Is It Time To Put Some Heroes Out To Pasture?

IGN Comics had an interesting article up that followed up on something Mark Millar said in an interview they had with him. Millar claimed that Superman, Spider-Man and other major characters are no longer relevant and basically need to be put out to pasture to make way for newer creations and genres, such as Invincible, Walking Dead, more Vertigo and independant work. Here's an excerpt.

I really feel as though there's a massive gap in the market. All of my favorite books are new - Walking Dead, Invincible, the Brian K. Vaughan stuff and everything, you know? Books that really excite me are the new ones. I dearly love Superman and Batman, but even I, right, the guy who has the Superman's cape on the wall in my bloody hall, right, even I am starting to see that I love them like I love Sherlock Holmes. They belong to another era now, you know? I think the reason they don't sometimes sell is that they belong to another era. And it's an era I'm madly in love with, but I can appreciate that 12 year olds maybe aren't. I think… it's almost gone, that stuff. There's almost no interest in it, which is a real shame. I just wonder if maybe they belong to the 20th century.

This started out as a simple opinion piece and grew fairly lengthy. I didn't realize I had that much to say on the topic of how the industry evolved to its current state. Hit the jump for the full diatrab and feel free to comment with your opinion as I'd like to hear what others think of the current state of the industry, its refusal to let go of older workhorses, like Superman, and general remarks.

Concerning Superman

Many longtime Superman fans will jump right up and list a dozen different stories that they think will prove him wrong, and I'd probably agree most of those stories are excellent as well, but does one good story every five years validate the four or five issues a month that are well below average quality simply because just about everything you can say about Superman has been said?

Some of the comments for the IGN article point to All-Star Superman as how Superman should be written. It's an Elseworlds tale. It forgoes all continuity and puts Superman in situations he cannot be in the regular DCU. Is it incredible? Yes, possibly the best book on the market...when it comes out.


What About DC?

DC is terrible for stagnation in their universe. I suppose since their characters have existed roughly twice as long as every other Marvel character can do that to a company, but Warner Bros can also be blamed. WB has a large say in how Superman and Batman are handled. They want a character they can sell merchandise for. You can't have the character drastically change, go evil, turn darker or any other significant change that would affect merchandising, marketing and licensing properties. They don't control every single aspect of the company, but when a character becomes more of a cash cow and property than a character or story, there's a problem.


What About Marvel?

In contrast, Marvel has existed for a relatively short time compared to DC. They are fresher, so to speak, in people's minds compared to DC's. Marvel's characters are also flawed and more realistic, as far as comic book characters can be, than DC's, with the exception of Batman, the most 'Marvel-like' character DC has and thus, the one that's handled the transition throughout the years the best in the DC stable.


Concerning Spider-Man

Even though Marvel is the young gun, Spider-Man's tank seems to be running dry. Ultimate Spider-Man is great, but it's basically rehashing everything that came before with some new twists. Spidey's rogues gallery is in shambles and most every single villain is damaged goods now. Brand New Day is a reversion to 1970 or there abouts.

There are two Spider-Man stories I can think of off the top of my head that I would consider to be excellent in the last 10 to 15 years. The first, surprisingly, is a recent Sensational Spider-Man story that featured Mary Jane stalling some capekillers in a diner while Peter makes his way to meet up with her. The other is Amazing Spider-Man #400, featuring the death of Aunt May before magic and actresses and other crap erased this from existence. Did I like, and note you can like something without it being an All-Star Superman level of quality, other Spidey stories along the way? God yes, but they were far from Spidey's hay day back in the Stern and Romita era or earlier.


When's The Retirement Party?

I honestly don't think every character needs to be written off into the sunset, but there came a time, and we can probably pinpointed it if we wanted to around the death of Gwen Stacy or maybe marriage of Peter and MJ, that Marvel and DC both stopped evolving. It's like someone came in and turned the switch and everyone was forced to stay exactly the same for 30 or 40 years.

