Countdown #30 Review

COUNTDOWN #30
Story by Paul Dini
Breakdowns by Keith Giffen
Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Art by Jesus Saiz

Wow, I must be in Bizarro World as this is another decent outing from Countdown. While not as good as the last issue's fight with the Crime Society, this issue had some fun interaction with the 'perfect' alternate versions of Jason, Donna and Kyle on Earth-15. These are the kinds of scenes they should have had earlier in the book. I think everyone was probably expecting more Multiverse exploration and less of the 'See Some Other Random Book For the Full Story' stuff we got earlier in this series.

Speaking of Earth-15, I like how they used Zod as the Superman of this Earth. Not sure why it, but it struck me as a nice touch for some reason. The interaction with Batman, who is Jason Todd on Earth-15, and our Jason was pretty good as well and I liked the assorted Jokester quips from all parties, such as Batman's, "I don't like clowns" line. The whole Challengers story has quickly become one of the better parts of Countdown for me. Hopefully they can keep up this pace.

On the other fronts in Countdown, the Rogues story returned this week and made absolutely no sense. They decided to crash Green Arrow's wedding just to see if the heroes took their warning that Deathstroke and Ivy were going to attack it? Yeahbuwha? On top of that, they see a 'present' from the Joker in the form of a TV playing a recording. Fearing that it is a trap, they throw the TV at Poison Ivy so that it doesn't kill the heroes. This was probably one of the worst 'advancements' I've seen in Countdown to date and made less sense than usual if you ask me.

Jimmy Olsen was also in this issue and simply had his powers continue to malfunction. It looked like he split into multiple Jimmy's with different powers. Not sure if he recombined or not at the end as the art was a little awkward in these panels.

Karate Kid also showed up again and Buddy Blank has brought him to OMAC for a little chat where it is revealed he is infected with a future strain of the OMAC virus. Not much is explained for people not familiar with Kamandi or Buddy Blank or even OMAC and having these 'important' characters just show up randomly for major plot advancements with no explanation is one of the major faults in Countdown for me.

Finally, Holly and Harley are on their way to Paradise Island with Athena and basically get thrown to the sharks as a test of their strength. Not sure why anyone would do this 'test' though, especially Holly. At least Harley has the whole insane thing going on to explain her actions. Not sure why Holly would jump into shark infested waters here.

Luckily, Countdown spent only a few pages on these weaker stories and focused the brunt of its time wisely on the Challengers and Earth-15. Countdown still isn't the best book on the market, but it is definitely on the upswing and not nearly as frustrating to read as it once was.

Verdict - Check It

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