THE COUNTDOWN RUNDOWN: WEEK 50

The Players:

Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman
James "Jimmy" Olsen/Superman's Pal
Jason Todd/Robin II/The Red Hood
The Joker
Mary Batson/Mary Marvel
Bruce Wayne/Batman
Val Armorr/Karate Kid
Flash's Rogues/The Rogues

Issue 50

This week started with a strong appearance by the Man of Steel, as he guides Daily Planet reporter/photographer Jimmy Olsen through the back alleys of NYC. Coming to a locked door, Superman uses his heatvision from a low space orbit to melt away the doorhandle and lock! It continues to astound that creators can find new, unique, and interesting ways to use a 70+ year old character's powers and abilities.

After a brief encounter between the Red Hood and Olsen regarding the circumstances of last week's murder of the Joker's Daughter, the story continues covering the beats hit in last week's issue with Mary Marvel's search for her powers and her family (which are, in essence, one and the same) and then more of a look at the party the Rogues are throwing for themselves. Tensions are rising on both of those fronts with Mary's heroic journey of discovery apparently begun, and the building up of a major assault on the Flash by the Rogues.

The other major acts in this issue were Jimmy's visit with the Joker at Arkham Asylum, and a replay of the initial confrontation between Batman and Karate Kid - of the Legion of Super-Heroes - in the Batcave!

Olsen heads to Arkham to get the Joker's take on the death of his daughter; the twist being that the Joker claims he doesn't have a daughter! Throughout Duela Dent's appearances in the DCU, she's claimed varied parentage - from the Joker himself to Harvey Dent to the Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, and others. No definitive parent was ever defined. Apparently, however, Jimmy Olsen was under the impression that there was no question as to her heritage. The Joker's reaction is typical and the meeting sets up a future conflict between Olsen and the Clown Prince of Crime - no one should be foolish enough to put themselves into the Joker's sights. Not even Superman's Pal! The scene ends with Killer Croc loose in the asylum and Jimmy looking like lunch.

The Batman/Karate Kid scene was a panel-for-panel re-showing of the scene from Brad Meltzer's Justice League of America, issue #8, the first part of a major crossover with the Justice Society of America, titled, The Lightning Saga. That story focuses on the two teams trying to solve the mystery of a number of members of the Legion of Super-Heroes of the 30th Century stuck in our present time. Karate Kid, having lost any memory of who he was or why he was in the present, fights Batman under the guise of the super-criminal, Trident. The inclusion of the scene in Countdown was a way to introduce yet another character to this series that will be playing a major role in the run towards next year's major DC event.

A few things from this issue stick out to Rundown HQ: This is the second issue in a row that began the action in New York City. While it was established in Bruce Jones's One Year Later story arc of Nightwing, that both Dick Grayson and Jason Todd were working out of NYC instead of Gotham or the destroyed Bludhaven, it still seems interesting that the issues start there - especially considering that NYC was where most of Jack Kirby's Kamandi took place post-Great Disaster.

Second, Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen was the one mainstream DC title that Jack Kirby was allowed free reign on when he came to the company in the 1970s - it was the fourth of his Fourth World books and it stood as his foothold to tie the New Gods into the main DC Universe. Jimmy playing such a huge role in Countdown is yet another tie to the DC/Kirbyverse. Can the Guardian, Cadmus, and the Newsboy Legion be that far behind?

Finally, while many have complained that the scene from Justice League of America was shoehorned into this issue only to establish that Karate Kid will play a major role in the series, that opinion seems a bit short-sighted. From the beginning, both Vice President/Editorial Dan Didio and Head Writer Paul Dini have said that the weekly series will reflect the major events that are happening throughout the DCU. While the scene probably could have been written/drawn in a more dynamic way, instead of the almost xerox of the original that it was, it was important to showcase it in this week's issue of Countdown for a number of reasons.

Clearly, The Lightning Saga and Amazons Attack are the two biggest Spring event comics for the DCU. They both promise major conflicts and team/character changing moments. To not include them in some way in Countdown would be ridiculous. The JLA/JSA cross-over is a tradition of the DCU back to the early 60s and this time around reaches across time to include the Legion. It is not only a major event for diehard fans, but should be marketed across the line to pull in new readers. If readers are looking to Countdown as the spine of the DCU, the inclusion of this scene and scenes like it should serve to get readers to try new books.