Why didn't Peter and MJ move on and have children? Why hasn't Superman aged and taken over the Justice Society? Why hasn't Batman grown older and either retired or become the grizzled DKR version of himself? Even if they didn't want to be that radical in their approaches, why has everyone stopped?

Spider-Man is easier to do this with, so I'll focus on him. Stan Lee created Spider-Man. He was a teenager in high school. He aged and moved out of Aunt May's, entered college and he left the title in other people's hands with Spider-Man a very different person from when the book started. Then they killed Gwen Stacy. Game over man, game over! We've been hearing about that damn bridge for 30 years now because, while 100 issues were equivilent to about 7 years of his life, the other 400 (and that's only counting ASM!) are equivilent to 3 or 4 years. I guess it's hard to get over someone when time stops moving.

Superman is similar, but I can't figure out what origin we're using this week, so I'll just say he was high school jock, left for university, became a reporter and went to Metropolis. He acted like a bumpkin and pretended to be human for about 50 years while trying to shack up with Lois Lane. Then he reveals it was all a lie to her and they get married. Now, their relationship is dead. There's no romance, no tension. She's Lois and he's bumpkin by day, Superman by night. Oversimplified, but nothing has changed outside of numerous revamps and origins that all lead back to zero. I don't think Super-kids are the answer, but there's no drama from villains - he's Superman and they can't compete - and there's no drama from relationships and they just keep retelling the same old Lex Luthor stories followed by years of non-Superman level threats. It's like Batman said, Superman hasn't inspired anyone since he died.


Manga Model

I look at manga and think how diverse the number of genres they have. Naruto and Dragonball Z are not the only manga ever created and no where near representative of the manga industry, which is a multi-billion dollar industry compared to the million dollar US comics industry. Even if we look at Dragonball, it started out with the main character as a child, followed him through the years, had a time jump and then had some adult adventures where everyone got married, had kids, aged and the kids grew up. It was progressive and engaging without relying on nostolgia to keep it going. Many series are finite and tell a story and then end it. If there's more to tell and the series sold well enough, the author will release a new book. These can be crime, super hero, action, romance, teen or comedies, it doesn't matter over there.
At some point the US market put a foot down and said no more new books! We want the same bankable commodity forever more and that was it. We get the odd book that launches, gets praised and then falls back down into cancellation, but we still gotta keep collecting that Superman, Batman and Spider-man!


Look at Morrison, Millar, Ellis, etc

Take a look at the list of the most popular writers in comics. People like Grant Morrison and Mark Millar aren't loved, or hated in some cases, because they tell safe, boring rehashes of old stories. Much of their work is termed revolutionary or unconventional or genius, to name a few descriptors. Morrison in particular must be on some serious drugs based on the insane stuff he comes up with. These writers turn the medium on its head and that is why they are popular.

Morrison's All-Star Superman isn't popular because it's Superman. It's popular because it's new and unique and a completely different take that couldn't be told in the DCU and features a Superman that is mallable and has a personality and, to be honest, could be swapped with any generic hero and the story would still be incredible because this isn't the Superman everyone knows. It's just a guy in the same suit that is in an incredible story when you compare him to the wooden personality version in the DCU.

To continue with Morrison, his New X-Men was so revolutionary that it turned the mutant world upsidedown and made a lot of old characters new again. It was so incredibly good and definitive, when taken as a whole as there were some duds in the run, that no writer could follow up on his work without running it into the ground. It's the single reason Marvel was forced to retcon most everything. No one could possibly follow that up with such high concepts and ideas with the exception of Marvel having an Ellis or what have you on deck to take over.

Just look at Ultimates for a perfect example of what's wrong with today's writers. Millar is exciting, genre blending and defying with high concepts and a mix of real world and comics. Loeb is old fashioned and should be put out to pasture. He merely apes other, more contemporary writers in an attempt to be edgy and relevant in a world that passed him by while basically going way over the line in terms of shock value nonsense. Sales back him up, but it will only delude the franchise in the long run.


