Countdown to Final Crisis #1 Review

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #1
Story by Paul Dini
Story consulting by Keith Giffen
Script by Paul Dini
Art by Scott Kolins

I don't know if I should just be happy that this is finally over or if I should be livid over the fact it was a complete disaster and "ended", if you can call that an ending, with absolutely no resolution and a bunch of vague, I assume, Final Crisis dangling plotlines. Combined with all the tie-ins, which all proved completely pointless, I'm really soured on the whole weekly thing and am seriously considering not picking up Trinity, despite my love of Bagley's work.

This issue, picking up after the underwhelming and out of nowhere Orion "killing" Darkseid story from last week comes this epilogue of sorts that, while actually not a terrible issue, still has so many inconsistencies and plot holes that I can't even bring myself to like an otherwise decent issue, by Countdown standards.

Simply put, Kyle, Donna, Jimmy, Forager and Ray form a new team that will perform "border patrol" for the Multiverse in answer to Donna's groan inducing question of "who monitors the Monitors?". Yes, they managed to do a rip on Watchmen, which is an insult just by it now being referenced in a Countdown issue. On top of this, this new team consists of a useless human, a wannabe Wonder Woman, a guy who shrinks, a bug and a replacement Green Lantern (don't kill me Kyle fans) and they throw down an ultimatum to the all powerful Monitors, who just recently went toe-to-toe with Monarch's Multiversal army without even using a fraction of their powers, that they either toe the line and do what they say or they'll make them do it. How are these losers going to enforce anything on the Monitors and why didn't they just laugh their asses out of the building?

Only other noteworthy mess up was Black Adam being back to full power with no mention of how exactly that happened. Last I recall, he gave Mary all of his power, which reverted him to human form, and sailed off into the sunset. Then, Mary goes nuts, loses powers, regains them and turns evil again. Now she's picking a fight with him in the desert, where he laughs off her pathetic attempt at harming him and gives her a verbal beat down before leaving. I don't even care how he got the powers back, as it just means one good thing actually came out of this mess, but it doesn't make sense either.

Verdict - Complete Failure

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