Atop the Fourth Wall (TV Series)

Countdown: Part 2 (2009)

Lewis Lovhaug: Linkara, Harvey Finevoice, 90s Kid, Phantasm

Quotes 

• Linkara : Damn you, Phantasm, we just had a "previously on" segment a few weeks ago! Why are we doing another one?

• Harvey Finevoice : I've been sitting here for hours. Why the hell hasn't anyone given me my paycheck? I got dames to smooch!

• Film Brain : Equilibrium is brilliant and Wimmer is God!

  Linkara : My God! Film Brian, they've gotten to you!

  Film Brain : Hey, it's Film Brain!

  [evil laugh] 

• Linkara : You're not taking over my show, Continuity Alarm. You just stay back. Stay back!

• Harvey Finevoice : And now, the conclusion... I play all the Las Vegas rooms and this is the thanks I get for it.

• Linkara : [continuing his critique of "Countdown"]  So, where were we? Oh, right, the chimera of crappy comics that is "Countdown"! I love alliteration.

• Linkara : Now, I may have misrepresented this book a little in last week's episode, and given the impression that the storylines move much quicker than they do, the fact is, they don't. For the sake of your collective sanities, I summarized each plotline into its own section. In the actual book, it wasn't like that. If you were lucky, you'd get maybe three pages of one plotline, and maybe one more plotline taking focus, but they usually touched on most of the plots in each issue. That means we get stupid crap like the Karate Kid parts that don't in any way flow in a narrative fashion from one issue to the next. And interspersed with that are lots of scenes of the Monitors bitching to each other about doing something. Now, get this: we're halfway through the series, and we know NOTHING. We know a great disaster is coming; we know Granny Goodness is trying to make Female Furies; we know Mary Marvel is an idiot and evil now; we know the Trickster is homophobic; we know Jimmy Olsen has powers, but we don't know why; we know Karate Kid has a disease; and we know Darkseid likes to play with toys. But we know NOTHING about how any of this is tied together or even why we should care. Issue 26 is told almost entirely as exposition from the Monitors, recapping events of the past 25 issues. So, let me get this straight: we're halfway through the entire series, so why don't we just STOP THE ENTIRE PLOT to review the information that ANYONE WHO'S ACTUALLY BEEN READING THE BOOK ALREADY KNOWS!

• Forager : JIMMY OLSEN MUST DIE!

  Linkara : Hell, I've been saying that since the series started.

• Linkara : Who should be waiting for Mary Marvel back at her apartment but Darkseid, sitting on her couch, no less!

  Darkseid : Hello, Mary. You didn't think I would forget about you, did you?

  Linkara : [as Darkseid]  Have a seat, "American Idol" is on.

  Mary Marvel : In my home? How dare you!

  Darkseid : Darkseid dares all.

  Linkara : [as Darkseid]  No other being dares to sit on couches like Darkseid does.

• Darkseid : [to Superman]  You DARE lay your hands on mighty Darkseid? YOU DARE?

  Linkara : [as Superman]  I do dare, Darkseid! And after I've beaten you, I dare to sit on your couch!

• Linkara : It's revealed that Donna isn't dead, and she kindly punches Jason Todd, once for shooting her and another for being a jerk all the time. You know, if there were more scenes of Jason Todd getting hit like that, "Countdown" wouldn't be as universally derided.

• Linkara : With no explanation given, Superboy-Prime - you know, that whiny idiot I mentioned back in my top 15 worst heroes becoming villains - is suddenly an adult and is somehow able to travel from universe to universe, killing people! So, yeah, not content with failing to explain its own idiotic plot points, "Countdown" has decided to bring in an unpopular villain to run around and kill people, and we directly see him directly vaporize a pregnant woman! My God, it's like the worst part of the '90s all over again!

  90s Kid : Dude, I... Wait. D-Did you just vaporize a pregnant chick? Dude, that's not cool, man. That's... not cool.

• Linkara : Apparently, the idea was that issue 26 was a jumping-on issue, that since the book was officially being retitled "Countdown To Final Crisis", they'd suddenly have a huge influx of people who'd want to start reading it. But I really don't understand why. People still knew it was "Countdown", and by this point, the thing had been critically panned and attacked for its bad art, bad continuity, and its abysmal pace. People knew it sucked; giving it a new name and bunch of plot exposition wasn't going to help. Yes, I agree with Stan Lee: every comic is someone's first, but I would feel really sorry for the poor comic newbie who picked this thing up and expected an action-filled adventure, but just got more "We should do something!" "Should we do something?" Now, people have told me that the second half of "Countdown" is actually where the book improved, and in a way, they're correct. The book dropped its obsession with idiotic tie-ins and pointless miniseries and actually started focusing in its story. The problem is that the story still SUCKED! We don't know what anything has to do with anything! And frankly, none of these characters are all that likeable, except for really Harley Quinn and Holly Robinson. But their story arc is, in the end, completely inconsequential to the overall plot. So, yes, the book got a thousand times better... but a thousand times zero is still ZERO!

• [Linkara is appalled by the characters' usage of the term "Re-Todd"] 

  Linkara : Do you know what the worst part is? I just know there's gonna be, like, a hundred of you people leaving comments like, "This comic is Re-Todd-ed," and you'll never let forget that line. Ever.

• Linkara : Wow, completely pointless sequences! That's what people read comic books for!

• Linkara : Oh, "Countdown", I admire your ability to take anything that has any emotional or narrative value, and just crumple it up and toss it in the trash.

• Linkara : So, Bob's group rematerializes in a desert. Ah, an arid wasteland without life that drains your strength; what a fitting description of "Countdown".