Conclusion

Yes, an actual conclusion to this manifesto! Many new readers will wonder what the hell I'm talking about, but older ones will recognize how stagnant and redudant many books have become over the years and are constantly rewarded for it out of blind loyalty, to which I am guilty of along with everyone else. Comics in the US came to a point where they could either expand or stick with what works and they gave up on any kind of future and put all the money on a two legged, blind horse and we are left with what you see today, a rather uncreative, on the whole, industry with little diversity and miniscule sales and consumer recognition and the 'for kids' stigma.

I honestly wish we had some growth. I look at the MC2 universe with Spider-Girl and the numerous legacy characters and wish Marvel had become something like that. Same thing for DC. I'd rather a Kingdom Come-esque legacy character ridden future and a greyed, retired Superman, albeit maybe a little less bleak, than the merry-go-round of redundancy that we have today.

Will I keep buying books and supporting this? You bet ya, but that doesn't mean a little part doesn't die everytime I do.

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Messiah Complex - Death at a Bargain

The image above ran in an issue of Wizard back in the summer of last year and can be found archived on their website by clicking here. The article at the time stated that one of the mutants in this image would die in the upcoming Messiah Complex event. Going by the the last chapter of that event, it looked as if at least three of those people died - Charles Xavier, Bishop, Mr Sinister and, while only dupes, two Madrox's. Not even a day after release and Marvel and some creators revealed both Bishop and Charles Xavier survived those on panel deaths. And that brings me to the point of this post.

Do you think that the senseless killings in this event, of which all but one has been retconned already, tarnish the overall quality of the story? Do you feel cheated by these cheap deaths that were put in the story for the "OH SH--" factor and to drum up fake tension between characters? More on what I think after the jump.

The event started with the mass slaughtering of humans in the town the baby was born and the mindless killings continued throughout the books, whether it was Predator X chowing down on obscure mutants or the various Marauder killings and culminating in Xavier's cop out death.

On top of that, they've maimed numerous characters, like Hellion for instance, all of which looked fairly fatal (Deathstrike with all her claws tearing through his torso where all the major organs are in Hellion's case) and were cliffhangers that used graphic violence and gore to sensationlize their books and entice readers to pick up the next chapter. They did it for Cable, Forge, the baby (Bishop with gun to her head), Hellion, Jamie (when he collapsed at the start), Exodus, Omega Sentinel, Nightcrawler, and the list goes on and on.

Before I go on, I really did enjoy this crossover and I'm not hating on just MC, but sort of how all events are becoming these days. I hated the opening issues and that first one-shot was absolutely terrible in my opinion, but that might have been all the hype building it up and not delivering clouding my judgement. However, after all that, the event ended up delivering a rollercoaster ride of action, thrills and story progression as everyone chased down the baby and Bishop betrayed everyone.

But, and this is a big but, a lot of the stuff I loved ended up being lies. I know people come back from the dead in comics and it's a revolving door, but when the death doesn't even last 24 hours in the case of Xavier? What the hell is that? I was blown away with his 8th or 9th in comic death and knew he would eventually be brought back, but I feel like I was cheated out of any real reaction to this death and that Marvel is pulling the rug out from under me on just about every single thing they did in this event.

I feel like I should be getting mad at them over this or posting on message boards I'm dropping everything Marvel is putting out, while secretly still buying everything, but I feel like it's pointless and I'd just be wasting my time. It's as if I've resigned myself to the fact every comic book event will have to resort to huge bodycounts, which will be retconned away immediately, just to make a quick buck at the expense of the characters and, most importantly, the fans.

I ask again, does any of this bother anyone but myself? Were you shocked at Xavier's death or what Lady Deathstrike did to Hellion or Dust's tearing apart Exodus' innards with her sand? Did the fact almost every shocking or insane moment in this series was retconned before you even finished reading the book? Does it even matter we enjoyed the series? I'm not even sure what to think anymore. I just feel dejected at the moment over all of this. Maybe I'll know in a couple months after the new status quo, sans my favourite X-title, New X-Men, has had some time to shine.