In closing, this week's issue felt again like a set-up issue, running with some of the seeds planted in Week 51 and introducing a few new plot-lines. With a full year of stories ahead there is a lot of time built-in to the series to introduce and run with long, involved plots and the book feels like it is just scratching the surface of the DCU. While Rundown HQ looks forward to the "real" action, we are quite pleased with the setup thus far.

Next Week: Week 49: Enter the Monitors!

THE COUNTDOWN RUNDOWN!

The Rundown Continues, Tomorrow!

THE COUNTDOWN RUNDOWN: WEEK 51

The Players:

Duela Dent/Joker's Daughter
Jason Todd/Robin II/Red Hood
Mary Batson/Mary Marvel
James Jesse/The Trickster
Hartley Rathaway/The Pied Piper
The Monitor(s)

Issue 51

And so it begins.

A year-long adventure across the entire DC Universe from New Earth to Earth-52 and beyond. In the wake of DC's last weekly series, 52, the world that Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman inhabit has just gotten a whole lot bigger. Not since 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths has the DCU been home to a multiverse.

And it is within this new DCU, that Countdown begins.

Barely 24 hours after the release of the inaugural issue and the chatter on the interweb is that this was a humdrum opener. The general consensus is "meh."

Here, at Forces of Good, however, we celebrate pop culture; we revel in it; we take joy in the things we love. And, in that vein, let's look at the first issue of Countdown with a little more critical eye.

Weekly comics are a much different animal than the standard monthly, or more common in this era of late books, the bi-monthly. They move at a different pace. There's much more collaboration and coordination. The books DC is producing in this area focus on much larger casts, universe spanning stories, and line-wide events. Not every page is going to be knocked out of the park in every issue. That's not because the creators aren't giving their best. It's because the structure of a weekly year-long series demands something more.

It demands that the reader, like the characters, become invested in each facet of the stories contained within each issue's covers. It asks readers to invest more time and be more patient for the big pay-offs. In order to reach all the corners of a vast universe of fictional stories with a 70 year history, readers have to be willing to go a little further; dig a little deeper. If the look, attitude, and actions of a character intrigues the reader, but that same reader isn't quite familiar with the very character their intrigued by, well, find out more.

Each week this column will try to help interested readers do that. We'll delve deeper into websites, resources, and key stories to get new readers up to speed and long-time fans re-invested.

Countdown is going to be a wild ride. A roller-coaster of ups and downs, amazing cliffhangers, gut-wrenching plot twists, and sometimes, slowed down hikes up steep inclines. But the higher we go, the faster and more exhilarating the descent.

One thing this column will dispense with is Spoiler Warnings. Here at Countdown Rundown HQ we're going to assume you've read the issue, or just don't care if we talk about every detail of what happened in it. So right here, right now, is your one and only SPOILER WARNING!!


Still with us? Great . . . into the breach we go!

With all signs throughout the last year pointing to the return of Jack Kirby's New Gods and the villainous Darkseid, it was with great joy that the title/splash page of this issue featured a menacing and diabolical Darkseid in full evil-mode. Brooding over a chessboard-like tableaux filled with miniature versions of the DCU's most famous characters, the metaphor of Darkseid as the grandmaster of the universe's events was none to subtle. And there's no way it should have been.

Darkseid is the end all-be all of DCU super-villains. He is a MEGA-villain. As Grant Morrison once wrote in the seminal JLA storyline, Rock of Ages: DARKSEID IS.

This re-introduction of one of the DCU's biggest bads was a fine setup for the series, promising a return to grand story-telling on a universes-spanning scale.

The solicitations for this issue promised a major/shocking death. The shock in this case was not with who died, but rather at whose hand they died. Joker's Daughter has never been a major-league player in the DCU. A former villain turned Teen Titan, the girl known as Duela Dent, finally re-appeared in the DCU a handful of times over the last year after a nearly 20 year absence. Fans of the character were overjoyed that she was back in play in recent issues of Geoff Johns's Teen Titans. Those fans must not have been in touch with fans of Giffen & DeMatteis's Bwa-Ha-Ha Justice League.

