Superman Prime, Countdown and the Final Crisis

[lukababic]

I loved the Infinite Crisis and liked the idea of the maniacal Superboy from Earth Prime. The ending was a cliche: "I've been in worse places and gone out", but the idea was good to leave the open possibilities for story sequel.

I've read very few Countdown issues and found them very confusing and boring, not to mention with all the tie-ins. I haven't had any interest in the title until now, when they renamed it to Countdown to Final Crisis. Well, I haven't had any interest until I heard there is Superman Prime in the last few issues! So, I have very few questions:

How does Countdown prepares the reader and sets the story out for the Final Crisis? Except for seeing the good guys beating the hell outta bad guys as usually (and unusually large number of pages dedicated for Jimmy Olsen!) I can only see DC making a bigger mess than before! What is the story, what does Countdown tells, where the hell does it all leads?

SO, they've reintroduced the Superman Prime after the legal rights battle over the Superboy name registered trademark or whatever. I guess the DC lost their rights to the "boy" so the made him a "man"... And now he's back! The next question is:

In which titles does he now appears? I thought i could pick up on Countdown with the Superman Prime issue premiere (is it 24?), but now I see he is in Sinestro Corps title, or something? Why the hell do they need to stretch his appearance over to a dozen titles? Oh, yeah, so they could sell more comics :) So, where did he, is he and will he appear next?

And the most important question: is it worth it?

Thanks

[PatrickG]

SO, they've reintroduced the Superman Prime after the legal rights battle over the Superboy name registered trademark or whatever. I guess the DC lost their rights to the "boy" so the made him a "man"... And now he's back! The next question is:

In which titles does he now appears? I thought i could pick up on Countdown with the Superman Prime issue premiere (is it 24?), but now I see he is in Sinestro Corps title, or something? Why the hell do they need to stretch his appearance over to a dozen titles? Oh, yeah, so they could sell more comics :) So, where did he, is he and will he appear next?


They haven't lost the rights... yet. Or rather, they have but it's in the courts. I have a feeling that it's a matter of Time Warner ponying up the money to settle.

As for SBP, he was supposed to appear in SCW and THEN COUNTDOWN but DC had two problems.

1) Countdown was interfering with the progress of the Sinestro Corps War and other stories. SCW turned out to be a huge hit and was expanded in response.

2) Countdown was moving at a snail's pace as a weekly book trying to tap into the books that came out that month.

So they scrapped the consistency angle and started using characters in Countdown who appear post-SCW. Hence all appearances by Kyle and Prime take place AFTER the Sinestro Corps War. This spoils the ending a biut but SCW was planned to be done a lot sooner and so they decided to spoil parts of the ending rather than force SCW to end on schedule or keep Countdown moving slowly.

[lukababic]

So you're telling me that the Black S-Prime we already saw in the Countdown is actually the one from the end of the Sinestro Corps War (SCW) storyline... which hasn't ended yet? They jumped forward the story for the Countdown and ruined the SCW ending? The money factor just screws up everything!

Ok, now, for the reading order. I've found the reviews for these issues on the net and they seem to go like this:

01 - SCW Special (liberation of S-Prime)
02 - Tales Of Sinestro Corps: S-Prime (Prime fights JLA on Earth)
03 - Green Lantern Corps 18 (S-Prime fights Ion after JLA fight)

04 - Countdown 24 (Prime has left the SC and destroys Earth 15)
05 - Countdown 23 (Prime tortures Mxplizutznik-whatever-his-name-is)

Now, there is a void between steps 01 and 02, it seems that Green Lantern 21-24 are filling it, but can't find no staright review on the net. Am i missing something here?

[Rik Sunn]

So you're telling me that the Black S-Prime we already saw in the Countdown is actually the one from the end of the Sinestro Corps War (SCW) storyline... which hasn't ended yet? They jumped forward the story for the Countdown and ruined the SCW ending? The money factor just screws up everything!

Ok, now, for the reading order. I've found the reviews for these issues on the net and they seem to go like this:

01 - SCW Special (liberation of S-Prime)
02 - Tales Of Sinestro Corps: S-Prime (Prime fights JLA on Earth)
03 - Green Lantern Corps 18 (S-Prime fights Ion after JLA fight)

04 - Countdown 24 (Prime has left the SC and destroys Earth 15)
05 - Countdown 23 (Prime tortures Mxplizutznik-whatever-his-name-is)

Now, there is a void between steps 01 and 02, it seems that Green Lantern 21-24 are filling it, but can't find no staright review on the net. Am i missing something here?

Nope. I think you've got it just about right.