Countdown: Thirty-Three


countdown 33Welcome back, everybody. Just twelve hours later, sporting one wicked hangover, I’m back and ready to talk about this week’s issue of Countdown, which, for those of you keeping track, is the Countdown equivalent to “52’s” Week Nineteen, the week that Skeets made his full-fledged heel-turn and everything started going crazy. Has Countdown reached the same level of interest by this point? Has a clear-cut supervillain emerged from the pack to draw the story toward an end point? Is there a decent story being told here, at the very least? No, no, and not at all. Before we get too far into things, though, I’d like to take this time to bestow a very special award upon Mr. Carlos Magno, the penciller for this particular issue of Countdown. With all proper pomp and circumstance, allow me to present him the very first annual Award for Most Disproportionate, Sloppy, Confusing, and Otherwise Pathetically Amateurish Art, with special recognition for showing either clear definition of nipples or full-on ass-crack or camel toe when depicting Mary Marvel, in eight of the eleven panels in which she appears. It must take a lot of work to incorporate all of those boner-inducing, pre-pubescent snatch shots. Way to go, man! That’s what I call talent!

We start with a lower-body-less Piper and Trickster begging the small-headed Flash, Wally West, to believe that they’re innocent, and to help them out, since they’ve apparently been outfitted with giganticly explosive “chips” in their necks. Flash takes them out, uses his name in some form of silly pun, and throws the explosives into the air, where they blow up bigger and brighter than the nuclear bomb that “fried” Booster Gold and destroyed a sea liner in the pages of “52.” Those chips sure pack a mean wallop. Bet you can’t blow up just one! Flash then gets Zatanna to transport them to the guest room in the reception hall where Black Canary and Green Arrow is gettin’ hitched. They make three really lame mindwipe jokes, Flash leaves, Trickster punches Piper, and they’re on the run again, only to be confronted by a gigantic, one-legged mummy that speaks in Wingdings. None of this really matters. I mean, Flash might believe their story, and they might think they’re innocent, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re culpable for Bart Allen’s death. They beat him to death along with the other Rogues. Did DC forget that? What the hell?

Elsewhere, that creepy little bastard that met Mary Marvel last week offers his full services to the overly developed, panty-less (maybe?) carrier of Black Adam’s power, with the condition that she give him a bit of power to party with. Big whoop.

The real meat of this story comes from the Nanoverse, however. And by meat, I mean, like, if that meat were either rump roast or just a McDonald’s Kid’s Meal hamburger patty. There’s nothing really particularly satisfying about this meat, so just know that that empty expression wasn’t a half-hearted compliment. I still have nothing but hatred for this series. I digress. In said Nanoverse, our “heroes,” and by heroes, I mean chump stains, are met by Kyle Rayner, who shows up, “Not a scond too soon.” What’s a scond? Somebody should ask Ryan Choi, because I’m curious. Oh, wait, you can’t, because as soon as Kyle (with a ring, mind you) helps save Donna from Queen Nobody Cares, Ryan is plucked up by a giant human hand, and the Monitor, who really has next to no powers, which is disappointing, since he’s supposed to be, like, the ultimate being in the Multiverse, says that there’s nothing to do and they all embark on the next leg of their adventure, which you probably won’t find in these pages any longer. Go pick up “Countdown Presents the Search for Ray Palmer!”

It’s odd, because I read this other comic book today, called “Green Lantern,” and there’s this little thing going on in it called the “Sinestro Corps War.” It’s, like, the biggest thing going on in DC Comics today, and one of the reasons is because Kyle Rayner’s now the host for Parallax, which is, like, one of the biggest bad-guys the Corps has ever come across. Too bad there is absolutely no mention of that in this issue (although there is in the Countdown Search for Ray Palmer). I dunno, if it were me, I’d probably ask him about it. Maybe it’s a touchy subject for him. That could get awkward.

That’s all for this week. Nothing happens, everything is drawn like shit, and there’s no end in sight.