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As usual, I'm of two minds concerning the various Countdown mini-series and tie-ins. It's great to see DC using the shared universe and connecting the dots again. It's also fun to pick up Superman, Batman, Outsiders, etc., and connect all the dots about what's going on. On the other hand, there's one key event that triggers all of this: Batman bursting in on the League's lobotomy of Dr. Light in Infinity Crisis. Why should Batman get so enraged about what the League is doing? We know he doesn't condone the death penalty; otherwise the Joker would be dead meat. Dr. Light's a rapist and he's vowed to hurt the League again, so this is the next best thing. I can't see Batman wanting to rush and attack the League without some kind of discussion about what they were doing: was Zatanna extracting info out of his brain, putting him to sleep, etc.? Batman can't realize it's a lobotomy just after getting out of the tube. That part of the story happens too fast and it's done in an expedient manner to get the plot going in a certain direction.
Despite this, I'm so hyped on all this stuff that I went out and bought OMAC 1-2, Rann Thanagar War 1, Batman 639-640, and Day of Vengence 1-2. OMAC 1-2 (which should be called Batman: OMAC) are key pieces of the Countdown story, although the story seems a bit thin so far. Batman discovers that Blue Beetle is dead and Booster gets so mad that he tries to blast Bats (something that also seems mis-conceived). Batman's reaction, after figuring out that Zatanna wiped his memory, is to build a super-computer orbiting the Earth to watch the entire Justice League 24x7 in case they ever try that mind-altering trick again. Then he loses control of OMAC to Maxwell Lord and Checkmate. Lord does some pretty cool stuff in #2 and is turning out to be an effective villain. Superman and Wonder Woman seem to shrug this off pretty lightly, like "oh Batman's anti-League plans were hi-jacked again" as he did before in JLA Vol. 7: Tower of Babel
Rann Thanagar War 1 was much better: Dave Gibbons did a great job pulling this story together, even though I haven't read the Adam Strange mini-series (it's getting collected in August). Adam shows up to enlist the aid of Hawkman and Hawkgirl: there's a civil war brewing on Rann, which now is home to millions of displaced Thanagarians. That's too much testosterone for one globe (although you would think the Rannians need that, being sterile) and a civil war has broken out by the time the trio Zeta-beam themselves over to Adam’s adopted planet. Ivan Reis did a superb job on the artwork; it just looks fantastic, like a Neal Adams combined with John Buscema. I understand he will be taking over Teen Titans later. It’s funny to see Hawkman fighting his brother Thanagarians—you’d think he’d be stepping up and offering them an alternative home. Like, why don’t they go and take over WarWorld or something? I don’t quite understand the reason for the war. Other than the fact that the Thanagarian home world was destroyed by the planet Rann beaming itself around the galaxy, that’s all an innocent mistake. At least they were evacuated in time. John Stewart blew up a planet without even a two-minute warning in Cosmic Odyssey
The regular Batman series ties into this mess as well. In issue 639 he meets with Green Arrow and Hawkman to find out how they returned to life. Duh, like he didn’t already know, especially in Green Arrow’s case, he helped solve the mystery. He asks Superman the same question in 640. Duh, we don’t get anything new because Superman didn’t really die. Somehow he thinks asking these questions will tell him why Jason Todd is back and running around as the Red Hood. He even asks Zatanna if Ra’s Al Ghul’s lazarus pits could have revived Jason, and then he puts her down with an “I can’t trust you” bitch slap. Hey, if the pits can’t revive a dead person, then how come Ra’s threatened Bats with the corpses of his parents back in that JLA story? Batman wastes two issues flying around while Red Hood causes havoc back in Gotham City. There are hints about Jason Todd having something to do with the missing kryptonite referred to in Countdown.
Haven’t read Day of Vengence yet, but I read somewhere that there will be a Spectre #1 after the Crisis series. I think we are all expecting that Ted Kord will be the new Spectre. Hey, you can't get snuffed like that so brutally without some kind of reward.
A lot of these things are dumb. But it’s all dumb fun. Nuff said.
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