Needless to say, Duela buys it this issue. In the midst of once-again turning to a life of crime and coming up against the recently-returned from the dead Jason Todd in his Red Hood persona, Duela is shot and killed by one of the new Monitors.

The Monitor, a character that was pivotal to DC's COIE, is now back in the DCU. This time, though, there are a lot of him. Their job, much like their counter-part in the Marvel Universe Uatu the Watcher, is to observe, record, and protect the many different Earths of the multiverse.

Observe. Record. Protect.

Not act. While the death of Joker's Daughter nee The Scarecrone nee Harlequin may not have sent shockwaves across the DCU, the fact that a Monitor committed that murder should. This isn't your daddy's DCU. This is the new Multiverse. And the rules have been re-written.

There was a lot more that went on in this issue, mostly set-up for the year ahead - things like Mary Marvel's new "take action" attitude, the coming rivalry and conflict between the Trickster and Pied Piper, and most enigmatically, Dr. Ray Palmer's connection to the Great Disaster that all this is counting down to. But mostly, this first issue, gave each and every one of us a view of the DCU that we don't usually see. The seedy underbelly where two-bit criminals, forgotten heroes, and confused former-teen sidekicks reside.

Its not a pretty place, certainly.
But it sure promises to be a lot of fun.

Be back next week for our second installment,
plus the debut of the Countdown Rundown logo!

Countdown #50 in stores
Wednesday May 16th

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (TO DC'S COUNTDOWN #51)

After releasing a series of buttons, a very mysterious and ominous teaser image, and a lot of dropped hints and innuendo at conventions and through online interviews, DC Comics finally started their advertising campaign for their next yearly series only a few months before its release. Working off the slogans on the convention exclusive buttons, DC showed the following in most of their main-DC Universe books as well as Wizard Magazine over the last couple of months:

The Jimmy Olsen Must Die ad only added a dubious-looking Jimmy to the already released slogan.

I Found Ray Palmer was changed to The Search for Ray Palmer and a great image was used of the Atom under the microscope!

The next advertisement not only changed the slogan, but also added the first hint of a story element. Sharp readers knew immediately that the arm floating in from off page belonged to a pivotal character in both the Marvel Family's history and that of one of the other main players in the coming Countdown series! The use of the title of Dr. Frederic Wertham's infamous book that nearly brought an end to comics in the 1950s stirred even more interest in many a fan's chest.

The next image pointed again with even more definitive proof of the Kirby characters involvement in the upcoming DCU events:


"The Great Disaster" is a direct reference to events in Kirby's Kamandi series.

Finally, DC released one advertisement in this campaign that was not used previously as a button:

This image features two of the Flash's classic Rogues, the Trickster and the Pied Piper bound together a la the classic Tony Curtis/Sidney Poitier film The Defiant Ones!

So, now you've seen the hype, the build-up, and the marketing, tomorrow, Countdown #51 hits the stands and it promises to be the start a wild year-long ride. Be back here Thursday for the first of a year's worth of The Countdown Rundown - I promise, it'll be a blast!

CONTINUING THE COUNTDOWN

One of the first images that DC released related to Countdown and the event(s) its counting down to was a spread that apparently takes place in New York City, with a tumbled Statue of Liberty supporting a wide cast of characters.


Some of the many teasers in this image are the apparent rift between Green Arrow and Black Canary; the Atom's hand reaching out of the rubble; a Legion flight ring in the rubble; Red Robin from Ross and Waid's Kingdom Come; Mister Miracle and Big Barda of the New Gods; possibly the Barry Allen Flash; an Elseworlds Batman; an emo Superman; and of course, many of the casualties of the last two years worth of events in the DCU.

Finally, one thing that some observers have noted is the fact that while the main cities of the DCU are based on NYC, Gotham and Metropolis supplant NY for the company's flagship titles. Since NYC seems to be so prominently featured here, along with a tumbled Statue of Liberty, signs seem to be pointing to the future world as seen in Kamandi - another Kirby classic.

