Countdown: Arena (Paperback)

by Keith Champagne (Author)

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics (August 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401218229
• ISBN-13: 978-1401218225
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #109,525 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unfulfilling fanfic with bad art, October 22, 2008

By	Kid Kyoto (Beijing) - See all my reviews

In a nutshell Countdown Arena isn't such a bad idea. Alternate versions of popular characters fight in an arena.

So we have variations of familiar characters, Communist Superman, Cowgirl Wonder Woman, Vampire Batman fighting to see who is number one.

But the nature of this project makes it impossible to go into any depth with them. There are far too many characters crowded in to give any of them a proper introduction or make the reader care. Plus the author does not just focus on popular, iconic characters, he also has variations of Nightshade, Blue Beetle and Captain Atom filling pages.

The villain of the piece never rises to more than one-dimensional evil, the twist at the end is predictable and the story does not even end in the book, you have to buy another Countdown title to see where things go from here.

The art is crude and cartoony, the action in the fights is hard to follow robbing the series of one of its main points.

So it's a nice idea that could have worked but falls flat.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid like the plague, November 25, 2008

By	N. Durham "Big Evil" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The road to Final Crisis was seemingly paved in the weekly Countdown series. I say seemingly because Countdown was just getting increasingly dull the longer it was going on, and was just better off being skipped all together entirely. One of the many spin-offs of Countdown is Countdown: Arena, which is possibly one of the absolute worst things to ever come out of DC in quite some time. What happens when different variations of familiar faces get together and battle it out? Not a whole lot to be honest, as we see glimpses and battles involving the Superman of Red Son, the vampiric Batman of Red Rain, and more besides. The writing credit is given to Keith Champagne, but as the previous review had mentioned, this is basically fanfic, and should thus be credited as such. The boring and unimaginitive story and set up could be a little bit forgivable if not for some truly horrid artwork, which just looks like it was rushed out the door to meet the deadline date. All in all, even if for some reason you liked Countdown, do not pick up Countdown: Arena; you'll be glad that you didn't.