Counting to None: Countdown to Infinite Crisis Issue 26

Chief Writer-Paul Dini

Writers-Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti

Story Consultant-Keith Gifffen

Art-Scott Kolins

Colours-Tom Cho

Lettering-Ken Lopez

A name change, a format change and a big honking info dump mark this, the halfway point of the series, out as something pretty special. Clearly designed to be the jumping on point for new readers, this issue sees Dini, along with the always dependable Gray & Palmiotti, turning up the heat and pulling some highly impressive narrative tricks out of the bag. The entire issue is conducted as a lecture, effectively, given by the Monitor we last saw killing the Jokester, to his assembled colleagues. He walks them (And by extension us) through everything that's happened so far, from the arrival of Karate Kid from the future and the role he has to play in the coming disaster, to the systematic assassination of the New Gods, Monitor 'Bob' and his attempts to find Ray Palmer and the growing threat of Monarch, marching across the alternate worlds and gathering an army in his wake. It's an incredibly information heavy issue and the 'camera' is locked off on one scene for all bar three very short interludes. The overal effect, to be frank, is startling.

Countdown's biggest problem, as I said last time, is that there's been a sense of it running in place. To make matters worse, the sheer volume of plots on display has led to some being given incredibly short-shrift in the issue and others being forced into a holding pattern due to the lack of space. By switching the focus to a full length story, oddly, not only does almost every plot get some much needed space to breathe but events so far are finally put in focus and context. The Monitor provides some very interesting speculation about Jimmy Olsen and his powers as well as the suspicious ease with which Karate Kid's search for a cure is going. Plus, due to the Monitors' fondness for, well, Monitoring, we get to see both these plots advance further. Jimmy and Forager's brief fight with Apokolips' Para-Demons works best here and we actually get more of a sense of how bleak Jimmy's situation is by not seeing it directly. Karate Kid and co get slightly shorter shrift, and the Firestorm appearance really does come out of nowhere, but again, it impresses. The interludes also work well, especially an intriguing look at the Lex Luthor of Earth 15 and the aftermath of Donna Troy's assassination in the previous issue. This second is particularly good, with Gray & Palmiotti having a lot of fun with the triple act of Troy, Kyle Rayner and Jason Todd, who's rapidly becoming one of the most fun characters in the book.