Possible Countdown Arena Matchups

If you picked up this month's Wizard you might have noticed a two page spread featuring the proposed match ups for the upcoming Countdown Arena. These are much different than the fan voting options from several months ago and Wizard doesn't make any effort to clear up whether these are their dream fights or actual fights in the upcoming series. Based on how I read the article, it seems like these are legit fights that Wizard is showing us. However, Wizard is fond of twisting the truth with stuff like this, so take these battles with a grain of salt.

That said, some notables featured are the Kingdom Come Green Lantern, 'Darkseid' Superman and even Watchmen's Rorshach. Heck, even Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond makes an appearance in this spread. Check out a full sized version and list of who's who in the image after the jump.

Click for larger image.

If you're not up to snuff on your DC Elseworlds, here's a run down of all the match ups.

Kingdom Come Green Lanter VS Darkseid Superman

KC GL is obviously from Kingdom Come and features Alan Scott with a few extra years under his belt and he needs no power ring as he has integrated the lantern into his armour. The evil Superman in this battle is from Superman: The Dark Side, which featured a Kal-El who's rocket was diverted to and landed on Apokolips where he was raised by Darkseid.

Watchman's Rorschach VS Dark Knight Returns Batman

This one came out of no where. I thought Watchmen would be completely hands off. Seeing these two characters from genre defining stories facing off against each other should make quite the main event.

Red Rain Batman VS Red Son Superman

Shame to see two of my favourite Elseworlds characters have to face off against one another, but this should be an interesting battle as the vampire Batman will most likley be magical in nature and able to stand up against the world conquering Soviet Superman.

Gotham by Gaslight Batman VS Earth-2 Huntress

This match up is much more mundane, featuring the Victorian era Batman versus his Earth-2 counterpart's daughter, the Huntress. Hard to imagine a Huntress, even if it is a Batman's daughter, winning against any era's Batman, but who knows how this will play out.

In Darkest Knight Batman VS Secret Society Green Lantern

IDK Batman is a Green Lantern himself, so this should be quite the match up.

The Nail Joker VS Robin 3000

This is an odd one as it features the Joker from the world without a Superman versus a Robin from a future Earth where aliens rule the planet.

Elseworld's Finest Supergirl VS Amazonia Wonder Woman

On a world where there is no Batman or Superman, Supergirl became Earth's mightest defender. However, she's up against another Victorian era hero in the form of this Amazonia Wonder Woman.

Justice Riders Hawkman VS Batman Beyond Batman

This match up sees the power suit wearing Batman from the animated series Batman Beyond taking on the Old West version of Hawkman.

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Countdown Review - The Rogues: Villains Defiant

I'm sure you're tired of hearing about Countdown by now, but here's the last of my midway reviews for the individual storylines in honour of the name change to Countdown to Final Crisis. This one features the ever loveable Rogues - Trickster and Piper. This storyline, while usually entertaining, appeared to only be in Countdown as a way to tie into and increase sales on various other books, like the Green Arrow / Black Canary wedding or promoting the upcoming Salvation Run. To get caught up on this storyline and find out what I think, hit the jump for the full review!

The Rogues: Villains Defiant

Trickster and Piper’s adventure begins as a series of 4 to 5 page “tie-ins” in each issue that have little to nothing to do with Countdown, similar to the early Karate Kid / Lightning Saga “tie-ins” that wasted pages.

These tie-ins consisted of several meetings with the other Flash Rogues, such as Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Heatwave, etc, who are all being gathered together by Inertia to kill Bart Allen.

Unfortunately, the entire death of the Flash ended up being completely relegated Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13. If you were reading Countdown, you never get to see the death of the Flash and have to assume the Rogues are telling you the truth when they say they had nothing to do with Bart’s death.

However, this completely contradicts the events in the Flash book, seeing as the two were shown beating the powerless Flash to death with the other Rogues. To this day, DC claims Trickster and Piper had nothing to do with his death. Adding to the confusion of whether they did or did not help kill the Flash, DC showed in the Trickster and Piper villain origins that Trickster did indeed help kill Flash while Piper had nothing to do with it.

Post-death of the Flash and despite the confusion over their involvement in the murder, both Trickster and Piper go on the lamb to avoid the authorities and mass of super-heroes attempting to track down all the Rogues involved.

