May 9th RoundUp

posted by JediSheltie @ 7:22 PM

Slow week, with one extremely notable exception, of course.

Countdown 51

Fast on the heels of weekly comic even 1, we have weekly comic event 2, Countdown. I'm not sure how I'll be handling this one, as ignoring 52 until the end might not have been the best course of action. Still, I don't want a weekly 'fixture' in the column. Supposedly these issues will be divided into monthly sub-arcs, so I might go with reviewing those, wrap-up style. Obviously the premiere issue is the premiere issue, so can't just ignore that.

As a bit of a mea culpa, and as absolutely no one pointed out, my "wrap-up" of 52 overlooked Ralph Dibny's story arc completely. A significant oversight, as he ended up being the much-promised "death" indicated at the beginning of the series.

Countdown promises many things, according to various press releases, but primarily it seems to attempt to continue the idea of plucking some lesser known inhabitants of the DCU and building interesting stories around them, while adding in some of the "headliners" to the mix. Thus there's a big guy in a blue suit with an "S" on his chest right in the middle of the big wraparound cover to this issue.

Unlike a lot of big events, this one doesn't start out with the proverbial world-shattering bang. They've got 52 issues to fill, so perhaps they're saving the world shattering for something in the lower teens. Not to mention whatever this is “counting down” to. To wit, we find Duela Dent, sometime member of the Teen Titans and self-professed daughter of the Joker, performing the petty heist of the latest pop starlet and getting foiled by recently “resurrected” Jason Todd. Most people didn't find her linage claim credible, but it turns out that was only because all those people were not from her earth.

Duela, like a few others rattling around "Earth 1" are refugees from different parts of the multiverse, and the Monitors are on the job... monitoring them. And killing them, it turns out. Duela meets her maker basically for being out of her universal jurisdiction. Todd is next on the list before another Monitor intervenes to stop it. The idea of "rogue" Monitors seems to provide the initial foundation for the bigger events of the series, and being a veteran of the original Crisis, is one I find quite interesting.

Such larger events are equally foreshadowed in a move that picked my fond Superfirends memories. Darkseid is back, with his usual ill intent. After being absent from the DCU for almost 2 years, we learn he's actually managed to ratchet up his ambitions from simple universal domination.

Like 52, there's more than 1 thread here, not all initially portending a massive altering of the status quo in the DC Universe. Mary Marvel, now de-powered, is shown recently awaking from her coma, finding out she's no longer able to wield the power of a god and finding “normality” a rather odd sensation.

Two members of the Flash's "Rogues Gallery" get together to banter a bit briefly in the one introduction that doesn't really go anywhere. It's not to say I might not be attached to these characters 1 year from now, but, out the gate, that segment didn't 'wow' me. Experience with 52 has shown that time is on their side if the story is good enough.

Paul Dini pens the issue, of Batman The Animated Series fame, and recently of Detective Comics. As the guy who created Harley Quinn, he has fun with Duela Dent before he kills her. Seems like a bit of waste, but I'm not going to mourn her passing too greatly. After all, there's a few extra universes out there and one of the probably has a Duela left over. The rest of the script is generally setup, and as such the dialog is mostly expository in nature. It's the first issue, so none of this surprising.

Art chores went to Jesus Saiz, who performed well. Again, I'm in the "it's fine" category here, where I find myself on most art except the very best or very worst, and even those categorizations are so subjective as to be useless. Countdown is off to a good start. Great, not yet, but it's only issue 1. There is a different creative team here than on 52, but the lessons of 52 should be relatively fresh. I'm confident this will be a worthy successor, even without the “rock stars” of DC penning it.

JLA Classified 38

Though better than "Red King" this effort doesn't seem to be doing much of the proverbial "justice" to the so-named League. I've seen in numerous places the claim that recent stories have been composed of stories that were initially planned for release in the main "JLA" title, prior to Infinite Crisis and the ending of the JLA series. Seeing stories that were "tabled" is, in part, interesting, but like deleted scenes on a DVD, sometimes you can't help but say to yourself, "Yeah, they deleted this for a good reason."