Oh! And here's one more pic of those buttons, with the final "Darkseid Rules" button included:

COUNTDOWN: T-MINUS 3 DAYS

In anticipation of their new weekly series, Countdown, DC Comics first released a series of pins only available at comic conventions across the country over the past year. Visit various panels over a weekend and collect the four pins. "Look to the Skies" was a reference to Jack Kirby's Fourth World characters; "Jimmy Olsen Must Die" pointed to the various pitfalls and adventures Superman's Pal would be facing in the upcoming year.
"WWMMD" had people stumped for a little while, but eventually internet savvy fanboys came up with the answer: What Would Mary Marvel Do? The kid sister of Captain Marvel (a/k/a Shazam! to the public at large) was finally going to get the spotlight she deserved.

The fourth pin "I Found Ray Palmer" pointed to the DC Universe addressing a long unsolved mystery in their books - what happened to Dr. Ray Palmer (the public persona of the size-controlling hero the Atom) after his disappearance at the end of Brad Meltzer's and Rags Morales's critically acclaimed mini-series Identity Crisis! A murder mystery focusing on the hunt for a killer of a super-hero's wife, Identity Crisis was the lead-in to DC's massive Infinite Crisis, One Year Later, and 52 storylines. For those who haven't read the book, I won't spoil it, but suffice it to say that the shock of the events in Identity Crisis forced the Atom to transform himself to sub-atomic size and disappear. Now, it looks like DC will finally be turning a microscope on the last year and an half of Ray's life.

Finally, if convention goers were spotted with all four pins by an employee of DC Comics, a fifth pin was handed out: "Darkseid Rules!" This pin (not available to show here) featured a darker orange background, the words "Darkseid Rules" and a close-up image of the lord of Jack Kirby's Fourth World planet Apokolips himself, Darkseid. With the inclusion of this image, readers's questions were answered - after years of little to no use of Jack Kirby's classic 70s creations the New Gods, they would finally be showing up in the next year.

Later today I will post the first advertisements that DC issued using the same slogans from the buttons with a few added elements to create even more speculation.

For those of you who can't wait until Wednesday, though, DC in conjunction with MySpace have allowed a preview of the upcoming Countdown #51 - find it here.

52 . . .51 . . .

In six short days, DC Comics will release its latest weekly series, Countdown. On the heels of the recently completed year-long weekly, 52, DC is looking to make even more of an impact with this next publishing adventure. With a team of writers this time working in the model used by television series, Countdown will have a group led by veteran TV writer Paul Dini. The writers team will feature a rotating cast of writers including frequent collaborators Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, Adam Beechem, Sean McKeever, and Tony Bedard. Dini has written the bible for the year-long series and will have final approval of each issue's script.


On the art side, like 52, the series will feature a rotating cast of artists, including Jesus Saiz, Jim Calafiore, and Al Barrionuevo. One holdover from 52 joining the Countdown team will be layout artist Keith Giffen. This will prove a huge advantage to the rotating artists, in not only keeping the book on time, but also keeping a consistent style to the art in each issue. While 52 rarely featured so-called top notch artists, the art was always dynamic, easy on the eyes and maintained a solid throughline over the entire year of the series. Giffen adds a unique dynamic to any project he is a part of and contributed much more than mere layouts to the 52 team.



DC promises the series will be leading to big changes and, as evidenced by the title, is counting down to a major, company-wide event. With lots of advertisements and teasers pointing to the inclusion of Jack Kirby's New Gods, Darkseid, and possibly, Kamandi in the series, fan anticipation is high.

With next week's release of Countdown #51 (the series is numbered backwards down to next May's #1), I will be kicking off my own weekly look at the series, the characters, the writers and artists, and the bigger picture of the DC Universe as revealed by the series. So, starting next Thursday, May 10th, come back for the first of 52 "Countdown Rundowns"!

In the meantime, stop back here over the next 6 days for looks at the teasers and advertisements that DC has released in anticipation of their biggest series to date.

Hope to see you back here next week and every week thereafter until May 2008!