However, before they can get too far, they are tracked down by Deadshot and Multiplex, who easily capture them as they are leaving the funeral for the Flash. The two wake up to find themselves chained together with a shock chain, which shocks the two if they move too far away from each other.

Utilizing a trick tooth, Trickster creates a distraction which helps the duo escape. However, as soon as they exit the ‘room’ they were in, they quickly realize they were aboard an airplane and are now falling to their deaths. Thinking fast, Trickster manages to find his trick boots, which help him float on air, and uses them to help slow their fall enough that they survive the splash down in Gotham harbour.

From here, the two go on a merry romp through the DCU, constantly eluding heroes and the Suicide Squad’s attempts to capture them. Their first stop, seeing that they are in Gotham, was to see the Penguin in hopes he could help them lay low and free themselves of the shock chain.

Unbeknownst to them, Penguin is working with the Suicide Squad and has set the two up to be captured in his cellar. Somehow, the two manage to elude certain capture at the hands of the Suicide Squad as they flee Penguin’s club.

Leaving Penguin’s club, the two quickly run into Oracle’s agents, the new Question and Batwoman. After Trickster uses some hand puppets to explain how they weren’t involved in the murder of the Flash, the Question, in one of Countdown’s most ridiculous scenes, lets them go, deeming them too stupid to have killed Bart.

Their next stop seems to only exist to help sell the Green Arrow Wedding tie-ins, where the duo manage to run into both Poison Ivy and Deathstroke as they plan to crash Green Arrow’s wedding. The duo end up strung up for Batman to find, who passes them off to Wally West, who has returned as the new Flash.

In another contrived plot point, Wally simply believes the two after a few brief exchanges where they simply say they didn’t kill Bart. Flash decides to take them to Zatanna’s, where they go on to tie-in to Black Canary’s bachelorette party and, later, the actual wedding special.

Once they’ve ‘helped out’ the heroes at the wedding, the Rogues steal a car and take their unexpected tag along, Double Down, with them to a diner. As the group chat, the Rogues learn of the disappearing villains, which changes the focus of the Rogues’ story into a series of Salvation Run tie-ins / preludes.

No sooner then they learn of the villain disappearances does the Suicide Squad show up at the diner to apprehend the trio of villains. Trickster and Piper manage to escape using Trickster’s cloaking trick. After evading the Suicide Squad yet again, the duo decide to follow them and free the other villains that have been captured so that they will owe both Trickster and Piper and will hopefully help them in turn.

In the last issue, Countdown #27, the duo manages to infiltrate the complex holding the villains and run into a captured Two-Face. After freeing him from his guards, he relates to them that it is Checkmate that is rounding up all the villains and further elaborates on the premise of the upcoming Salvation Run series. For some odd reason, after freeing Two-Face, the duo leave the complex, not bothering to find any other villains or information and flee the facility in a stolen vehicle, which is the last we see of them as the title changes to Countdown to Final Crisis.

Kirk Says: The Rogues’ story has been fairly good. However, it has, after 26 issues, nothing to do with the overall Countdown story. I can see lines connecting every other story to the Monitors, Darkseid and the Multiverse, but no such connection exists with the Rogues. Every scene they are in, whether it is comical or not, seems like nothing more than a tie-in for other books.

I’m confused as to whether there is ever going to be a reason behind all these pages devoted to the Rogues’ story or if they will continue to merely be vehicles to tie into other books. They have a lot of funny scenes together, but also a lot of stupid ones, like the Question and Flash meetings. So, I’m torn between wanting to see more of these two and not wanting a bunch of filler tie-in advertisements being passed off as important stories.

Verdict – Average. If there was a clear point to all these scenes, other than to advertise other books, like Flash, Green Arrow / Black Canary Wedding and Salvation Run, I would give this storyline a higher grade. Hopefully, with the name change, this story will gain a clear focus and begin to show signs of being important to the overall story and not just a series of tie-ins.

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Countdown Review - Monarch & The Monitors

We're reaching the end of the Countdown reviews with this second-to-last review of the Monarch & The Monitors storyline. This has been a sort of background story that has been building up over the last half year and is just now coming out in full force with Monarch's active recruiting and the Monitor's catching up with the Challengers. If you've missed the previous reviews, hit up the introduction post, which explains what these are all about and has a nice table of contents guiding you to all the different reviews. That said, on with the review!

