Next week’s Countdown should be a lot of fun. There’s definitely a sense its been building to this. Tricked by the Monitor Solomon into thinking that Earth-51 is “his” Earth, Superman Prime isn’t too happy to find Monarch laying waste to the place.

“I’m going to kill you to DEATH!” is just such a great silly line. Suits the character right down to the ground.

With Countdown heading towards the endgame now, its interesting to see which stories seem to have worked and which haven’t. For me, although the Trickster/Piper storyline was initially fun, it ultimately just seemed to drag and doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere.

The Karate Kid/Brother Eye storyline seems to be building towards Final Crisis, but I’ve also just found it really dull. The Jimmy storyline also seems to be a big piece of the Final Crisis story, but as someone who isn’t much of a fan of the Fourth World/New Gods stuff, I’ve not been that interested. However, the fact that it seems to be setting up such a big part of Final Crisis has me concerned. If it does turn out to be a big part of it, then does this mean that Final Crisis may not be for me? But if so, can I really afford to skip a title that’ll be setting up the DCU for the next few years? I’m sure it’ll be fine, and I’ll enjoy it, but still its a thought.

The Mary Marvel storyline’s been another misfire for me. The official stance in DC seems to be that she hasn’t killed anyone, but reading the issues, I really don’t get that. It seems to me that the character’s got a lot to make up for. Of course, you have to wonder why she was abandoned by Billy and Freddy in the first place. Not exactly brotherly…

For me, the main meat of Countdown has been the Search For Ray Palmer/Monarch/Multiverse stuff. With the “52″ multiverse only recently established, its been great fun seeing the different worlds. And noticably most reviews seem to agree that Countdown’s firing on all cylanders when this is the story its focusing on.

I still maintain I reckon this multiverse will be nuked by Final Crisis though. I think the fact that Earth-2 has been all but avoided will be key however to the fact that the Multiverse will not be collapsed again. Throughout Infinite Crisis, it was noted that Earth-2 was different to the other resurrected worlds, and we’ve still got the “Missing Kryptonians” mystery. I’m betting Final Crisis will end with a new multiverse.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 13:37 and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.