THE COUNTDOWN RUNDOWN DOUBLE SHOT: WEEKS 38 AND 37

WEEK 38: ALL HELL
written by Paul Dini and Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray; pencils by Jesus Saiz


WEEK 37: FORBIDDEN FRUIT
written by Paul Dini and Adam Beechen; Keith Griffen handles breakdowns; David Lopez & Mike Norton, pencillers


THE RECAP: Things go haywire world-wide, and the JSA, the JLA and others scramble to clean up a wave of computer attacks that cause nightmare scenarios all designed as a distraction, so the Calculator can get inside Oracle's mainframe. Sounds vaguely sexual, but I promise, it's kid friendly! While she fends off the attack on her system by her newest arch-rival, directs the world's heroes to battle the computer-related problems popping up across the globe, and chats up the all-new, all-different Question (who happens to be dealing with our favorite Rogues - more on them in a minute), the former Batgirl is also dealing with the break-in of Karate Kid and Una of the Legion of Super-heroes. Apparently, the Kid's dieing and he's come to Oracle for help.

After a full analysis however, Oracle can't determine what it is that's wrong with Karate Kid. Since Oracle can't make heads or tails of the situation, she points the Kid and Una to a man named Elias Orr (Rundown HQ is thinking Oracle is referring to Mr. Orr from the Superman: For Tomorrow storyline by Lee and Azzarello, but we could be wrong.) It seems that Una does have an idea what's going on though, and mentions again, in hushed tones, the ever-present Great Disaster . . .

With all this talk of the Great Disaster, preview images of toppled Statues of Liberty, and the Atomic Knights operating out of the decimated Bludhaven, its only a matter of time before Kamandi shows up!

Speaking of disasters, the Rogues Piper and Trickster simply can't catch a break. Fresh from escaping the new Task Force X/Suicide Squad in Week 39, they run smack into the latest Gotham dynamic duo: the Question and the Batwoman!

Although, for once they luck out: former homicide detective/current vigilante Renee Montoya just knows the two bumblers are "too stupid" to have been in on Bart Allen's death and the unlucky Rogues escape a beating from the lovely ladies. True to their poor decision-making skills, however, they decide to hole up in one of Gotham's abandoned botanical gardens. Which, obviously is the home of Poison Ivy! We'll see how they get out of this one in Week 36.

While this story is one that just seems to tread water with the not-so-smart Villains Defiant "Three Stooging" their way into every possible bad situation, it's actually their storyline that Rundown HQ is enjoying the most. They are being written true to their characters' histories, with a good bit of wit and the pacing of their scenes is almost always spot on. Obviously there are other story lines in Countdown more important, but its these incompetent bunglers that shine week after week.

Checking in on Mary Marvel and Zatanna, their run-in with the Deep Six ends with the amphibious Fourth Worlders dead at the hands of the god-killer, who we finally get a glimpse at (although, only in silhouette.) Looks a bit like Takion's powers to us . . . another DC character with strong links to the Source and the New Gods.

On a personal note, what editor has the heart to kill a character named: Shaligo the Flying Finback!??!

Mysteriously ignoring the fact that a super-powered being just killed six other New Gods, Mary and Z decide to go back to Z's place in Gotham for lunch and a chat.

Huh, what?? No Justice League distress call??

This is definitely a glaring hallmark of this series. There is a ton going on, and while it is plausible that Jimmy Olsen might not tell Superman that he watched Sleeze die a week before he watched Lightray get murdered, it's hard to believe that Zatana - a former member of the Justice League - wouldn't clue in the League to the murder of six New Gods from Apokolips!

Anyway, back to the stories at hand . . . While Mary shows more of her dark desire for power to Zatana, the Jean Loring Eclipso is still lurking in the shadows and really crushing on this bad-girl version of Mary.

Moving on.

Week 37 checks in briefly with Holly Robinson, who Harley is overjoyed to learn, has been invited to Athena's meditation group. Looks like Athena has some training in store for the former Catwoman replacement. Training that might lead to becoming a warrior in the Amazon Attacks war? Who knows . . . this story is the slowest and seemingly least important of all of Countdown's ongoing shenanigans.

