Countdown to Final Crisis #2 Review

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #2
Story by Paul Dini
Story consulting by Keith Giffen
Script by Sean McKeever
Art by Jesus Saiz and Jimmy Palmiotti

I should really just stick this in the Quick Shot reviews because I have absolutely nothing good to say about it and I could describe the events in a paragraph, but I think I need the space to vent my frustrations, so here we go.

This is a weekly series. As such, we expect some form of continuity from week to week. Last week, we had Darkseid, about 6 to 8ft all, battling Superman and ending with a giant sized Jimmy Olsen. Mary Marvel was happily WHAP-ing away with Kyle and Donna and Ray was dancing in Jimmy's head with Apokalips anti-bodies hunting him down.

This week, Darkseid and Jimmy are doing Godzilla impressions, Mary is missing in action, Kyle and Donna are fine and saving people from Darkseid and Jimmy's fight and the explanation for Darkseid being 100ft tall is that "he's freaking Darkseid". Amazing.

After a couple pages of this ridiculous farce, Atom, completely unmolested by anti-bodies, takes the repository of the New Gods souls out of Jimmy's head, shrinks Jimmy back to normal and then crushes the device in his hands. It was the size of a baseball or larger at this point and I'm confused as to how it got inside Jimmy's head in the first place if it was that big, but whatever, it's Countdown.

After that, Orion shows up and kills Darkseid after 15 pages of giant energy explosions. What, where'd Orion come from? Didn't he die in Death of the New Gods? Where have you been? This is Countdown, we don't explain these things. We drop a boomtube, introduce a character we've never seen in 50 other issues of this series and kill of the big bad Darkseid unceremoniously in a dozen repeated panels that feature Orion and he blasting each other with energy explosions.

On top of that, Superman and several other heroes are on the sidelines and Superman tells everyone not to help because this is Orion's fight, despite his constant interference in the Death of the New Gods storyline. If he cared so much there, why let him fight on his own here against someone that just destroyed half of Metropolis? For the cherry on top, after Orion kills Darkseid and is critically wounded, Superman tells everyone not to go help him or try to save him and this is his moment or some jazz. Superman. Tells people not to try and help someone. He can move at the speed of light and get him to someone that can treat him or boomtube him somewhere, yet let's him die in the gutter or whereever he wanders off to.

Verdict - Avoid It. I can only imagine what this carnival freak show of a comic book has in store for next issue. I guess the Salvation Run villains will arrive in Metropolis from a boom tube and start a big brawl or some other garbage. Maybe Mary Marvel's disappearance will be explained, who knows?

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