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Comic Book Rant - This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

So, anyone check out the recently released December comic book sales? Some interesting things in it. If you forgot, Ultimates 3.1 and the final part of One More Day were released in December. Care to hazard a guess as to where they placed on the chart? That's right, the two worst books in all of 2007, maybe even the last decade, were the top two selling books for the month of December.

This, my friends, is why we can't have nice things. Why do we support these books when quality titles lanquish at the bottom of the charts. This just tells Marvel and DC to keep throwing this rubbish at as and to reward people like Jeph Loeb, Rob Liefeld or numerous other "top" creators with bigger salaries and lots of high profile books that they just continue to drive into the ground. More after the jump.

I just can't figure out why people always buy these books. Something like Onslaught Reborn was pure shit vomitted onto paper and shipped to shops and it sold insanely well. Let me list off some comics that are outsold by books like that on a routine basis:

Nova - mid-80's sales rank
Black Adam - mid-80's
Annihilation Conquest - high-70's
Immortal Iron Fist - mid-70's
Fables - 100's
Checkmate - did not rank
Blue Beetle - did not rank
Catwoman - did not rank

All of those books and more were outsold by the likes of X-Men: Emperor Vulcan, Ghost Rider, Death of the New Gods, Search for Ray Palmer Specials, Exiles, Countdown, Supergirl and so on. I'm sorry if you like some of these books, I know I've loved the occasional clunker, but the ones listed above are much better than these, regardless of how much you like them, and many more in the upper echelons of these sales rankings.

I'm not exactly innocent here, as I bought Ultimates 3, Countdown and its many tie-ins and so on, but at least I do my best to pick up as many of these lower tier titles as I can afford. I also know that not everyone can afford to be as liberal as I am with my purchases. I can't really expect someone to drop titles and pick up random ones he's never read before, possibly wasting their money if they don't like it. It's hard to get around these constraints and I think both Marvel and DC have set it up that way when they go about their scheduling. Not sure where I was going with all this, but was good to blow some steam over something that really annoys me about the comic world.

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Cover of the Year?

This cover was posted with the March solicits for Marvel a while back and I've been amazed by it ever since I first saw it as the 'exclusive' debut on IGN Comics. I know it's a little early to be proclaiming anything the 'best of', but I can't see any cover, by any artist, being better than this one this year.

If anyone happens to have a high resolution shot of this cover without the watermark on it (the red Marvel tag or IGN symbol (if you have that version) at the bottom), please let me know, I'd very much appreciate it.

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Green Lantern / Sinestro Corps Secret Files

The GL / SC Secret Files #1 came out last week, but, after seeing it was mostly character profiles and I was pressed for time with the holidays, I never really got a chance to sit down and make my way through until today.

It's actually one of the best Secret Files books I've ever read. While most of the Green Lantern and general Guardian / Oa / ring related stuff could easily be found on the internet, it was still nice to have it all in a single place for reference. However, the Sinestro Corps stuff was my favourite part and highly informative. It really fleshed the mass of yellow canon fodder out and made me actually care about some of these guys. More after the jump.

For instance, the Sinestro member, Kiriazis, in the image above made her debut in this Secret Files issue, along with a couple other new SC members. She's one of the coolest designs I've seen in recent memory and I can't wait to see her actual in-comic debut. The way she uses her powers seems to be quite unique as well based on the description. Another interesting character was the four armed Smithwick. He appeared to be just Random SC Member #108332 when he appeared in the Sinestro Corps Special, but, apparently, he's of the same species as the Green Lantern Salaak and has sworn to find and kill him as he considers him a disgrace to his race. There's a wealth of information on the various unnamed or background Sinestro Corps members and, as far as I know, this is the first time we are learning about it, making this a great source of information for anyone still enamoured with the recently ended Green Lantern event.

