Category: 52 / countdown / trinity

Everything that has been building up over the course of the counting down of the past ten months finally comes to a head in this issue, as the Great Disaster finally hits, devastating the entire universe, leaving millions dead, cities burning, and human-animal hybrids destroying whatever’s in their paths. And, let me tell you, for all the build, all the escalation, all the anticipation, there’s really only one sentence I need to fully encapsulate my reaction to this issue:

Boy, does it ever suck.

First, let’s dispense a quick summation before we jump into the logic behind the reasons why this issue is completely worthless. The story is told by Buddy Blanks’ narration; there is absolutely no dialogue in this issue. He’s a scientist at Cadmus on this alternate earth. Martian Manhunter still looks the way he did prior to Brave New World, and he’s still a part of the JLA. The morticoccus virus escapes Karate Kid’s body, and it spreads. Quickly. It infects people and turns them into wild animals, at which point they kill everybody around them, burn stuff, just, y’know, fuck as much shit up as possible.

The virus eventually spreads overseas, and the entire world is clueless as to how to stop it. Buddy decides to leave Cadmus and go find his family before they’re infected, at which point Una decides to go with him. She explains (through Buddy’s narration) that, since the virus was hosted in Karate Kid, and since disease prevention and medicine is so much more advanced in the time period that Karate Kid comes from (the 31st Century), that there’s no way we’ll be able to cure it, even if we spend the next ten centuries trying to develop a way to do it. The virus has already countered every possible threat to it, far into the future. Get it? Good.

At issue’s close, Green Lantern Hal Jordan from this earth heads to space to find help, unwittingly taking the virus with him. So, the whole universe is doomed! (more…)

If the competition for the year’s worst cover were held today, friends, you’ve got your winner right there. An expressionless Kyle Rayner throws up the weakest Green Lantern force field ever made, as Superman cracks down on it with an angry left hand (though he looks more constipated than angry), Wonder Woman shatters it with her lasso (much to the surprise of a Donna Troy with some serious blower’s cramps), and Batman does his own damage with … purple pills?

Add to that the fact that what you see there on that cover doesn’t even come close to happening within the actual issue, and I’d say even Michael Turner should be safe this year. Plus, if you’re going to put big bold words on the cover that read, “Challenging the Justice League!” and then not include anything even remotely resembling a challenge to anybody in the issue, well, fuck, I don’t know what to say to you.

Enough about the cover, though. What actually happens on the inside? Well, all our main characters are back on Earth (but which one?). Holly and Harley head back to Gotham, Jason leaves the group, and everybody else heads to the Hall of Justice. Once they get there, the Justice League says, “We don’t know you! Who are you people?” Superman then starts flying toward them, and Firestorm teleports them all away.

Once away, Holly and Harley magically show up, along with Jimmy Olsen, and they all say the same thing. Nobody here knows them. What could possibly be the explanation? If only they’d been spending the past year traveling through the Multiverse, maybe they would realize there are lots of Earths out there with slightly subtle differences and then possibly they could think of some sort of a clue!

The bulk of this issue, however, is spent with the heroes arguing, again. Una wants to save Karate Kid, but Ray says it’s going to be nearly impossible. They eventually go to Cadmus, and they argue some more, until some guy with little horns (named Dubbilex) shows up and says, that, though he’d like to help, Karate Kid is already dead.

It’s funny how the big cliffhanger last week was Ray Palmer saying that they now had to decide whether or not to kill Karate Kid, but then they don’t really decide anything this week; they just keep arguing the same bullshit. And, then, whoops, too late; Karate Kid’s dead. Take that, Ralph Macchio!

I’ve seriously been waiting for the past forty-four weeks to make a bad Ralph Macchio joke.

Man, this thing just keeps amping up more and more! I’m so excited to see what happens next that I can barely even oh wait no I’m not.

Well, would ya look at that cover? Is this the first Countdown appearance for Blue Beetle, Doctor Fate, Hal Jordan, Hawkman, and the Flash? Why, yes. Yes, it is. What an odd time to introduce them. Oh, wait, silly me; they’re not actually in this issue. They’re just on the cover. I’m getting ahead of myself.

In thinking of how to approach writing this blog entry, I started to feel bad about how negative my blogs about Countdown have become lately, so I decided to start this week off by pointing out at least one good thing about this issue. So, here goes nothing: They finally explain why Captain Atom went from being a hero at the end of the Captain Atom: Armageddon mini-series to the tyrant Monarch (aside from the fact that he was put in the armor at the end of Battle for Bludhaven). Aren’t you just dying to know what the answer is? Solomon the Monitor did it off-panel.

Bah.

Let’s move on. What happens this week? I need a beer.

Ok, starting over. What happens this week? The heroes argue. That’s pretty much it. Karate Kid’s infected, obviously, and Una wants to take him home, but Ray Palmer thinks that’s a bad idea, since it would unleash the Great Disaster. Seriously, she should just listen to that ominous name and realize that can’t be a good thing.

Also, Jimmy Olsen has arrived with the Biker Mice from Mars (only, instead of mice, they’re hippies, and instead of Mars, they’re from somewhere else), and he wants to confront Darkseid, but Donna Troy thinks that’s a bad idea.

