Multiversity: Countdown

Multiverse was back after Infinite Crisis and 52 weekly. Supposedly the idea was to follow it up with various multiverse based books by the writers of 52 weekly. For one reason or another this never materialized and instead multiverse was heavily used in Countdown to Final Crisis weekly. Countdown, at this point, is regarded as one of the worst things that DC has ever published, but maybe multiverse related bits in it were decent? Lets find out.

When I first started thinking about this post I figured I'd cover all the different Earths showcased and what was cool or bad about them, but at some point I realized that it would just be a waste of words. Instead I'll just cover things that aren't terrible or are somehow related to Morrison's work. If something is not mentioned in this post then assume that it is real bad. Thank god that Flashpoint erased all of it since with Morrison being Morrison it is probably safe guess that most of the bad and stupid stuff that happened in Countdown would have been incorporated into eventual Multiversity series.

Superboy Prime ends up playing rather important part in the weekly. He is responsible for destroying Earth-15 that is years later used in Morrison's The Green Lantern run and he is also partially responsible for Earth-51 blowing up, which is an important plot point for Final Crisis. Morrison changed the details about these events and Prime's adventure is not well written in the weekly so it is not worth going back to read it, but I figure it is worth mentioning. As a sidenote I would have preferred if Prime actually died in this weekly and wasn't brought back by Johns again and again.

Main group exploring the multiverse in this weekly was The Challengers from Beyond - Donna, Jason and Kyle being the main members. They even had a separate line of one-shots - Search for Ray Palmer, where they looked for Palmer in different universes. It was mostly bad-to-average stories, but to me one with Gaslight stands out. It was actually good, probably because it was written by Augustyn. It has been separately collected in Batman: Gotham by Gaslight The Deluxe Edition together with other pre-Flashpoint tales of that Earth and you should totally get it.

I guess it is also worth mentioning that CSA of Earth-3 was not Syndicate, but Society. Idea was that we got antimatter CSA as a counterparts to JLA so these guys will be counterparts to JSA. Maybe something cool could have been done with such setup, but it never happened. They were written just like another bland version of the classic Syndicate.

Forerunner was a new character introduced in this weekly and got her own story in Countdown to Adventure miniseries. Morrison actually liked the idea behind her and based Earth-48 on it, she also appears in Multiversity Guidebook next to other characters from Earth-48. So is her adventure worth reading? No, it is badly written with plot jumping from one direction to another and Morrison doesn't really reference anything from her adventures.

Havok, old JLI villain, is brought back as hailing from Marvel-like Earth and gets his own mini drawn by Liam Sharp. Unfortunately his style is not as impressive as what he has been doing since Rebirth Wonder Woman run. As for the story? I think that Tieri does an okay job when he is writing the origin for Havok and his guys, but he also has to add some Countdown stuff and it really detracts from the overall story. It is almost good I'd say, check it out if you like Havok or if you want to see how Sharp used to draw.

I also got the impression that DC had plans for Havok going forward as a mini-Monarch figure, but I guess due to everyone hating Countdown this idea was dropped. Years later Havok would return briefly in Morrison's Multiversity and later had a bit bigger role in Orlando's JLA.

And we are going to finish this post with surprising entry - Captain Carrot and the Final Ark mini by Bill Morrison and Scott Shaw. It is kinda a tie-in to Countdown, but at the same time has nothing to do with it so... it ends up being a fun story. This mini basically explains why Carrot was a regular rabbit before Morrison brought him back in Final Crisis. Do you need to read it to understand Final Crisis or get what Morrison later did with Carrot in Multiversity? No, but as I said it is a fun story and I feel like it stands on its own.

Technically it is a sequel to short story by Johns in his Teen Titans run, but you can understand Final Ark perfectly fine without reading it. I also haven't really read any of the original Captain Carrot stories so I have no idea how faithful to the original this mini is.

So in the end just get Batman Gaslight Deluxe edition, Captain Carrot and the Final Ark if you can actually find it somewhere. Lord Havok and the Extremists is more for people interested in Havok or to see how Sharp used to draw. Everything else? Kill it with fire.