However, the thing I wanted to point out most today was the Green Lantern Saarek, the other person featured in the image above. While he isn't a new character or even someone created by Geoff Johns, just read that mini biography and tell me there's not something fishy about that, especially knowing that the Blackest Night will be heavily focused on death and dead characters. Used telepathy to make contact with the dead? Away from Oa for years and only rarely checks in with the Guardians? Most think he's insane? He's not much to look at, but the fact he was featured in this issue and our knowledge of upcoming events, I get a sneaking suspicion that he'll be featured in some form or another in the upcoming Blackest Night.

If you're looking for a nice bookend to cap off the Sinestro Corps War or just have a desire to know more about the various GL and SC members, then this Secret Files will have everything you want and more. If you're only interested in actual stories, stay away from this as there's only a single short story to be had in the entire thing.

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What I'm Looking Forward To in '08

With the Best of 2007 awards taken care of last week, I wanted to take some time to discuss some of the things I'm looking forward to in 2008 in the comic book world. Check out all the mindless speculation and pretty pictures after the break.

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST

Now that the Sinestro Corps War is over, Conquest has my undivided attention. With issue #3 coming out later this week, I foresee this series being the object of my affection for the months to come. If you haven't been picking this series up, use some of that extra Christmas money your grandmother gave you and grab the first two issues of this book. You may as well call the comic shop shortly after because you'll need to add the rest of this series to your pull list once you get a taste of the cosmic goodness. Possibly the best "event" of 2008? Probably a safe bet, if you ask me.


SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY

Yes, despite the fact One More Day ended up worse than anyone could have ever imagined, I am still excited about seeing my boys, Dan Slott and Steve McNiven, taking a crack at Spider-Man without all that spider totem nonsense of the past 5+ years. Just reading some of the interviews when the creative teams were announced had me pumped for this. The creators all seem to have a genuine love of the character and intense desire to produce some of the best Spidey stories ever. However, I hope I can look past the million or so problems I have with OMD and give these new teams a chance. The opening arc will either make or break Spidey for me, so these guys have some insanely high hurdles to jump if they want to keep me on board past the first month.


YEAR OF THE MUTANT

Messiah Complex started with a dull roar and is firing on all cylinders now. With a huge status quo shake up in progress, new titles planned and lots of surprises still left in store, as well as the final chapters of Messiah Complex on the horizon, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone saying the X-books aren't rocking the house heading into 2008.

On top of finishing up Messiah Complex and dealing with the aftermath of that story, Joss Whedon and John Cassady will be finishing up their tenure on Astonishing X-Men early next year with Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi waiting in the wings to launch their long awaited run on that book.

All things considered, 2008 could be the return to prominence for the X-franchise and I can't wait to see how it all plays out. Just don't cancel New X-Men. Then I'll have to hate you.


BRUBAKER'S CAPTAIN AMERICA

It was my pick for Best Ongoing Series this year and, unless something tragic happens to Brubaker, I can't imagine it not being next year's pick for Best Ongoing either. Bucky appears to have accepted the burden of being the next Captain America and will be wearing the abnormally shiny Alex Ross redesign featured above in the new year. On top of the debut of a new Captain America, the Red Skull has set his master plan in motion, cranking the momentum up another notch on this book. Believe the hype and buy this book.


GREEN LANTERN

Unanimously declared the best storyline / event of 2007 with the Sinestro Corps War, Green Lantern is probably coming off its best year since it relaunched with Rebirth a couple years back. With the seeds planted for the Blackest Night, coming in 2009, Johns will have me anxiously awaiting every morsel of new information regarding this series for the next year. The road to Blackest Night starts with this Alpha Lanterns arc and, after that, we can look forward to the debut of the Red Lanterns. And that's just what they've told us. I'm sure there will be all kinds of surprises and twists and turns from Johns throughout the year.

And we mustn't forget the Green Lantern Corps title. There are huge plans for Mongul over there and it looks as if he will be collecting all of the different colour rings, as previews show him with a green, purple and yellow power ring, with the promise of more to come. Also, I'm sure we will see more of Sodam Yat, the current Ion, in the GLC title, which is something I'm personally looking forward to. All in all, it's a great time to be a Green Lantern fan and 2008 looks like it could equal or surpass 2007's incredible offering.


