Countdown to Final Crisis: Eight
Well, would ya look at that cover? Is this the first Countdown appearance for Blue Beetle, Doctor Fate, Hal Jordan, Hawkman, and the Flash? Why, yes. Yes, it is. What an odd time to introduce them. Oh, wait, silly me; they’re not actually in this issue. They’re just on the cover. I’m getting ahead of myself.
In thinking of how to approach writing this blog entry, I started to feel bad about how negative my blogs about Countdown have become lately, so I decided to start this week off by pointing out at least one good thing about this issue. So, here goes nothing: They finally explain why Captain Atom went from being a hero at the end of the Captain Atom: Armageddon mini-series to the tyrant Monarch (aside from the fact that he was put in the armor at the end of Battle for Bludhaven). Aren’t you just dying to know what the answer is? Solomon the Monitor did it off-panel.
Bah.
Let’s move on. What happens this week? I need a beer.
Ok, starting over. What happens this week? The heroes argue. That’s pretty much it. Karate Kid’s infected, obviously, and Una wants to take him home, but Ray Palmer thinks that’s a bad idea, since it would unleash the Great Disaster. Seriously, she should just listen to that ominous name and realize that can’t be a good thing.
Also, Jimmy Olsen has arrived with the Biker Mice from Mars (only, instead of mice, they’re hippies, and instead of Mars, they’re from somewhere else), and he wants to confront Darkseid, but Donna Troy thinks that’s a bad idea.
Eventually, Solomon the Monitor gets sick of all this shit (like me!) and zaps the whole gang off Apokolips, back to Earth. Uh-oh, Spaghetti-O’s! Ok, actually, now that they’re back on Earth, the Great Disaster is going to hit, and it’s at that point that it will no longer make sense as to why they’ve stopped tying all of the other DC books in with Countdown. We’re facing one big clusterfuck over the next couple of months, I have a feeling.
That’s all that happens. I’m sick of wasting my time on this crap. Thankfully, it’s almost over.
Oh, and one last thing. Now that the cosmic chess game between Darkseid and Solomon is over, are they at least going to answer the question of what they were even playing for? Seems a lot was at stake for it to just be a game for kicks.
Let me get this straight.
They played Cosmic Chess just to get all those people off Earth and onto Apokolips … so that they could all be teleported from Apokolips to Earth?
And they really just claimed to explain Captain Atom’s transition but didn’t bother to actually tell the readers?
Yes, that’s correct.
Looking through Countdown this week, there was one moment where I started to get excited, and it was at the prospect of Jimmy Olsen trying to fight Darkseid. I kind of thought that could have been awesome, or hilarious, or both. If nothing else, it was amusing to see Jimmy on a motorcycle, trying to act hardcore.
But Solomon had to tell Jimmy that would play into Darkseid’s hands, and Olsen lost his backbone (or regained common sense), and I lost interest again.
Did you see that last panel with the gigantic balloon head Atom and his little tiny arm poking out from behind it? and whats with them all looking so cheerful about killing Karate Kid?
Oh wait, now I remember. He sucks.
I just think it’s funny that they’re actually saying a Cosmic Chess game is responsible for characters acting completely irrationally. Like, after the Lightning Saga, Karate Kid and Una stayed behind in this time so that Karate Kid could get infected with a mega virus, be sent to Bludhaven and later Apokolips, before being sent back to Earth, just so that he could bring about the Great Disaster, and this was all HIS IDEA, but not really, since he was guided by an unseen hand in a fucking chess game. How illogical and stupid is that? Am I alone on this?