Eventually, Solomon the Monitor gets sick of all this shit (like me!) and zaps the whole gang off Apokolips, back to Earth. Uh-oh, Spaghetti-O’s! Ok, actually, now that they’re back on Earth, the Great Disaster is going to hit, and it’s at that point that it will no longer make sense as to why they’ve stopped tying all of the other DC books in with Countdown. We’re facing one big clusterfuck over the next couple of months, I have a feeling.

That’s all that happens. I’m sick of wasting my time on this crap. Thankfully, it’s almost over.

Oh, and one last thing. Now that the cosmic chess game between Darkseid and Solomon is over, are they at least going to answer the question of what they were even playing for? Seems a lot was at stake for it to just be a game for kicks.

Wow, what a great week for comics. Marvel had two really near criminally kick-ass issues come out from their Icon line; Captain America and Daredevil continue to prove why Ed Brubaker is my favorite writer in the comics industry; Superman and Earth-Man took to fisticuffs in the super cool Action Comics; Grant Morrison’s Batman finally started making a little bit of sense; and the greatest comic book today shipped, with the latest and greatest issue of the Goddamn Batman hitting comic shops nationwide. Reading through my stack was more fun today than it has been in months.

Until I read that stupid goddamn dumb Countdown issue.

If you woke up this morning and said to yourself, “Man, you know what I could go for? OMACs swarming around unsuspecting heroes who are really afraid of the swarm in spite of the fact that OMACs have never and will not ever kill a single hero,” well, then, buddy, this issue is for you! For everyone else, you know what I’m talking about.

This issue opens with Pied Piper encountering an angry Desaad, who demands Piper play a song on his flute to open up the Anti-Life Equation, so that Desaad can use it to rule Apokolips. Apparently, Desaad’s been planning everything with Piper and Trickster up to this point, somehow guiding them along on their journey. Here I thought Darkseid was behind all the metaphysical moving around of people, but I guess Desaad wanted to take some claim of the nonsensical action, too. Good for him!

They get separated for a time, but reunite at the issue’s close, when Piper plays a song that makes Desaad’s head pop. Grody! (more…)

Holy smokes! I’m running a little late with the ol’ recap this week, but my exclamation is referring to the fact that this series is almost down to the single digits, and there still hasn’t been one good issue. This one is no different. It brings things closer to the end, sure, and brings several big “storylines” together, but it also commits two mistakes that seem to be staples of this series to date. First, the photo on the cover doesn’t have anything to do with what’s inside; and, second, one of the main plot points in this issue directly negates one of the biggest plot points of a different series that is supposedly taking place along the same timeline at the same time.

Awesome!

Let’s get right into it, shall we? Remember, everything is happening on Apokolips right now, so keep that in mind. Oh, and, remember, the theme this week is Crying. We start off with Mary and Holly and Harley, shooting stuff for reasons I don’t care to remember, eventually stumbling upon a giant burning door that apparently talks to Mary and tells her to say the magic word, even though she rejected Black Adam’s powers. She does, the door is broken, and the Gods are free (previously trapped by Granny Goodness, apparently). And they’ve given Mary Marvel her good powers back for freeing them. They then give Holly and Harley some powers and tell them to go kill Granny. (more…)

As we saw last week, all of the major players of Countdown were either given specific instructions to head to Apokolips, or headed there instead out of blind instinctual luck. They’re all parts of the biggest game of chess since Deep Blue defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. Only, this game has cosmic influence, and, hopefully, this time around, the robot will lose. Wait, neither of the players are robots? Oh well.

So, who will win, if it can’t be a robot? Darkseid or Monitor Solomon? Did I even mention last week that they’re playing chess? If I forgot, which I think I did, yeah, they’ve been playing chess since issue 51, which I guess explains why all the characters on this shit series do and say things that don’t make any sense (they’re being manipulated by the cosmic chess game!).

Anyway, what goes down in this issue? In a nutshell, OMACs, Parademons, and Female Furies, oh my! Goddamnit, that’s the tiredest joke ever. I’ll make it up to you before this is over, I swear. (more…)

Hi, everybody! Wow, time flies when nothing’s happening, eh? It seems like only yesterday when comics fans across the country were starting to realize that Countdown was absolutely worthless, and, now, here we are. This series sure has come a long way.

It’s been a long and winding road, with plenty of crossovers to this big super event. Crossovers like “Death of the New Gods,” which has been pretty bad; or “Salvation Run,” which has been stupid and annoying; or “Countdown Presents: Search for Ray Palmer,” which was completely pointless; or “Countdown Presents: Lord Havok and the Extremists,” which has been so stupid looking that I haven’t even picked up a single copy; or “Countdown to Mystery,” “Countdown to Adventure,” and “Countdown Arena,” which have all competed for most pointlessly God-awful mini-series of the past decade. So much has happened over the past nine months!

Psyche! Nothing’s happened. At all. (more…)

What top secret message does a giant flaming hand have for the Challengers of Beyond? What would lead anybody to say the words, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you to death?” What happened off-panel between last week when Forerunner was challenging Monitor Solomon to a death match, and when they first show up this week, with her knocked unconscious? Wait no, that one doesn’t work. Where there is life, according to Monitor-51, what else is there? What sound effect is used when a fist punches through the back of a human head? For the absolutely thrilling answers to these burning questions, and many more, look no further than the pages of Countdown to Final Crisis #13, on newsstands now!

I can’t do that to you. The answers are, “To Apokolips,” no fucking clue, ditto, hope, and, apparently, “Sklutch!” Hit the jump, y’all. (more…)