OTHER BOOKS WORTH MENTIONING

While the above are the major events or series I am most looking forward to finding out more about, there are still dozens of books I will be picking up each month that don't fall under the banner of an 'event'.


BLUE BEETLE

I consider this one of the best titles on the market and, after its best year to date, I expect major things from Blue Beetle in 2008. The most recent issue gave us a lot of information pertaining to The Reach and sparks should fly between them and Blue Beetle all year long. Couple that with his appearances in Teen Titans and it could be a break out year for young Jaime Reyes.


THE WALKING DEAD

Another Must Read book for me every month, this series is in the middle of its "No One Is Safe" storyline which sees a huge shake up in the status quo, with deaths, characters leaving the group to strike out on their own and a war with the neighbouring town. As good as Invincible is, I believe this is Kirkman's best work to date and it looks like it will only get better in 2008.


IRON MAN

Iron Man? Yes, Iron Man. The Mandarin story has been a slow burn for the better part of this year and it should build to a raging fire in 2008. This book has hovered just below the Must Read threshold all year. It's been good, but never great. However, based on the last couple issues, it looks like this could be a major break out year for the Iron Man title. Add in the fact he has a movie, which looks incredible, set to debut next year and I expect Marvel to be pimping their Iron clad hero out all year long.


WHATEVER MARK BAGLEY DOES AT DC

I don't know what it is, but I want it. Rumours are that it might be a trinity-like book by Kurt Busiek, featuring Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman in a weekly comic book to take the place of Countdown. Supposedly, Bagley would pencil the entire series himself with the huge lead time he's had since his signing. To help him along, he would handle like 14 pages or so and others would handle the backup story. I don't particularly like to believe rumours, but if there is a god, this, or something like it, will come true. Like I said, whatever he ends up doing at DC, I'll be in line to buy it.


I'd love to keep going, but I fear I'd end up listing every book imaginable. Of note, I have no interest in anything Skrull related and I fully expect that to be next year's One More Day. No good can come from replacing everyone with Skrulls and it's just going to mess up the actually good books, like Captain America, Thunderbolts, Avengers: Initiative and so on.

What's everyone else looking forward to? I couldn't really remember every announced 'event' or major storyline and, despite trying to scan previews and comicon announcments, I'm pretty sure I missed something important, especially on the DC side of things, where I could only think of Countdown and Final Crisis. Honestly though, I think 2008 will be a better year than 2007 for comics in general.

Either way, it will be fun reading to find out. Happy New Year and I look forward to hearing from you all year round!

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Anyone Remember This One More Day Teaser Image?

I came across this randomly when I was going through some old posts and thought it was interesting, what with One More Day just ending and all. It was released as a teaser image by Marvel back when they delayed OMD for the second or third time.

So, now that we know how badly OMD ended, anyone have any idea what the heck this teaser image was supposed to mean? Not one of those characters ended up involved in this whole debacle. Was it all just a lie to get readers talking? Usually these things, while being vague, eventually make sense after the fact. Much like the actual story, I guess even the teasers are incomprehensible. [more after the jump]

However, CBR has an interview with Joe Q stating he and JMS wanted to resurrect Gwen Stacy until they were later convinced by all of the editors and creative staff that it was a bad idea. Was she the "only person in the Marvel Universe that can save Spider-Man"?

In that same interview, they talk about the massive rewrites of JMS's final couple issues. Was Loki originally going to be featured as the deus ex machina of this piece, playing on the favour he owed Spider-Man when Peter bought him a hot dog, and later changed to Mephisto due to editorial mandates?

Seriously, does anyone have any idea what this teaser represented? I am really clueless right now. None of those people is featured in One More Day. I had a lot of fun speculating about these people when this teaser was released, but now I'm just annoyed that it was a complete waste of time, much like the past 20 years of Spidey comics were thanks to OMD. I know I said I didn't want to talk about OMD, but this "teaser image" just pissed me off when I saw it again and I wanted to see if anyone can make heads or tails of it now that the story is over.

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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