Customer Reviews

Countdown to Final Crisis, Vol. 2

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Countdown, DC's second attempt at a weekly, year-long series, is supposedly an attempt at detailing the events leading up to Final Crisis, but like the first collected volume before it, the second volume of Countdown is a boring failure. As this collection picks up, we are once again focused on the developments of Jimmy Olsen, Mary Marvel, Flash rogues Piper and Trickster, and more relatively minor characters besides. Believe it or not, the most interesting story element of Countdown are the developments with Karate Kid. The Legion of Superheroes member destiny appears to become a little more apparent here, but a majority of Countdown just seems woefully paced, and ever-boring. Considering that the usually talented Paul Dini layed out the groundwork of Countdown, there just isn't enough here to hold your interest. Even the adventures of Kyle Rayner, Donna Troy, Jason Todd, and Bon the Monitor as they search for Ray Palmer across the various Earth's come off as lame. Between the boring developments, rushed artwork (which looks worse than anything in the much better 52), and uninteresting characters; Countdown is a supreme disappointment. All in all, if you've been closely following the developments leading to Grant Morrison's Final Crisis, Countdown may be worth looking at, but it can also be easily avoided for practically everyone else.

Countdown To Final Crisis Vol. 2 was as bad as Vol. 1. Jimmy Olsen being the central character was the only upside of the mini-series but above all that, the book was unreadable. Don't waste your time with this book.

After a somewhat respectable first volume that admittedly exhibited areas of concern, this second installment of Countdown subsequently wears down under the ever increasing strain from those areas. It's obviously problematic when you have a group of C listers featured in barely interesting and rapidly edited storylines with no apparent association or direction, consequently compounded by the necessity of a concluding expository issue which encapsulates in a few pages what all of the previous issues combined struggled to tell themselves. This is the literary equivalent of an economic enigma, a project that appears promising on a macro level, but seriously underachieves in its' micro execution. The basic premises remain sound. Who is killing off the New Gods? Is the return of formerly dead heroes endangering the multiverse? Where is Ray Palmer, and why is he such an invaluable piece of this perplexing puzzle? And just what is the Great Disaster, and how are all of these disparate threads connected to it? Grand themes indeed, although scarcely touched upon, with most of it instead focusing on mundane minutiae saddled with pedestrian players like Karate Kid, Holly Robinson, and Mary Marvel. No offense intended to fans of these characters, but they certainly cannot carry a substandard story by their intrinsic appeal alone. The book is an excellent example of modern comics' primary problem, decompression, a sorry state of excessive filler only occasionally punctuated by something substantial. Yes, this is a year long weekly, but excuses are reserved for mistakes. When discussing a vast voyage such as this, even if the final payoff is impressive, it is imperative that one enjoys the journey, and despite a well designed map, it has thus far been a rather rocky ride.

You definately need to read Volume 2 of this 4 part series. I enjoyed the balance between the character development and action. I am a big Shazam fan so it is good to see Mary Marvel get some serious attention. This book is a good read.

I don't dislike this book, but I'm not in love with it either. There are quite a few things I did enjoy though, like the Trickster & Piper arc. I just thing is damn funny.

There are other several things I'm not confortable with though, such as: How come Jason Todd is such a schmuck on the series. This guy was trained by Batman... he should be able to do more than just receive the punches and don't do squad.
Much exiting things are happening on the time line of these stories, but none of them actually happen. On the first volume happened Bart Allen's death, the Amazon Attack, etc and we didn't see anything of it. Characters just say "Oh, this is happening", but nothing is tell on the book. This time happen the New Gods killing, or explain Superboy Prime new black suit. You know, small things like that matter.
I agree that there is a big mistery involved but there is no ACTION on the book at all. This is the biggest failure on the book.
52 had a big mistery, but they make it so interesting and there were so much action in it that you didn't realized that you have been reading for hours.

I really hope this gets better on the third and fourth volume, and I hope the mistery unraveled worth the purchase.

What it could possibly become one truly memorable storyline (like 52 was), became a booooring and really inconsistent sequence of events. It seemed to me that since dc did great with 52, they said "hey, let's repeat it"... but Countdown is slow, not really coherent at all and has just a few memorable moments (SPOILERS -the return of the atom, mary marvel in black... and the "death" of a great villain). But these moments really last 2 or 3 chapters of the total 52 issues, and i don't really think they are worthy the $$$ and the read you invest in this serie.
If you're a HUGE fan of DC, want to have and undestand ALL the "final crisis" storyline and really CAN'T live without seeing how the atom returned... then buy it; otherwise you'll be JUST fine reading the resume in any website.