Comic Book Review: Countdown to Final Crisis #17

It was a rare and stunning occurrence, but Countdown to Final Crisis #18 was actually an enjoyable read. Now, is it possible that the boys at DC can actually deliver back-to-back good reads on this title? Well, honestly, I don’t think that they can, but I’m going to hope for the best and remain guardedly optimistic. Let’s go on and do this review for Countdown to Final Crisis #17.

Creative Team
Writers: Paul Dini, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti & Keith Giffen
Pencils: Ron Lim
Inks: Jimmy Palmiotti

Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 1 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 3.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: We begin with Black Mary and Eclipso brawling with each other. Eclipso gets the upper hand in the fight. We then cut to Earth-51 where Barry Allen springs to action and attacks Bob the Monitor. Bob comments that this time Barry dies before the Crisis can take root and with that Bob kills Barry. (Yes! Here I thought we might concentrate on actual good writing to carry the issue! Have no fear, senseless death is here! Yes! Let’s just kill every version of Barry Allen and then piss on their corpses!)

Bob brawls with Kyle and Donna as Ray and Jean run to the basement. Ray tells Jean that they need to escape this Earth. Jean is in shock. Bob then comes crashing into the basement.

We cut back to Black Mary and Eclipso stilling battling. This time Black Mary gets the upper hand in the fight. We slide back to Earth-51 where Bob blasts Jean and reduces her to a burnt smoldering corpse. (Yes! More senseless gruesome death! KILL EVERYONE!!!)

We cut back to Black Mary grabbing Eclipso and yelling out “Shazam!” A lightning bolt then strikes both ladies. We see Black Mary reverted back to her regular human form and Eclipso has also reverted to her regular Jean Loring form. Both ladies are unconscious and fall to the water below.

We zip back to Earth-51, where Ray Palmer is in shock over Jean’s death. Bob is about to blast Ray when Ralph Dibny attacks Bob. Bob them promptly kills Ralph. (Yes! Keep it going. Kill every version of that bastard, Ralph Dibny! More death!! More blood!!) Kyle then grabs Ray and Jason Todd throws a knife into Bob’s neck. The Challengers along with Ray make their escape from the Palmer’s house.

Before Bob can pursue the Challengers, the other Monitors appear on the scene and form a circle around Bob. The head Monitor, Solomon, tells Bob that he let Ray Palmer escape. Bob responds that their plan was for Bob to use the anomalies to lead them to the key, Palmer himself. Then as soon as they all join Bob inside the unified Monitor will make sure these events never happen again. Solomon thanks Bob for finding Ray and says that it is time for Bob to come home. That all must be one, a single set of eyes for the Multiverse. Solomon then blasts Bob and kills him. (All right! Keep those deaths rolling! I swear that I still see some more characters in this issue still alive. Dammit! That is unacceptable!)

We shift to Ultraman and the Monitor’s soldiers on Earth-51. We see them slaughter both Zatanna and Green Lantern. (That’s right! We need more blood! Countdown must average at least one death per page! So says Dan “death count” Didio!! Quick, where is Superman-Prime? We need to blow some shit up right about now!)

The other Monitors’ are horrified by Solomon’s action. Solomon is stunned that all that was Bob is not now inside of Solomon. That they should be reunited. That they were meant to be that way not apart like they are now.

We shift to Mary washing ashore on an island. Luckily for Mary it appears that she has come ashore onto Paradise Island. Two Amazon guards appear on the scene and inform Mary that she is trespassing.

We cut back to Earth-51 where Solomon comments that the time of merging has passed. That the Source has eluded them and that they are divided and doomed. The Monitors tell Solomon that he is insane to become part of the Source. That the Prime Monitor is a myth. Solomon’s right hand woman says that the reason was sound. One Monitor for one unified reality and one Anti-Monitor for chaos. The balance would be restored.

The Monitors exclaim that Solomon’s true desire is to be the focus for Multiversal Unification. That Solomon has set the Great Crisis in motion. Solomon responds that one of the Monitors chose to hide Ray Palmer here.

Suddenly, Monarch appears on the scene with his entire army with him. Monarch then asks “Who Monitors the Monitors?” (Urrrp. I just threw up into my mouth. No way these writers just riffed off of “Who watches the Watchmen” from the Alan Moore classic The Watchmen. Yeah, I know Moore got the saying from Juvenal’s Satire VI, “Against Women”. But, in the DCU that is associated Moore’s The Watchmen. This piece of crap title doesn’t have the right to reference The Watchmen in even the most general way.) Monarch blabs on about taking over the entire Multiverse and that the war now begins. End of story.