Monarch & The Monitors

Countdown was kicked off with a rogue Monitor taking matters into his own hands and killing Duela Dent during her encounter with Jason Todd. If not for the intervention of our Earth’s Monitor, who later is named Bob, the evil Monitor would have gone on to kill Jason as well, which would kind of make him kind of a good guy in my opinion, but I digress.

The reasons behind this attack on Duela and Jason were that they were anomalies that should not exist that passed over to our world from other Earths. They, along with Kyle Rayner and Donna Troy, represent people from our Earth that have crossed through the Bleed and breached the barriers between Earths. The more that cross over, the weaker the barriers between each Earth and the Bleed get. The rogue Monitor believes this weakening will lead to the Great Disaster and must be stopped at all costs, hence the killings.

After the encounter with the rogue Monitor, our Monitor, Bob, goes on to consult the Source Wall as to the cause of the problems plaguing the new Multiverse to which the Wall responds, “Great Disaster”. When Bob asks for a solution the Wall responds with “Ray Palmer”, which sets Bob on his collision course with the Challengers, Donna, Jason and Kyle.

Eventually, all 52 Monitors from each individual Earth meet to discuss what to do with the anomalies. Eventually a decision is made, to the shock of Bob, to purge them all. This is where the Forerunner, Viza Aziv, is introduced. The Forerunners are a race engineered by the Monitors to act as their tools and she is dispatched to find and kill Donna Troy and Jason Todd.

Forerunner catches up to the duo in the midst of Amazons Attack where she nearly succeeds in killing both heroes before Bob shows up. Bob quickly calls of the Forerunner, who cannot disobey the Monitor and is physically unable to even fight back against him. With the Forerunner subdued, Bob ferries away the two heroes. Their story picks up in Challengers From Beyond: The Search For Ray Palmer.

After her defeat, Forerunner’s honour is sullied and she must enter a self-imposed exile. Enter Monarch, who had been observing the battle. Seeing how important Forerunner is, Monarch tracks her down and convinces her to join him and lead his army, which he is preparing to use against the Monitors. Initially, Forerunner turns him down, but upon hearing that the Monitors had completely wiped out her race while she was gone, she quickly changes her mind and joins Monarch’s cause.

Meanwhile, the Monitors continue to, um, monitor the anomalies and witness Kyle Rayner’s role in the Sinestro Corps War where he is infected by the Parallax entity. His continued existence causes further bolsters the Monitors’ decision to wipe out all the anomalies. Upon learning that Bob has joined up with the rogue anomalies, the Monitors decide to eliminate him as well. Uato, The Watcher, these guys are not.

During this time, Monarch and Forerunner’s adventures picked up in the Countdown to Adventure, where Forerunner’s origin was told to us and we see their recruitment of heroes, and villains, from other Earths in an attempt to build an army to take on the Monitors.

Monarch and Forerunner’s path begins to intersect with the Challengers soon after the Challengers leave Earth-3. After they depart Earth-3, Monarch shows up almost immediately after and recruits the Crime Society into his ever growing army.

Monarch and the Monitors’ paths eventually cross on Earth-8 when they all meet up with the Challengers during their battle with Lord Havok and the Extremists. The evil Monitor arrived in an attempt to kill the Challengers, but only succeeded in killing the tag along Jokester before being forced to retreat with the arrival of Monarch.

Monarch, in turn, tried to recruit the Extremists into his army. When they refused and attacked him, Monarch called in reinforcements, in the form of the Crime Society, to handle the Challengers and Extremists.

During the battle, Monarch offers the Challengers a spot in his army, to which they refuse. However, in the last issue of Countdown during the ensuing brawl, Jason Todd kills one of the Extremists, betrays the Challengers by shooting Donna with Bob’s gun and takes Monarch up on his offer to join his cause, leaving us with the cliffhanger of his betrayal as we head into Countdown to Final Crisis.

Kirk Says: This is not so much a storyline as it is the spine of the series that seems to be connecting most of the events together. Monarch and Forerunner are one of the best parts of the book, but didn’t show up until about half way through the series and only just recently started being a driving force in the story.

