any kind of legal entanglements, a policy which has kept much of Grant Morrison's "Doom Patrol" run out of print even after DC won a lawsuit filed by Charles Atlas regarding Flex Mentallo. I hope for DC's sake that no one from Malibu Comics knows they're using the name Prime for a kid in a cape.

In other news, DC has announced that Jim Starlin will be writing a "Death of the New Gods" miniseries in October, running for eight issues and probably finishing up at the same time as "Countdown". Meaning that one more "Countdown" storyline will be resolved outside the book itself. I find myself simultaneously happy and angry about these types of things. If I'm going to read a New Gods story, sure, I wouldn't mind having it penned by Starlin. Gail Simone was writing the hell out of the "Search for Ray Palmer" and I consistently enjoy Ron Marz's writing on Kyle Rayner. These stories are ending up in the hands of highly qualified talents. But there remains the nagging question: "What is 'Countdown' supposed to be doing?"

As a complete aside, if you're looking for a mindblowing comic to read this week, please pick up "Madman". I caught maybe a fourth of a third of Allred's visual references and fully intend to go back to this book panel by panel, but it's one of the most visually impressive superhero-ish books I've read since the tarot issue of "Promethea".

#43- Crowd Noise

Well, if you ever needed convincing that making a heartfelt video for post mortem viewing is not such a hot idea, here you go. Robin and the Teen Titans decide that the best place for a first viewing of Bart Allen's last words is in front of a stadium of Keystoners. Lucky for everyone involved it was a speech on heroism and fun times, rather than Bart confessing his unrequited love for Beast Boy.

On the subject of odd choices of venue, hadn't Bart relocated to Los Angeles after his return? It speaks pretty well of the people of Keystone that they can rally up by the stadium-full to mourn a Flash that wasn't even in residence.

More importantly, shouldn't this whole thing have gone down in "The Flash"? After all, Bart never even appeared in "Countdown". And where is Wally, or the rest of the JLA for that matter?

Anyone want to speculate on what it is that Rose Wilson is holding? Maybe it's just the color, but it reminds me vaguely of something I found under my girlfriend's bed once that filled me with a sense of inadequacy. It would also be nice if the Robins didn't all sport the same haircut.

The funeral as framing device/backdrop can be wonderfully executed. James Robinson's portrayal of Ted Knight's funeral at the end of "Starman" manages to showcase character, using small talking head panels that gave a sense of each speaker's movement within their eulogy. And the eulogies themselves allowed Robinson to move in and out of the funeral's events to recount the week leading up to the funeral. Here, the perspective zooms around haphazardly, giving no sense of where anyone is in relation to anyone else. The most aggregious example is on pages three and four, where Rose Wilson is shown sitting both to the left of Beast Boy and to the right of...that one that wears the hood. Also, the funeral barely skips a beat when two of the suspects bolt down the center aisle and are shot at out in the parking lot.

The bloodthirsty portrayal of Wonder Girl here is completely out of line with any prior characterization. It seems implausible that the same girl who spent an entire year trying to resurrect her boyfriend, well aware that his killer was still alive, suddenly goes Charles Bronson after losing another friend.

Enough. There are positive points here, so let's get to them. The Monarch storyline has actually become (wait for it) a storyline! While an army of...somethings...led by Forerunner is significantly less terrifying than the newly formed Sinestro Corps (and let me join everyone else in saying that the "Sinestro Corps Special" is a pretty nifty bit of storytelling), it at least constitutes an understandable plan. All you need to set up is a purpose, with a motive, and the means to achieve that purpose. Monarch and Forerunner want to stop the Monitors. Purpose. The Monitors, via an unidentified female proxy, have wiped out all of Forerunner's people. Motive. They have an army right out of "Attack of the Clones" set up in the Bleed. Means. See, it wasn't that hard after all.

Jimmy Olsen resolves to use his powers! Again!