The new Challengers of the Unknown (Jason Todd, Bob the Monitor and Donna Troy, along with Ryan Choi, the new Atom) continue on the hunt for the missing Ray Palmer in the nanoverse and continue to be stymied by weird inhabitants of that microscopic world. They also keep getting told that the Great Disaster is imminent, but none of the Challengers except for Bob the Monitor seem to be too concerned.

Kind of a recurring theme developing here of heroes who aren't concerned with the evidence of impending doom staring them in the face. I seem to recall a similar blase attitude towards a certain Blue Beetle's proclamations that things in the DCU were wonky. As you recall, that Blue Beetle ended up with a ventilated head and the DCU ended up with an Infinite Crisis.

Jimmy Olsen/Mr. Action has no luck joining the Teen Titans (really, would you let him into your super-hero club?!) and broods about it back in his office. Suddenly, he's hit with a thought that he can't quite understand how he got - he knows that Superman is really Clark Kent! Lucky Clark's in the room with him and Jimmy wastes no time ripping his shirt to prove himself right. This sudden investiture of knowledge might also be how he knew that Jason Todd was the Red Hood and that Dick Grayson is Nightwing from way back in Week 50 or so, but the hows and wherefores are still to be revealed.

The only other notable development in the last two issues of Countdown was a brief cameo by Darkseid at the end of Week 38, in which he proclaims that as the New Gods die like the Prometheans before them, only he will survive and rule over the "Multiversal Dynasty" to come. Big machinations afoot!

With Week 38, Dan Jurgen's History of the Multiverse twelve chapter backup feature concluded. The Monitors of the 52 universes come to a fateful decision: those with the bearded Monitor who killed Duela Dent in Week 51 stand against the lone Monitor of New Earth (this is the main Earth of the regular DCU that has been around since the end of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, changed during Zero Hour, and survived Alex Luthor's manipulations during Infinite Crisis.) The lone Monitor a/k/a Bob the Monitor, as we've already seen, has decided to aid the heroes in their battle against the coming Great Disaster. So 51 against 1 doesn't look like great odds for Bob. Check out future issues of the Countdown spin-off mini-series, Countdown Presents the Search for Ray Palmer and the All New Atom for that story spanning the multiverse.Week 37 re-introduced a great back-up feature that was much missed from the issues of 52, The Origin of . . . series. These two page origin stories were one of the many high points of DC's previous weekly series, all written by Mark Waid and illustrated by some of the best artists in the industry (my personal favorites were Eric "The Goon" Powell on the origin of Metamorpho - see above - and Brian "Killing Joke" Bolland pencilling Animal Man). While the back-ups in 52 were focused squarely on heroes (Black Adam, Cat-Man, and Lobo were all nominally heroes in 52, smartguy), it looks as though (and word from DC confirms this) that all of the Origin Of back-ups in Countdown will be of villians.

So, with Week 37, we get the Origin of Poison Ivy by Scott Beatty with stellar art by Stephane Roux. These concise 2-page histories are a great addition to this series, and we at Countdown HQ look forward to the weeks to come (keeping our fingers crossed for a Bolland Joker origin!)

Next week: ISSUE 36 - Black Mary vs. Zatanna!
Winner = Eclipso!

THE COUNTDOWN RUNDOWN DOUBLE-SHOT! WEEKS 40 AND 39

ISSUE 40: SMALL WONDERS

Donna, Jason, the all new Atom, and Bob the Monitor get into a bruhaha with the residents of the Palmerverse, before seeing eye to eye. Finding out that they were only protecting the good Dr. Palmer himself, the warriors point the Challengers of the Unknown to a microverse beyond the Palmerverse.

Jimmy Olsen makes waves in Metropolis under the nom de plume, Mr. Action, even if Lois Lane shows a healthy lack of respect for his heroics.

Mary Marvel finds herself adrift in open waters, seeking the mentoring help of the mystical Zatanna - maybe not the best choice of role models considering the recent troubles the magician just got through. The meeting between the two will have to wait for another issue, however, as the two heroines never get together in this issue.

Next up we check in on Holly Robinson and Harleen Quinzel in the Athenian Women's shelter in Metropolis. It seems that the mission is only interested in single ladies and those with rugrats in tow need not apply. That doesn't exactly play well with Holly and we get more on her next issue.