The Monitors, with the exception of Bob and the evil one, have little to no personalities and have been depicted as identical in just about every way. Future previews show much more unique models for each Monitor, but as of right now, they all have appeared the same and had little to no personalities. In fact, their motivations all appear to be forced. One minute they are against making a rash decision to kill the anomalies and then, after one 2 panel speech from the evil Monitor, they all quickly switch stances and agree to kill them all. It just came off as forced.

However, the more recent appearances on the behalf of both Monarch and the Monitors have been great. It’s good to finally see the storylines intersecting and some action happening. I’m curious to see how the Monitors react to Monarch’s growing army and if they will in turn recruit their own or how they will go about combating him.

Verdict – Excellent. Countdown began with the introduction of the evil Monitor killing Duela Dent, but after that, they sort of faded to the background for a month or two. Once Monarch and Forerunner came into play, this storyline really started gaining momentum and, leading into the Countdown to Final Crisis, this story is firing on all cylinders. Lots of potential here, but my only concern is whether the large number of tie-ins related to their progress will hurt their overall story. They already have Countdown to Adventure and Countdown Arena is coming up as well as appearances in Search for Ray Palmer one-shots.

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Countdown Review - Jimmy Olsen Must Die

I'm bringing you another installment of my Countdown reviews, this time featuring Jimmy Olsen Must Die. If you have no idea what these reviews are all about, check out the introduction post, which has links to all the reviews.

Basically, Countdown is at the midway point of the year long series and they are changing the name to Countdown to Final Crisis. I took this opportunity to post summaries and reviews of all the major storylines and this review is one of several in that series of reviews.

Now that you know what this is all about, hit the jump for the full review.

Jimmy Olsen Must Die

Jimmy Olsen’s storyline opens in Gotham City with a rather mundane interview with Jason Todd in Countdown #50, if you can call a post-ninja stomping interview with a murdering, back from the grave psycho mundane. The interview deals with the death of Duela Dent from the previous issue. Todd, in a rather giving mood, relates the details to Jimmy and points him in the direction of the Joker, seeing as Duela claimed to be his daughter.

Seeing as he's in Gotham, Jimmy takes a trip to Arkham to see the Joker. The interview doesn’t go that well and Joker is as insane as ever, alluding to conspiracies and future disasters while claiming to not even having a daughter. Considering her name was Duela DENT, you'd think he'd pop in and say hello to Harvey Dent while he was there or at least get Superman to look him up for him.

Jimmy, seeing this was a dead end lead, checks in with Lois Lane. While Jimmy is talking on the phone, the guards decide to transport Killer Croc to his cell. Predictably, he breaks free and attacks his guards and the unsuspecting Jimmy, who obviously has a hearing problem, seeing as he couldn’t hear the giant lizard man killing several guards. Just as our intrepid photographer / would-be reporter was about to be maimed, he exhibits stretching powers even Mr. Fantastic would envy. Shortly after, the dazed and drugged Croc is taken down by incoming guards, leaving the confused and bewildered Jimmy, and readers, wondering what just happened.

Over the course of the next several issues, Jimmy begins exhibiting more and more new powers, such as super speed and the ability to project spikes from his body. They all seem to mirror old Silver Age stories where Jimmy seemed to develop a new power every other issue, but the reader and Jimmy are both left clueless as to why or how he has them here.

After witnessing the death of the New God Lightray, Jimmy begins having strange dreams of being trapped in the Source Wall with Lightray telling him to “Open Your Eyes Olsen”. These events, combined with his new powers, cause Jimmy to investigate further.

Shortly after, Jimmy receives a mysterious letter asking him to come to 666 Suicide Slum to find out more about what happened to Lightray. Compelled to find out more, Jimmy shows up to discover the New God Sleez. Just as Sleez informs him Darkseid can finally be destroyed, the building begins to collapse as Sleez tells Jimmy to get away, that “he” is already here. Sleez is then killed as the omnious words, “So Begins The End”, are heard.

Jimmy’s story picks up again after the death of Bart Allen. After the eulogies for the fallen Flash, Jimmy decides to put his powers to use and become the hero, Mr. Action. He becomes fairly popular and is even featured in several newspaper articles.

Basking in his newfound glory, Jimmy decides to seek membership in a super team. Not wanting to reach too high, too fast, Jimmy opts first for the Teen Titans. After a disastrous try out where his powers failed to even activate, Jimmy realizes he needs to be in actual danger before they will work.