Mutton Chop Monitor turns out to be sort of a whiny little wet blanket. It looks like he'll be playing chaperone in the wacky romantic comedy section of our story. Of course, it looks like Kyle Rayner's got bigger problems than getting his woman stolen by Zombie Jason Todd.

The introduction of Harley Quinn was nicely done, glad to see she's recovered from Morrison's "Batman" work. If any of that is actually in continuity.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but my favorite advancement of the plot this week involved the Rogues. Piper and Trickster falling into the hands of another band of villians actually catches my interest, although Piper's need to pay his respects to Bart is totally insufficient reasoning for both characters to walk into a stadium full of angry superheroes and vengeful Keystoners.

I'm finding my faith in this series' ability to pull itself out of its current slump is reaching near-religious stature. For the moment, I'm picking up the book for three basic reasons. The first is this little blog thing, which when you come right down to it, there are probably better ways for my to use my time. In fact, my editor was just mentioning something along those very lines. The second is that there is something about the relative botching of this big ticket project that's facinating in a kind of car-wreck way. But third is that I really like big, sprawling stories and DC is giving every indication that they're building up to one. I just wish they'd up and get started already.

Hope from Without

Once again, the marketing campaign surrounding "Countdown" proves much more interesting than the book itself. This week, DC released the second teaser image, the villians equivalent of the image that preceded "Countdown". At around the same time, Dan Didio explicated the first teaser image in a manner I won't even attempt to parse. But if you've ever played the gym class team-building favorite, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (at least that's what we called it when we were kids), the standard "touch the ground and you're dead" rules are in play. Except for the safe zone that Supes and Wonder Woman are on.

A couple people have already pointed out the similarities between this image and DaVinci's "The Last Supper", which would jive well with the obvious appropriation of pieta imagery in the last teaser. For the most part, this doesn't yield any clues, except that it casts J'on in the Judas role, with the Joker as Peter and the Kingdom Come Superman as (doubting) Thomas. And let's be honest, those are really the only apostles any of us know anything about.

Other things to note: Trickster is carrying Piper's pipe and KC Superman is either holding a yellow power ring or the Atom. Black Racer's ski gear, a broken arrow (Connor? Ollie?), a motherbox, the Kirbytech from the last teaser and the Crime Bible are all scattered on the ground, Granny Goodness and Desaad look pretty cheery considering who's statue they're standing on, and Catwoman is about to get more than just advice from the Joker, if the buzzer in his hand is any indication.

And for the record, I dig Lex's old purple and greens. I think they should fight Aquaman's old costume.

The two big questions are where are we at and who's the man in black? As for Supes, we've seen the black togs in the "Return of Superman" and the "Emperor Joker" storylines, but search me as to how it fits in here. The sky could be the kind of flamepits Intergang tried to let loose on Gotham in "52", but it seems more likely, especially after the events in "Sinestro Corps" (which I have been unable to get a copy of, but feel like I've read) that we're seeing the Anti-Matter universe. Or the Anti-Matter Multiverse. Or the Anti-Multi-Matter-Verse.

So again, DC has tried to rally fans to its big projects through the marvels of marketing rather than the books themselves. With sales flagging on "Countdown" and never really getting started on "Amazons Attack", one can only hope a campaign of in-house ads will have some effect.

More likely to have an effect is the ouster of editor Mike Marts in favor of Mike Carlin. Carlin shepherded four Superman books a month (that's one a week, folks!) through some major events back in the day and managed to coordinate them with other titles pretty seamlessly. I'm not convinced that the problems on this book can all be traced to editorial decisions, but Marts was clearly not cut out for this position. His editorial stint on the X-books was most notable for the lack of crossover between books, as creators like Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon built sandboxes for themselves and went about constructing beautiful and self-contained castles within them. The multivalent nature of "Countdown" not to mention the fact the book is helmed by less-than-visionary writers, puts extra pressure on the editor to take control of the book, but "Countdown" thus far is lacking in pacing and direction. Maybe switching Mikes will help.