Switching up a lot from previous issues, we next move all the way to Apokolips - the home of Darkseid and many other evil New Gods. It appears the master monarch is building an army of Parademons. He also shows a bit of a soft side to one of his many concubines, but quickly goes back to dastardly villain mode and aces her with his Omega Beams!

Also watching the parade of Parademons is a lowly, unidentified New God, who all clues point to being none other than Forager a/k/a The Bug!

For those counting, Countdown now has at least two characters building armies - Darkseid and Monarch. Plus, if the Monitors have more of Forerunner's people as their personal slaves, that might be one more. And don't forget Sinestro's Fear Corps! (check out recent issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps for more on the Sinestro Corps War!)

Finally, Week 40 checks in on our two favorite fugitives - Piper and the Trickster! Freshly deposited in Gotham, the two go to the only hood they think will help them in the Bat's city, the Penguin. Man, those two are really not that bright . . .

The issue closes with even more bad luck for the rogue Rogues - Oracle clues the brand new Question (a/k/a Renee Montoya) onto their entry into Gotham. That can't be good.

ISSUE 39: DO NOT PASS GO

After 12 weeks of what many fans have called a book treading water, this week's Countdown seems to have finally hit it's stride. We here at Rundown HQ admit that there is still something to be desired in the scripting and artwork behind the book, but two major developments have finally made this book start to gel.

First, Keith Giffen has come on the book as layout artist/plot contributor with Issue 40. The significance of that cannot be overstated. With countless years in the industry, mastery of pacing and visual storetelling, and the experience of already having worked on a weekly book (the only one among the main contributors to Countdown), Giffen's experience, poise and attitude are just the injection of "freshness" this book needed.

Second, with Issue 39, the book has finally escewed the need to check in on all of the players in every issue, thus diluting the impact of those appearances with minimal page time. There are still a couple of interludes in this issue that probably could have been left out (we're looking at you, Mr. Action!), but overall, this issue finally felt like its own story and not a conglomeration of vignettes and news-brief style recaps.

So, what happened?

Karate Kid and the recently non-Triplicate Una, in an effort to find out what's wrong with the Kid and maybe why Brainiac 5 stranded them in the 21st century, break into the home of none other than Barbara Gordon, f/k/a Batgirl, currently a/k/a Oracle. For two kids from the future, that's not the brightest of moves. But the Kid proves he's as determined as Batman and makes it through all of Oracle's defenses to get to the mastermind. Too bad she's a little busy with another major security breach - someone's trying to hack a database that has every hero's real id! I smell a conspiracy.

Speaking of conspiracies, Trickster and Piper are still being hidden by the Penguin in Gotham City. Too bad they forgot the golden rule among super-villains: never turn your back on each other. Looks like the Penguin went to a higher bidder and called in the all-new, sort-of different Suicide Squad to re-capture the Rogues. As readers saw in All Flash #1, the new Suicide Squad (with team members Deadshot, Captain Boomerang II, the Bronze Tiger, and Plastique, among others) have been busy gathering up all the Rogues who took part in the murder of Bart Allen, the Flash IV.

Just as Boomer is about to layout the two misfit Rogues, they make a miraculous escape. Too bad they just jumped (yet again!) from the frying pan to the fire! Oracle and Batwoman are waiting for the two and they don't look happy. With Trickster the only straight man in that alley, things are bound to get awkward.

Finally, this issue also checked in on Mr. Action making another save and determining to get into the Titans; and it looked at Holly Robinson, confronting Athena of the same-named shelter about their acceptance issues. Nothing much there, but we should see more in the weeks to come.

Wrapping up both Issues 40 and 39 were more of Dan Jurgens's History of the Multiverse, but since that timeline is up to date, the story has concentrated more on the ongoing debate amongst the Monitors about how to handle so-called "reality jumpers" like the now deceased Duela Dent and the still at large Monarch, as well as how to face the oncoming Great Disaster. More on that in a special article coming in the next few weeks - Kirby created it and the 1970s DCU loved it - what was The Great Disaster!?

Next week: ISSUE 38, TITANS TOGETHER, IT'S ACTION TIME!