Fresh off being turned away from the Titans, Jimmy reveals to the reader and Clark Kent that he knows he is Superman while ripping Clark's shirt apart to reveal the Superman costume beneath. This shocking cliffhanger was never followed up on in Countdown and I later found out I was supposed to buy Action Comics for the rest of that storyline.

Following those appearances in Action Comics, Jimmy convinces Superman to help him get a tryout for the Justice League, which resulted in similar results to his Titans tryout where his powers failed to activate against the non-threatening Leaguers.

These defeats lead Jimmy to another tie-in, er, I mean well thought out and meaningful plot development in his visiting John Henry Irons, which was coincidently on the exact week his Infinity Inc book launched. Irons just so happens to have a machine that will manifest what’s going on with Jimmy’s metahuman bio-feedback. This results in a huge backlash of energy projections which resemble the Source Wall and alternate Earths. Irons manages to stop the out of control machine and Jimmy is forced to look elsewhere for answers.

After this, Jimmy goes through a series of completely random meetings, first with people from Cadmus and then with the Newsboy Legion and finally meets up with the New God Forager in the most recent issues.

Forager requests Jimmy’s help in solving the rash of murders of the New Gods, to which Jimmy agrees, since he is the human with the most experience with the New Gods. It appears Jimmy’s story will be continuing in the Death of the New Gods mini-series currently going on as he is seen at the crime scene of the host for Black Racer. Whether we will see him in Countdown to Final Crisis remains to be seen, but I would expect him to be there in some capacity.

Kirk Says: This story started off fairly well. I assumed Jimmy would be the everyman that would connect us to all the major stories and offer a grounded view of everything.

However, what we got was a Silver Age throwback with Jimmy developing random powers every other issue while slowly, but surely, becoming more and more wrapped up in the deaths of the New Gods. This isn’t bad on its own, but it’s taken months to get to this point where Jimmy is finally interacting with the New Gods. We didn’t need week after week of him trying to activate his powers or his days as Mr. Action or the month or so of tests from various characters. It should have been “Lightray dies, Jimmy teams with New Gods, plot advances”, not these long, drawn out filler issues.

One last thing of note is that Jimmy unexplainably knows Jason Todd was Robin and died and came back to life. He also knows Nightwing was Robin and is Dick Grayson. He tells this information to Perry White and, while they don’t outright say Bruce is Batman, any idiot could piece together two former wards of Bruce Wayne turning out to be Robins would point to Bruce as being Batman. Despite this, it’s never explained and never even brought up and one of the major plot holes that is never addressed to my knowledge.

Verdict – Average. This story has its moments, but they are few and far between. I liked the early issues where he was tied more closely to the New Gods, but with his new found powers, he drifted away from that plot and only in the last few weeks is he now back on track with them. The next half of Countdown has a lot of potential and I’m optimistic about it being better than the first half.

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Countdown Review - Mary Marvel: The Seduction of the Innocent

Next on deck for the series of Countdown reviews is the Mary Marvel: The Seduction of the Innocent storyline. This is one of the few stories that read A LOT better in one sitting from start to the midway point of last issue. It still has its problems, but it looks like it has a lot of potential going into the home stretch. Hit the jump for the full summary and review.

Mary Marvel: The Seduction of the Innocent

Mary Marvel’s fall from grace begins after she literally fell from grace in The Trials of Shazam, where she lost her magical powers while flying. This caused her to fall to the ground below and ended with her in a coma for an undisclosed amount of time. Countdown picks up with Mary finally awake, still sans powers, and ready for discharge from the hospital.

Despite being awake again and out of the hospital, Mary is upset and hurt over the fact none of her friends or family bothered to visit her or come see her now that she was awake. Finding out Freddy Freeman had paid for all her hospital bills and left her a note telling her to not to try and find him set her further on her path to destruction.

Ignoring his note, Mary sets out to find Freddy. Her first stop is Madame Xanadu, who informs Mary she cannot locate Freddy. Over the course of their conversation, Xanadu warns Mary to stay away from Gotham City which, in true Countdown fashion, Mary ignores and immediately sets out for.

Her story later picks up on the streets of Gotham with Mary fleeing from a group of muggers. Mary feels inexplicably drawn towards the derelict Khandaq Embassy. Dashing inside, she appears to have been cornered until a mystery man kills the would-be assailants. It is here that we are introduced to the post-WWIII, and supposedly powerless, Black Adam, who is, apparently, fully powered again.

