Batmans of Countdown Arena
Dec. 14th, 2007 01:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shankieThe premise of Countdown: Arena is simple; The Monarch takes a whole bunch of heroes from a variety of the 52 Earths and have them fight to the death, so he can build this super-army to take on the Monitors. Just hurling a bunch of characters together to fight is a tried and true comic book standby, and it works, actually.
The Players
I'll admit, I can't name where all those guys are from off the top of my head; and exactly where the Green Lanterns that aren't Bruce came from? Not sure. But it's the Batmans I want to look at, anyway.
As you'd imagine, the vampire Batman is just the life of the party. In #1, we begin with Gotham by Gaslight Batman vs. Red Rain Batman vs. The Liberty File/Unholy Three Batman.
And it's awesome.
If you've never read The Liberty File, this version of Batman is basically Wayne, Bruce Wayne. Secret agent during WWII that deals with the crazier side of espionage with others.
Yay scans. Anyway, they fight. :D
Okay, vampire Batman? Creepy as fuck.
Jeeze.
I really get why the other two go for him before each other.
That... is made of awesome. A gentleman's agreement.
After they size each other up to a T.
If you're seeing where vampire Batman is going with this, you already know how the end of issue #2 ends.
I'll get there in a sec. :D
The story continues to be full of the Supermans bickering, everyone fighting out of stress and being kidnapped. If they should help their captor or not is a subject of debate, but since the Monarch is killing off entire populations of someone's world if they don't behave? Nobody's really getting anywhere with resisting.
But first, a nitpick. Diana calls herself Queen Diana Trevor; I don't think so. At the end of Amazonia, as seen in this post about the story, abusive asshole Steve Trevor dies and Diana marries John Charles Pantagenet, Prince of Wales.
This is, of course, the Batman of In Darkest Knight, in which Bruce Wayne gets the ring instead of Hal Jordan and becomes the sworn enemy of Sinestro.
Being a Lantern doesn't make him much more friendly than the other Batmans.
Huzzah! They're so cool! :D
Oh Hal Jordan. And Bruce. Hee.
Of course, Batman GL just has to prove how hardcore he is...
And how.
Well, shit.
See, this is why I have mixed feelings about this series. Yes, having Elseworlds characters fight each other is totally awesome. However... to the death? Really?
Of course, issues of death become a little fuzzier when you're throwing a vampire into the equation.
Hee.
So, in general, I'm really enjoying the brutality.
Except for the Blue Beetles' death sequence. Devoured by scarabs? YEESH.
I just kinda wished that murdering everyone wasn't the only way DC could find to entertain us. Turning Elseworlds into a big game of Unreal Tournament is great, but the death factor just kills it.
The Players
I'll admit, I can't name where all those guys are from off the top of my head; and exactly where the Green Lanterns that aren't Bruce came from? Not sure. But it's the Batmans I want to look at, anyway.
As you'd imagine, the vampire Batman is just the life of the party. In #1, we begin with Gotham by Gaslight Batman vs. Red Rain Batman vs. The Liberty File/Unholy Three Batman.
And it's awesome.
If you've never read The Liberty File, this version of Batman is basically Wayne, Bruce Wayne. Secret agent during WWII that deals with the crazier side of espionage with others.
Yay scans. Anyway, they fight. :D
Okay, vampire Batman? Creepy as fuck.
Jeeze.
I really get why the other two go for him before each other.
That... is made of awesome. A gentleman's agreement.
After they size each other up to a T.
If you're seeing where vampire Batman is going with this, you already know how the end of issue #2 ends.
I'll get there in a sec. :D
The story continues to be full of the Supermans bickering, everyone fighting out of stress and being kidnapped. If they should help their captor or not is a subject of debate, but since the Monarch is killing off entire populations of someone's world if they don't behave? Nobody's really getting anywhere with resisting.
But first, a nitpick. Diana calls herself Queen Diana Trevor; I don't think so. At the end of Amazonia, as seen in this post about the story, abusive asshole Steve Trevor dies and Diana marries John Charles Pantagenet, Prince of Wales.
This is, of course, the Batman of In Darkest Knight, in which Bruce Wayne gets the ring instead of Hal Jordan and becomes the sworn enemy of Sinestro.
Being a Lantern doesn't make him much more friendly than the other Batmans.
Huzzah! They're so cool! :D
Oh Hal Jordan. And Bruce. Hee.
Of course, Batman GL just has to prove how hardcore he is...
