After last month’s slightly slower issue, issue 3 kicks things into high gear, with the Holy War itself being kicked off, and the space team all coming together to investigate what’s going on (leading to classic scene where the Weird suggests they all form a permanent group like the JLA, only to be ignored).

I’m still finding Captain Comet’s character in this to be a bit of a departure from how he was portrayed in Mystery in Space. There was was fairly typically heroic, whereas now he’s almost cowardly, relying on Tyrone to set him right. Its an understandable shift though. Next to the rest of the space characters, some of them are going to start looking quite generic without changes. Aside from his telepathy, there’d be a real danger of Captain Comet and Adam Strange being inter-changable. And the character shift has resulted in some amusing scenes (Comet realising that by going to Rann he’s actually jumped right into the middle of trouble, rather than avoiding it for example).

I also found a scene at the end interesting, from the point of view of my “Why has Adam’s revamp been retconned” rant. Adam Strange’s suit clearly has the ability to manifest the same hardlight weaponary that he got in his Planet Heist revamp. Since in Countdown to Adventure it was explicitly stated that Adam’s suit was his old one, we can only assume this suit is new, but with a deliberately retro look.

It still irks though that they ditched such a good revamp.

There’s a nice little aside aside with Animal Man admitting that he’s not told his wife that Kory’s there. That gave me a laugh.

On an unrelated note, this week’s DC Nation is hilarious. Especially in light of the recent “Didio must go!” online witchhunts.

Quite a big comics week this week for me, and strangely the first comics week in years where the Marvel stuff has vastly outnumbered the DC stuff.

So, I’ll probably do a couple of comics posts this week, but first up is the first issue of Rann-Thanagar Holy War.

I loved the Mystery in Space and Countdown to Adventure series, so picking up this title is a bit of a no-brainer. It surprised me how much it was a direct continuation of both series. Obviously I was expecting to see the fallout from the Countdown to Adventure series factor in heavily, but I was surprised to see the return of the Church of Eternal Light, having setup shop on Thanagar with the Deacon still clearly smarting from his defeat by Captain Comet’s hands.

We also see the space team getting back together. The residents of Rann are still worshipping Lady Styx, despite being cured of the plague back in Countdown to Adventure the other month. They’re refusing to listen to reason about her true motives, so Adam Strange (still sporting his classic look - a pity as I really liked the Planet Heist update) travels back to Earth to recruit Starfire and Animal Man, while trying to hire Captain Comet to broadcast their true memories of Lady Styx to the population of Rann.

Unfortunately, since his miniseries, Captain Comet has decided to play things safe. Determined not to go through dying again (in a really nice scene he tells Tyrone that de-aging 40 years and a new set of superpowers didn’t make up for the horrific experience of his death) he’s sticking to low-risk jobs. Sadly these jobs don’t pay well and his finances are dwindling, much to Tyrone’s concern.

Its a great opening issue. I wasn’t too excited about this series, and while there are minor gripes (Rann’s population worshipping Lady Styx is a fairly negative portrayal of worship - although this could be a plot point, Adam Strange not getting back his Planet Heist gear, and Captain Comet still trying to drop the “Captain” from his name - although again this could be a plot point, we learn here he’s trying to hide the fact he’s the original Captain from people) the story has grabbed me straight away. Ron Lim’s art is great as well (I’m glad I picked up his cover, I far prefer it to the Starlin one shown on the right).

Great first issue. So far it feels like the Mystery in Space magic is back.

Right, catching up with my comics ranting

Countdown #5 continued the transformation of the Earth to the world of Kamandi. While this and issue 6 were an interesting read, they also felt like a diversion from the main event of Countdown. I realise the Great Disaster’s been what the Search for Ray Palmer storyline was playing towards, but these issues, while fullfilling that, just didn’t seem part of the main story to me for some reason. Possibly this is related to the decision to focus on this Earth’s Buddy Blank for the narration, a character only in these two issues, while every other character in Countdown took a back seat. Given that we should be firmly in the “wow! This is finally paying off!” stages of Countdown, frankly it just served to underline the disappointment of the title for the last 45ish issues. I’m pretty much sticking with it because there’s only 5 issues to go, but frankly, there’s no chance of me picking up the next weekly, and Countdown’s left me fairly unenthusiastic for Final Crisis. If they’re smart Superman Prime’ll turn up next issue and blow something up, because those were the best issues.

The other Countdown monthly I’ve been picking up was Countdown to Adventure. I’ve really enjoyed this epilogue to the Space Team’s adventures in 52. I’m a sucker for Adam Strange stuff and he, Animal Man and Starfire work well together. The Forerunner backups seemed fairly pointess, just serving a character that appeared briefly in Countdown. Its a structure that was handled much better in last year’s Mystery in Space title. Talking of which, I’m now really looking forward to Rann-Thanagar Holy War. Adam Strange and Captain Comet. Two characters I’ve really enjoyed the last few years. Although I see they’re still trying to drop the “Captain” from Captain Comet’s name. Gah!

There’s an interesting trend in DC Comics at the moment. I’ve noticed that a number of classic heroes are having their names stripped of any kind of military rank. Captain Comet (above) is now just Comet (which doesn’t sound as good), Captain Marvel is now calling himself Marvel (again, doesn’t sound quite as good) and Commander Steel is now Citizen Steel (although in fairness, its a new guy in the suit, and Citizen Steel still sounds good).

There seems to be some consistency in “ranks” being dropped from character names, and I have to wonder why. Most of these characters have had these names for decades, and at least some of the names sound worse without them. Is this trying to not cause offense to the military in this time of war? If so, I can’t help but feel its an over-reaction.

At least Marvel don’t seem to have fallen foul to the same thing from what I’ve seen.