Or – “The Lightning Rods Are Important… They MEAN Something.” The return of the annual JLA/JSA team-up is an interesting card to have played this early in the run of the two books, for several reasons. Primarily, neither team has really established their status quo at this point, making it obvious that certain important moments have to have taken place off-screen. Secondly, they’ve resurrected the old Len Wein/Cary Bates tradition of adding a THIRD team to the proceedings, which takess the focus off the two teams who JUST GOT TOGETHER. And most confusingly, that third team is the Legion of…

Or – “Did NOT See That One Coming.” For all the love I give the original incarnation of the Legion, it’s sometimes important to note that the book does still come out monthly, and while we’re a couple of reboots down the line, I feel like the creative minds behind it are again firing on all cylinders. Aside from my ongoing lament about the loss of the less powerful or later-period original Legionnaires, (Bouncing Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, Tyroc, and the Substitute Heroes are mostly missing, and later characters like Wildfire, Dawnstar, & Blok are, as yet, undepicted) and echoing Christopher…

“There’s something wrong with that boy.” I was sorely disappointed last week after reading Countdown #50 as it seemed a huge section of continuity for the last 20 years was thrown out the window to advance the story. Jimmy Olsen acted rather strange, knew the identities of superheroes, and seemed completely oblivious to his immanent death. As suspected, all is not right with Jimmy Olsen.

Or – “Things Continue To Fall To Pieces… Thanks, Spy Smasher!” With the rather unhappy news that Gail Simone is leaving ‘Birds of Prey,’ the title she pretty much made excellent again, I was a little bit saddened to see this issue in my hold bin. In my mind, it meant one less issue of awesome Gail writing… Turns out my mourning was very much premature, as BoP gave us a nice couple of twists on the traditional comic book fight scene, some character development for several of our twelve or thirteen main characters, and made me almost like the…

Jimmy Olsen: Idiot Savant or Just Plain Idiot? One of the biggest plotlines hyped by DC for Countdown has been the death of Jimmy Olsen. *Gasp!* goes the crowd, “You can’t off one of comicdom’s greatest characters!” But after reading this issue, I agree with the Joker – Jimmy Olsen MUST die!

Or – “Finally, A Break From Iron Man Bashing. I’m EXHAUSTED…” Usually, I try to space these out with a little more give-and-take, but last weeks comic book haul was rather Marvel-heavy, and for some odd reason, I haven’t been in an “Outsiders and Checkmate on a covert mission” writing mood. Now that I’ve reread it, I remember that this has been a pretty impressive crossover between two of DC’s better-written middle-of-the-road-selling books, but I fear that they’re “preaching to the choir,” that the people who read one book already read the other. The days of complete Marvel Zombies may…