Countdown: Arena


By Keith Champagne, Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84567-867-6

Already bloated and overblown with too many plot-threads and too little discipline, the Countdown publishing event spawned a number of miniseries, crossovers and specials that did little to contribute to the drama but worked wonders with the overall level of muddle, confusion and bewilderment – not to mention producing a distressing kind of four colour snow-blindness.

The premise is as old as the hills: the villainous Monarch, who is trying to conquer the multiverse even as the 52 realities are unraveling around him, has decided to build an army from the most powerful superheroes of all those myriad worlds. To that end he has shanghaied alternate versions of Superman, Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman and all their costumed confederates from their home-worlds and made them compete against “themselves”.

Of each hero, by the end “there can be only one…” which give writer Champagne the opportunity to revisit such successful past ElseWorlds experiments as Gotham by Gaslight, Batman: Red Rain, Superman: Red Son, JSA: Liberty Files and many others as well as recent alternate venues such the Tangent Universe, the world of The Authority and the glorious DC: the New Frontier.

This tale, which was originally released as a four issue miniseries, is action-packed, vicarious and falls into the secret pit at the heart of every comics fan by attempting to answer those unholy questions “who’s strongest…?” and “who would win if…?” but if it’s that bad why am I wasting your time blathering on about it?

Two reasons really: the first is that sometimes all you really want from a comic experience is a great big fight, and this yarn has lots of those, and secondly the breathtaking carnage is drawn in spectacularly loose and engrossing fashion by one of the most stylish artists currently working in American comics. Sometimes comics are completely saved by the art and Scott McDaniel’s kinetic mastery just does that for me.

Unless you’re a story completist and you’re buying all the multifarious offshoots of Countdown I’d think long and hard about getting this book – the narrative does not even conclude here: only dovetails back into the overarching parent-tale, but if you can let niggling details like sense and logic go there’s a splendid visual treat in store for anyone who gets off on costumed character catharsis. Pick a side: I dare you…
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