Over the course of several issues, we see Mary pleading with Adam to help her regain her powers or to share some of his own while explaining her situation and how her brother refuses to help her. Just as Adam looks like he will kill Mary, he calls down the thunder and gives Mary all of his power, resulting in a much more mature looking Mary in full black garb, similar in style to Adam’s costume.

Basking in her newfound powers in the skies above Gotham, Mary is drawn to an occult meeting atop one of the rooftops where several mothers summon a baby eating demon. As hilarious as that description sounds, it is actually one of the better scenes in Mary’s fall and the battle ends with Billy Batson summoning Mary to the Rock of Eternity after the defeat of the demon.

Once at the Rock of Eternity, Billy informs Mary that he summoned her to tell her that he is the Rock of Eternity and he has replaced the wizard Shazam. He further explains that Freddy is on his own quest and should he succeed, he will become the new Shazam.

Once Mary explains that she has taken on Adam’s powers, Billy verbally lashes out at Mary, chastising her for taking and using his powers, explaining that it was her destiny not to have powers anymore and that she should live a normal life from now on. Mary does not take kindly to this and proceeds to smash her way out of the Rock of Eternity and leaves Billy to pursue her own destiny by herself if he is unwilling to help her.

From here, Mary seeks out Zatanna to help her understand her new powers. Once the two meet up, they both witness the murders off the New Gods, the Deep Six. During the fallout of their murders, Mary discovers she possesses different magical powers than Black Adam had ever employed when she helps revert several humans that were transformed into monsters back into their true forms.

After the battle, Zatanna takes Mary to her home, Shadowcrest, where she begins to instruct her in basic magics. During her lessons, Mary becomes overcome with the need for more power, almost as if she is possessed or it is beyond her ability to control the desire. She takes one of Zee’s magical artifacts and begins to fight with her, accusing Zatanna of holding her back and treating her like a child.

During this time, it is revealed that Eclipso has been watching Mary’s journey to the dark side. However, Zatanna defeats the inexperienced Mary and banishes her from Shadowcrest forever, casting her out on her own again.

Eclipso continued to watch Mary as she eventually met up with Klarion the Witch Boy. After some trust issues, where the overly friendly Klarion attempted to steal all of Mary’s magic, Mary lashes out with her power before leaving the defeated Klarion.

Sensing that she was finally ready to meet her, Eclipso reveals herself to Mary. Despite her earlier encounter with Klarion, Mary quickly agrees to follow Eclipso, but not before turning several guards into stone statues, which Eclipso then proceeds to behead with the flick of her finger. While DC maintains Mary did not kill them, most fans are hard pressed to believe them.

The most recent issues pick up from here with Shadowpact taking an interest in the out of control Mary. Before confronting her, it is revealed Mary, with Eclipso’s encouragement, has committed many more atrocities, or ‘non-murders’ if you believe DC, such as turning loggers in the rain forest into the trees they would slash and burn. When Shadowpact attempts to stop Mary, they are easily dispatched and Mary teleports away with Eclipso, beyond any magical means of tracking, which, based on Countdown to Mystery, might suggest they are with Darkseid on Apokolips.

Kirk Says: Mary’s storyline suffers from several of what I like to call “Countdownisms”. This is basically where the Countdown plot makes a character do something just for the sake of the story with little rhyme or reason. Sometimes it works, but more often than not, it just comes off as forced or out of character. Things like going straight to Gotham despite being told otherwise or when Zatanna tells her not to touch any of the artifacts and she immediately grabs one are a couple examples that come to mind right away.

Having the Black Adam: The Dark Age mini-series spoiled when Mary’s story first began did not do wonders for my enjoyment of the storyline either, but now that Black Adam is out and one of the best books going despite what happened in Countdown, I find myself caring less about what happened and enjoying that section of the story more than I previously did.

One thing I can’t agree with though is the insistence on DC’s part that Mary did not kill anyone yet. She turned people to stone and watched as Eclipso flicked their heads off. She artificially aged death row inmates until they died. She’s done these and more and if DC tries to redeem Mary by the end of this, I think the story will suffer for it.

