This Week’s Haul

• A generic “battle” cover which doesn’t occur in the book, featuring a plot thread which occupies a single page of the issue.
• The introduction of some rather nasty supporting characters, who will apparently be the protagonists of an upcoming series – but who cares? (I guess they’ve appeared before, but I still don’t care.)
• Half the issue is spent on four of the separate storylines, not really advancing any of them. (Graeme McMillan notes that he skipped two issues and didn’t really miss anything.)
• A minor supporting character, the Jokester, who joined the world-traveling crew a few issues ago, is unceremoniously killed off for no good reason.
• And it’s still not at all clear why we’re bothering with all this world-hopping in the first place, since it’s been just one random encounter after another.

It all comes down to writing: It’s just not good. There’s no sense of where the story is going (any of the stories), or even if it’s indeed going anywhere.. This is just the opposite of 52 which set up mysteries and adventures, and steadily resolved them. Not every plot thread worked, but as a whole it was entertaining. Countdown is just a messy assortment of stuff. The problem isn’t that the creators aren’t big names, it’s that there’s no direction, and no focus. I suspect this is either due to authorial mastermind Paul Dini not having come up with a good enough framework for the series, or else due to poor editorial direction.

(It’s slightly disturbing that Chen is already being spelled by a fill-in artist for parts of the issues, though it helps that I hardly notice when the pages alternate between Chen and Denham while I’m actually reading the comic. Chen is a terrific artist – I first picked up Nova mainly because he’s on it – so I guess this means Denham’s pretty good, too. I hope Chen isn’t planning on leaving the book, though.)

Bendis’ hallmark as a writer is that he writes copious dialogue. His characters tend to be smartasses, often foul-mouthed and philosophical at the same time. In my opinion, his style doesn’t work at all when he writes for mainstream Marvel comic books, but it works fine in his own world, with its gritty and grimy settings and populace. Oeming’s relatively simple linework seems cartoony at first glance, but it actually works quite well with Bendis’ scripts, conveying the weight of the situations while still leaving room for the gleaming, four-color-style linework for the heroes; in other words, balancing the dark realism with the superpowered sense of awe. Weaving between the two extremes is what makes the book work – that and Bendis’ unflinching ability to keep raising the stakes for his protagonists while still keeping them grounded in their day-to-day jobs.

(My biggest regret about the second series is that Deena’s sunny, smartass personality has been fading under the weight of her burdens. On the other hand, it seems that Deena and Christian are on opposite trajectories in their respective stories, so no doubt this is all deliberate.)

Powers can be brutal and bloody at times, so it’s not for the squeamish. It is, however, well worth following for anyone who appreciates deconstructive approaches to the superhero genre.

(Although this is a good volume, if you haven’t read it before then you’re better off starting at the beginning, or at least the start of the second series.)