We then get a two page back-up story about the origin of The Monarch. End of issue.

Comments
The Good: Way to go Dan Didio! You made sure that Countdown to Final Crisis #18 was a mere aberration. With short order, this title reverted back to its regular craptacular self with possibly one of the worst issues that we have gotten up to this point. And that says a lot since we have gotten some truly putrid reads over the past couple of months.

All right, I think I can still satisfy The Revolution’s Rule of Positivity with this issue. I thought Ron Lim’s artwork was better than average. All right, that’s all I’ve got.

The Bad: Words simply cannot describe how horrid Countdown to Final Crisis #17 truly was. This issue was pure garbage. I cannot believe that it took four writers to come up with such a pathetic issue. Honestly, this issue reads like a 13 year old kid wrote it after drinking twenty Red Bulls and getting no sleep for three days.

This issue was bad from start to finish. The dialogue is stiff and generic at times and horridly cheesy at other moments. None of the characters have anything that would even remotely be confused with a personality. There is absolutely no chemistry at all generated between the different characters. The entire story comes across as hollow, lifeless and shallow as possible.

Lots of action happens in this issue, but the reader feels completely removed from all of the events. This is because the writers have failed to get the reader to actually care about a single character in this story. There have been no efforts to construct a quality read based on strong plotting, good dialogue, and well developed characters.

Instead, all we have gotten is mindless death on top of mindless death until the reader simply becomes completely and totally desensitized to seeing characters die. The deaths have little to no impact at all on the reader. As a matter of fact, the inordinate amount of gruesome deaths actually makes the reader start laughing out loud at the sheer absurdity of the level of death on Countdown. And I don’t think that the writers’ intent was to make the reader burst out laughing with this issue.

No, all we get on Countdown is Dan “death count” Didio’s mandate to “blow shit up.” Wow, now that truly is the foundation that all epic stories are built from. Strong plot development? Nah. Well developed characters? Nope. Finely crafted dialogue? Unnecessary. Captivating chemistry between the characters? No way. All you need is to simply give us mindless issue after mindless issue of people blowing shit up. That is clearly a recipe to success.

The plotting is terrible as all the plotlines outside of the Challengers plotline continue to get absolutely zero progression or development. The Mary Marvel plotline has been a terminally slow and boring read. And now that Dini is merging the Mary Marvel plotline with the Holly Robinson plotline I am confident that this means this plot will only get worse.

The scenes on Earth-51 were a joke. I knew this was going to happen. I just knew it. That DC would offer up Earth-51 where all our sentimental favorites like Ralph and Barry were still riding high in the saddle. And that this would be done simply for the cheap effect of “blowing shit up” by letting the writers just mow down our sentimental favorites once again. I guarantee you that Ray Palmer is going to die by the end of Countdown to Final Crisis. No doubt in my mind. Of course, they are going to totally torture Ray’s character like they did in Identity Crisis and in this issue before they kill him off.

And that is the biggest problem with Countdown to Final Crisis. It is painfully obvious that the entire Multiverse and all of the cool characters were created for one reason only. To be blown up and killed off in gruesome fashion. What a mind numbing waste of potential. Something like the Multiverse should be created in order to act as a literary tool that can be employed by writers to deliver countless possible stories. Instead, short sighted DC uses the Multiverse for the most base and juvenile purposes possible. Just to blow shit up. How lame, pathetic, unoriginal and uncreative.

Overall: Outside of crackheads and fans of snuff films, I don’t know who would be interested in Countdown to Final Crisis. Honestly, Countdown to Final Crisis and all the associated titles like Countdown: Arena are pushing me to the verge of dropping every single DC title that I read. Well, with the obvious exception of the Legion of Super Heroes. It is pretty much what happened after Crisis on Infinite Earths finished. I was so turned off by what DC did to the DCU that I dropped every DC title except for my beloved Legion of Super Heroes. Of course, that paid off for me as I had to watch DC proceed to rape the Legion beyond recognition during the TMK Legion run.

I didn’t read a DC comic book for 10 years after the Crisis on Infinite Earths ended. And I too great joy in watching Marvel lay an ass beating on DC every single month. And it looks like the past just may repeat itself with me once again dropping DC titles. I guess I’ll give Morrison a chance with Final Crisis, but I’m getting ready to purge DC from my reading list.