Verdict – Average, but has Potential. I have a new found appreciation for Mary’s story after re-reading it from start to this half way point. Where I criticized some scenes in the weekly format, here I find myself enjoying them more. The story is still far from the best going, but it did read a lot better this time around and now that Mary is finally with Eclipso, I expect this story to really take off and actually be one of the better parts of Countdown to Final Crisis.

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Countdown Review - Karate Kid: The OMAC Virus

Rolling right along with my Countdown reviews comes Karate Kid: The OMAC Virus! If you missed the previous reviews, check out the introduction post first and then hit up the Darkseid, Holly Robinson and Challengers reviews. Once you're all caught up, get ready for this Karate Kid review and be sure to check back later for this week's Post-Crisis Comic Book Previews and maybe even another Countdown review! More after the jump.

Karate Kid: The OMAC Virus

Val Armorr’s storyline began with what is one of the biggest complaints lodged against the series – the so-called ‘back bone tie-in’. Just about every issue for the first month or two featured several pages dedicated to disjoint and out of order scenes from the ill-conceived JLA / JSA Lightning Saga storyline. Random scenes, such as Val sitting in his cell in the JLA Watchtower or the exact same fight with Batman that happened weeks earlier in JLA.

It took a while, but after the Lightning Saga ended, Karate Kid and Una stay behind in this time period as the rest of the Legion team heads back to the future. Brainiac 5 has informed Val is journey is not over and he needs to stay in the past to help out. Una eventually leads Karate Kid to Oracle for help. How Una knew of Oracle and where she lived is another one of Countdown’s great plot contrived mysteries.

Upon reaching Oracle, we find her gripped in an excruciating, for the reader, “cyber battle” with the Calculator. With Calculator defeated, Val reveals he is dying and that Oracle is the only one that can save him. Using some magic molecular biology machine that Oracle happened to have for just such an occasion, Val is diagnosed and it is revealed that either the virus is too advanced, or alien in origin, and that Oracle cannot help him. Yes, the computer expert can’t figure out how to cure his mysterious infection. Imagine that.

Oracle then sets the duo on the path to find Mister Orr who, after several issues of Val beating on Superman villains (yes, he physically defeats Superman strength class villains with his kung-fu), who tells Val that his virus is possibly related to the OMAC virus, but far more advanced. The duo gets sent on yet another mission to find someone, this time Buddy Blank. Once the group is gone, Mister Orr goes on to report his findings to Desaad, another clue relating back to the Darkseid storyline.

Once they meet up with Buddy Blank, we find out he is the original creator of the AI that Batman’s Brother Eye satellite was based on. After taking the duo to see his own version of Brother Eye, it is revealed that Val is infected with a future strain of the OMAC virus and Eye goes on to reference the “Great Disaster” and how it has come to him in the form of Val. After a brief scuffle with Brother Eye’s defenses, the team is directed to Bludhaven, where they are currently searching for more clues with Buddy Blank and his grandson.

Of note, the bunker below Bludhaven that the team is looking for is called Command D. This all relates back to Buddy’s grandson, who will eventually go on to become Kamandi, the Last Boy. Whether it all plays out exactly like that series did remains a mystery.

Kirk Says: This storyline has been fairly dull and listless. Nothing has happened and those first few weeks of Val and the Lightning Saga tie-ins were nothing but a waste of space. The last few weeks have progressed the story more than the previous 20 or so weeks, but none of it really matters anymore, as the story has dragged on too long with no major developments or events to keep the reader engaged. I think most are just waiting for this storyline to end and for the creative team to just move on at this stage. Hopefully Dini has something planned in relation to Kamandi with this trip to Bludhaven.

Verdict – Terrible. There’s a hint of promise in this storyline’s conclusion, but I won’t be holding my breath. It’s better than the Amazon stuff, but not by much.

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Countdown Review - Challengers From Beyond: The Search for Ray Palmer

The third part of my series of Countdown summaries and reviews features the Challengers From Beyond: The Search For Ray Palmer. Check out the introduction to find out what these reviews are all about and then make sure you catch up with the Darkseid: Unto Man Shall Come...A Great Disaster and Holly Robinson & The Amazons reviews. Once you're caught up, hit the jump for the Challengers review!

Challengers From Beyond: The Search for Ray Palmer

The Search for Ray Palmer has been the focal point of Countdown since day one when Jason Todd witnessed the death of Duela Dent at the hands of the rogue Monitor and the good Monitor saw the name 'Ray Palmer' appear on the Source Wall.

