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Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials

Countdown 28

Scheduled to arrive in stores: October 17, 2007

Cover date: October 17, 2007

"Now Forager"

Writer: Paul Dini with Tony Bedard
Penciller: Keith Giffen (Breakdowns), Al Barrionuevo
Inker: Art Thimbert
Cover: Ian Churchill & Norm Rapmund

Back-Up Story: "The Origin of Trickster"/"The Origin of Pied Piper"
Write: Scott Beatty
Penciller: Ethan Van Sciver
Inker: Ethan Van Sciver

Reviewed by: Adam Dechanel

Click to enlarge

A Boom Tube opens above a Metropolis apartment building. A being woman clad in metallic armour hunts the city streets in search of someone and answers to her quest. She is the winged hunter Forager and her quest is almost over.

JIMMY OLSEN

After escaping the sewer system, Jimmy and the Newsboys summarize the testing in Cadmus, elude to the New Gods dying in high frequency and how Mary Marvel is high on the biatch factor but nobody seems to want to stop or help her. They are also washing their sewage covered clothes. Before Jimmy can hitch up his jeans Forager arrives and steals Jimmy away.

PIPER AND TRICKSTER

The duo have hooked up with Double Down a fellow super villain to drink coffee on Route 116. Apparently rogues are being rounded up coast to coast. No villains that have been captured have been heard from again so the trio worry, especially as Trickster and Piper are still sporting a laser cuff from an attempt to capture them previously.

Trickster notices armed forces of a supervillian level are surrounding the diner they sit in and hide out while the forces hunt the venue. They turn out to be Federal agents with Men in Black amnesia rays. They knock out the civilians and Double Down tries to make an escape run. Before he can make it out he's confronted by his friend Multiplex whose switched sides and is quickly captured by the Suicide Squad.

Trickster dips into his bag of tricks and fashions an invisiblity unit, he makes a suggestion that they sneak on board the transport outside and release all the captured rogues, earning them untold respect from their peers.

KARATE KID

Brother Eye's eathly hideout has been breached by Buddy Blank, Blank's grandson, Una, and Val. The robot with ocular based puns has decided that they will stay imprisoned forever. Fighting back doesn't work and seemingly they'll be trapped until they rot. Blank's grandson and Brother Eye share a Johnny Five moment and the computer reneges his threat to imprison them after his CPU feels the adoration of a child.

Brother Eye turns to his new friends and informs Val that the virus within him is incurable as far as he can tell, however there is a similar virus kept in Bludhaven that might hold the answers. Brother Eye looks on longingly as Blank's grandson promises to email him.

MARY MARVEL

Mary is completely and utterly screwed up. Her twisted view on the world is a far cry from her heroic days. Instead she's shrunk poachers to mouse size so they are crushed by their prey, she makes plants self aware so when they are chopped down the wood cutters commit murder and of course the coup de grace is ageing death row prisoners, regardless of sentence or innocence till they crumble.

Shadowpact are watching her actions and query why her power levels seem more powerful than even Black Adam. They vow to stop her at all costs.

JIMMY OLSEN

Forager reveals to Jimmy that the New Gods are dying but only on a flesh basis. Their souls have vanished somewhere. Even heroes lik Big Barda are gone (so much for the Birds of Prey's strongest member!) Because he's the one human who has more contact with the New Gods than anyone on Earth Forager asks if Jimmy will help her.

THE NEW CHALLENGERS

Bob reveals that Monarch had been hiding from the 52 Monitors in the bleed - a place in between. The villain draws them out of hiding and offers them a choice - join him or die.

Naturally they choose die.

Havok and the Extremists battle them to a standstill and the challengers ask Bob to help them slide to the next universe - but just like the timer in the show they have to wait till Bob is ready. While they wait Monarch reveals his trump card - the JLA evil counterparts arrive and turn the tide in evil's favor.

Suddenly they are defeated...

To Be Continued...

Back-Up Story: "The Origin of Trickster"/"The Origin of Pied Piper"
Write: Scott Beatty
Penciller: Ethan Van Sciver
Inker: Ethan Van Sciver

TRICKSTER

James Jesse was part of a circus aerialist family but suffered from a fear of heights. James found he had a gift as an inventor and created air walker shoes giving hin the ability to hover. However he didn't return to the circus, instead he took to a life of crime like his namesake.

During his career he had battled three men under the moniker "The Flash" and succeeded in killing the last.

PIPER

Hartley Rathaway was a wealthy child born with a hearing defect. His publishing magnate father spent a fortune to cure the problem and eventually succeeded - too well. Hartley grew bored in life and used his gift of hearing to fine tune his skills in sound becoming the modern Pied Piper with a penchant for crime.

Despite his criminal career Piper eventually became a good friend of The Flash and swore to change his criminal ways.

This didn't last and he watched as his friend was murdered before him and did nothing.

Now these two are on the run, from the Federal government, the Suicide Squad and of course The Flash.

Main Story - 3: Today on Sesame Street is all about friendship.

It's been so long but the New Gods dying has come back to center stage and it was great to see Forager and Jimmy strike an alliance and the prospect he might be proactive is a good one they strike a friendship.

Brother Eye is back and complete with toothachingly bad puns and a desire to be amongst people. Funny in OMAC he was evil enough to infect a baby with the OMAC virus as floating out to space - oh well. He's shown a nicer side to it/himself and made friends - aww.

Mary has no friends.

Trickster and Piper throw in another anti-gay joke and lead into a Genosha style storyline to rescue their criminal friends so they'll make new friends. The storyline gives them purpose - the bigotry turns me off.

Double Down is betrayed by his friend.

The Challengers don't want to be friends with Monarch and fight with him and his cohorts trying to escape hoping their next leap would be the leap home - oh wait that's Quantum Leap, or is it Sliders? Damn Paul Dini loves his TV.

Monarch is unhappy and orders his friends to take them out.

OK jokes aside the story has taken on a new turn and I must admit I like it very much. After weeks of dancing around the stories and offering minimal development it was almost a shock to the system when progress finally happened.

I don't like how the spin-offs and tie-ins actually have more story than the actual book but at least it's now heating up and I urge those that had given up on the book to perhaps pick up this issue and read from now on as even though this is the halfway point it's almost like a beginning.

Main Art - 4: The art understandably dips and rises, but overall I enjoyed it. A step up from past issues.

Back-up Story - 2: Boring and almost as dull and lame as the Penguin's last week. Still a nice refresher to the past year and their beginnings.

Back-up Art - 5: Stunning artwork for this double profile - shame about the actual profile content!

Cover Art - 3: The first Churchill cover I have actually liked in many years and it happens inside. I miss the stylistically sharp 52 covers but this was good enough to captivate me for a while and enough to buy it!

Mild Mannered Reviews

2007

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

January 2007

February 2007

March 2007

April 2007

May 2007

June 2007

July 2007

August 2007

September 2007

October 2007

November 2007

December 2007

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Check out the Comic Index Lists for the complete list of Superman-related comics published in 2007.

Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials

Countdown 28

Mild Mannered Reviews

2007

DC Super Hero Fairy Tales

Superman Straw Cups

Superman Historical/Non-Fiction Books