Countdown #46

Weapon of War

Paul Dini – Head Writer with Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Jesus Saiz – Pencils
Jimmy Palmiotti – Inks
Pete Pantazis – Colors
Jared K. Fletcher – Letters
Jeanine Schaefer – Associate Editor
Mike Marts – Editor

Our cover by Ed Benes shows a new character named Forerunner fighting Jason Todd in Washington, D.C. Apparently she was sent by some of the Monitors to stop Jason from telling Donna Troy about the murder of Duela Dent. Or something like that. None of that concerns us.

The story that does concern us is the one of the Piper and the Trickster. We open on the two Rogues in a diner in Keystone City, joined by Mirror Master, Weather Wizard and Heat Wave. Even though it does seem pretty late at night, I'm still surprised to see them all out in public wearing their super villain outfits. Anyway, the waitress gets Mirror Master's drink order wrong, and the Pied Piper takes issue with McCulloch's excessive rudeness. A fight quickly breaks out, with the other Rogues idly placing bets on the winner. But the fight doesn't last long before Captain Cold arrives and freezes the brawling villains.

Inertia is at Cold's side and, after drinking a shot off Mirror Master's frozen arm, he tells them they have work to do. Presumably to go over their plan to build a time-stopping machine and kill the Flash. And that's all we care about from this issue — two panels of Inertia.

I appreciate the effort to link this series to current events in the DC Universe, but the timeline here doesn't match up very well with The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive. It's not a direct contradiction of anything, but I do have a hard time lining this event up with the issues we've just reviewed.

Well, I guess that's all I have to say on this comic. Next time we do the big one — The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13.