Barely surviving this encounter with the rogue Monitor, Jason later would go on to meet up with Donna Troy at the funeral the Titans held for Duela Dent, who was a one-time Titan.

During Amazons Attack, in another one of Countdown's 'coincidences', Jason Todd met up with Donna yet again, this time at the Lincoln Memorial, where the two ran into the evil Monitor's agent, Forerunner.

If not for the good Monitor, who was later named Bob, they would not have survived the encounter, as he called off Forerunner, who could not refuse a Monitor due to their genetic breeding, and teleported the duo away.

Later, while conferring with Bob at the funeral for Bart Allen, the Monitor goes on to inform us that the group must seek out the current Atom, Ryan Choi, in order to reach the Nanoverse, where he believes Ray Palmer is located. Another oddity in that the Monitor lacks the power to teleport them to the Nanoverse, begging the question how does he 'monitor' anything in that part of the universe?

Upon entering the Nanoverse, with the help of Atom, the team is quickly captured by the evil Queen Bethelra. During their adventures in the Nanoverse, they learn that several races that inhabit this part of the universe are fleeing into the unknown, fearing a 'great disaster', the first of many clues hinting that something is wrong in the Multiverse.

During their attempted escape from Bethelra, Kyle Rayner, fresh from the as yet unfinished Sinestro Corps War, joins the team after saving them from Bethelra. The Guardians apparently send Kyle on this mission to aid the group in their search for Ray Palmer, and not a moment too soon, as Atom is whisked away to finish his own adventures in his book, leaving the rest of the group to search for Ray Palmer throughout the Multiverse.

This Multiverse Earth jumping storyline gave Countdown the shot in the arm that it really needed and seems to have revitalized the entire book in my opinion. While their first adventure in the Wildstorm Universe of Earth-50 was far from spectacular, the next stop on their tour brought them into conflict with the Crime Syndicate, evil counterparts to the JLA, of Earth-3, which is later revealed to be the newly rechristened Crime Society. This adventure introduced us to the Jokester, father to Duela and moral counterpoint to the insane Joker of our Earth.

Continuing their Earth jumping search for Ray Palmer, the team gets a new member as the Jokester managed to tag along as the team landed on the 'perfect' Earth-15, where each member of the team apparently got everything they ever wanted on this Earth. Jason became Batman. Donna became Wonder Woman and so on. With Ray Palmer still missing, they leave this paradise and head to their next, and final destination in the Countdown book proper, Earth-8, home of the Marvel analogues, Lord Havok and the Extremists. However, Monarch showed up shortly afterwards and recruited the Crime Syndicate into his ever growing Multiverse-spanning army.

Their encounter with the Extremists ended poorly for the Challengers as the entire team gets captured unceremoniously off-panel. This is when all hell breaks loose as the evil Monitor finally gets a lock on the team and arrives on Earth-8 in an attempt to kill the Challengers. During the melee, Monarch shows up to intervene, but not before the evil Monitor manages to kill Jokester. In the ensuing confusion, Bob and Kyle Rayner manage to teleport the team away from the immediate danger, causing his evil Monitor breathern to leave, his prey lost for now.

However, before they can catch their breath, the Crime Society literally bangs down their door and engages the group in another chaotic melee. Monarch tries to recruit the Extremists, similar to how he recruited the Society, but they refuse, resulting in another battle royale.

In the resulting chaos, Jason Todd kills Barracuda, a member of the Extremists and then goes on to betray the team, shooting Donna with the Monitor's gun and then offering his services to Monarch, ending the team's adventures, which leads us into the newly named Countdown to Final Crisis #26.

Kirk Says: This storyline started out quite slowly, but finished incredibly strong, with the introduction of Forerunner the only real highlight early on. Despite this, the introduction of Kyle to the group and the beginning of the Multiverse spanning adventure finally delivered on the book's original premise and this is exactly what I had been hoping for with this book - fun introductions to the numerous 52 Earth's created at the end of 52.

Verdict - Excellent. It started off slow, but built to a roaring finish. After re-reading, the earlier Todd and Donna centric scenes read a lot better to me than when I first read the series back when it started. While few expect Todd's betrayal to last, it has left us with a nice ending to this first act and I expect this storyline to really heat up in the next half as the Challengers visit more and more new Earths.

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