Countdown #41

One-sentence summary: Countdown continues to be a few interesting plots and a few not-so-interesting plots with decent, if inconsistent, art.

It's tough to do a review of Countdown without separating out the plots, at least at this point. I thought the Jimmy Olsen stuff in this one was pretty amusing; even if it didn't advance the story much, I liked it. It's a weekly title, so they get a "Get out of me complaining about slow plot development free" card (I have several overly specific cards). The Trickster and Piper plot is really growing on me. I began the series not really caring about the characters, but I've already grown to enjoy them -- I probably look forward to their plot as much as any other. I also like Mary Marvel, but she's just barely in this issue, so not much to say about her.

With the good, however, is the bad. The search for Ray Palmer is just, well, boring. Jason's dialogue with the Monitor was good, but I'm sort of sad that Ryan Choi has quickly gone from headlining a potentially great series to headlining a potentially canned series that contains little but adulations for Ray Palmer. I've yet to be interested in a single thing having to do with Amazons Attack, and that includes the Holly/Harley plot in Countdown.

If there are any plots I'm missing, well, I'm sort of sorry, but it also means they're probably boring. I like Countdown, really, and it gives me hope that certain storylines are growing on me; maybe by the end I'll be enjoying this totally. The title is definitely growing on me.