Countdown #28

COUNTDOWN #28

Story: Paul Dini w/ Tony Bedard
Art: Al Barrionuevo

DC Comics

Only 28 left to go to end the torment.

Page by page:

Jimmy Olsen is kidnapped by a new Forager. Who? The Newsarama article said his is a redesign of a New God, but an editorial caption or a flashback or any bread scrap would be most welcome at this point, if only to explain why I should care at this point.

The Suicide Squad storms the cafe where Trickster and Piper are meeting Double Down, but the odd couple turn invisible and escape in a disappointing Gadget-Ex-Machina moment. So this whole time the Trickster has had an invisibility generator in his costume? One noone found when they arrested them, and one he never thought to use when they were captured by Poison Ivy, almost executed by Deathstroke, hidden in the warehouse of the Black Canary wedding, or mauled by a Golem? Double Down is the freakiest Rogue in DC's current repertoire (that's saying a lot), but the art in the last few issues hasn't done much to portray his powers since the Geoff Johns rule, with the deck of cards peeling off his inked skin, leaving behind visible muscle tissue. Here he's only a tatooed weirdo with a deck of cards.

Karate Kid and Una meet up with Brother Eye and something goes on with an old man and some kid. If I cared I would actually read the whole dialogue. But I don't (duh). Brother Eye's dialogue is creepy enough to make the effort, could we please have some off-beat moment in the future: I want to see him say 'Eye spy with my big Eye' :)

Speaking of Big Brother, Shadowpact is using Madame Xanadu to spy on Mary Marvel (or Black Mary, hehe) as she's using her new powers to-- wait, what ARE her powers? At this point, she's being shown doing pretty much whatever she wants. She's ageing people, she's bringing trees to life, she's transfiguring people into animals. She's a goddess, she's a witch, she's a bitch. Lovely.

The new Forager (man ,she looks UGLY! Why would someone commit this heinous crime to a Kirby design?) reveals DC's real plan behind offing New Gods left and right (Bardaaaaaaaaaa :-o ), as she enlists Jimmy to help retrieve the lost souls of the dead New Gods. Go Team Jimmy!

The Challengers of the Unknown are on Earth-8, the Earth mirrored after the Marvel Universe where the villains have brought on apocalypse and slain everyone. Captain Atom has somehow turned into an ass (the bug has been going around the DCU lately), and is sporting the Monarch armour, 2 decades too late. The challengers are kicking ass until not one but TWO yawn-inducing big surprise villains join the Big Boring Blue's cause.

On the art side, Al Barrionuevo is underperforming, dropping massively in quality compared to what he'd shown us in his debut series with Martian Manhunter. I guess he needs to make his art fit with the previous 23 bland issues of this title. I still don't really believe Giffen is doing breakdowns in this book.

The series is reading more and more like an endless random collage of 'Meanwhiles' and interludes in desperate need of a cohesive main plot to drive them to the finish line. It's not horrid, it's just aimless and dull with not a single redeeming value. Still a crime against our pockets.

28 boring Countdown issues on the shelf, read one out, burn it to ashes, 27 boring Countdown issues on the shelf.

Grade: 2/10