And how.
Well, shit.
See, this is why I have mixed feelings about this series. Yes, having Elseworlds characters fight each other is totally awesome. However... to the death? Really?
Of course, issues of death become a little fuzzier when you're throwing a vampire into the equation.
Hee.
So, in general, I'm really enjoying the brutality.
Except for the Blue Beetles' death sequence. Devoured by scarabs? YEESH.
I just kinda wished that murdering everyone wasn't the only way DC could find to entertain us. Turning Elseworlds into a big game of Unreal Tournament is great, but the death factor just kills it.
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on 2007-12-14 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-12-14 09:48 am (UTC)Weird.
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on 2007-12-14 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-12-14 11:12 am (UTC)I haven't been reading much of Countdown itself. XP
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on 2007-12-14 11:41 am (UTC)Is he in the Superman group, cause I thought The High was the Superman analogy of wildstorm(or maybe just Stormwatch)
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on 2007-12-14 12:18 pm (UTC)In The Search For Ray Palmer the Monitor actually mentions the Wildstorm universe not being a direct analogue of the DCU; I guess it's all the same idea being clarified.
I think it might be the editors removing the idea of Mindy and Apollo being an analogue of Bruce and Clark getting it on. At least, that's my suspicion.
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on 2007-12-14 12:23 pm (UTC)I kinda like the "not a diract analogy" thing.
I have decided to stay away from the whole countdown stuff, just cause I have this horrible sinking feeling about the "Final Crisis" thats coming.
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on 2007-12-22 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-12-14 01:20 pm (UTC)Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy your fics, too. I just realized I've never told you so.
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on 2007-12-14 01:51 pm (UTC)I have so much fun sharing the stuff I like and going on about it. Comic books are so cool. XD
Thanks. And I'm glad you like my fic, too. :)
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on 2007-12-14 10:14 pm (UTC)And why are there ghosts of Apollo and Steampunk-Batman. Not that I'm complaining, but its spooky.
OH. And i LOVE how chummy Hal and Hal are. Its totally like the Bananas in Pajamas. And their love is pure and TRUE.
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on 2007-12-14 10:49 pm (UTC)I think that they're in some sort of stasis or something, they both appeared to have survived the fights but ended up completely incapacitated. At least, that's my guess of what that is, and since I highly doubt they'll be offing Apollo? Yeah.
....
Bananas in Pajamas? XD
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on 2007-12-15 03:42 pm (UTC)Speaking of umbrellas, y'know that annoying Rianna song? Well this GUY did this acoustic cover of her song and he totally sound like her. But still manly... So obviously Rianna is a man in disguise.
I need to photoshop some stripes on these guys. What colour should the be? Blue like on the bananas?
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on 2007-12-15 09:45 pm (UTC)Bears with umbrellas? Bananas wearing clothing? Rats in positions of authority?
::is so confused::
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on 2007-12-16 06:50 am (UTC)Here's the wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananas_in_Pyjamas). And here's the official website (http://www.abc.net.au/children/bananas/).
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on 2007-12-16 06:57 am (UTC)The Gallery is terrifying. haha, wow.
You weren't kidding about those incredibly creepy looking bananas wearing those pajamas. And they just have labels, like robots?
They're evil robots in my head.
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on 2007-12-16 07:03 am (UTC)I mean, look at those lyrics:
"Bananas in pyjamas are coming down the stairs,
Bananas in pyjamas are coming down in pairs,
Bananas in pyjamas are chasing teddy bears,
'Cause on Tuesdays they all try to catch them unawares!"
They are totally frickin' gay for each other and looking totally frickin' awesome while doing so.
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on 2007-12-16 07:53 am (UTC)Maybe I need to see it, because... that song is awful cute.
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on 2007-12-17 05:49 am (UTC)Here's the intro (http://youtube.com/watch?v=CJkPWMaNaIM). :D
The show is actually in live action, though. So I found this series, where it's the Banana's Birthday week. Enjoy!
Monday (http://youtube.com/watch?v=wgWzLtNE-YI).
Tuesday (http://youtube.com/watch?v=vvveu1JNhIs)
Wednesday (http://youtube.com/watch?v=OVMTVcSe8A4)
Thursday (http://youtube.com/watch?v=E-DCXtFy2Lc)
Friday (http://youtube.com/watch?v=TYidC3m7gms)
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on 2007-12-17 07:52 am (UTC)I have to say, the British accents immediately helped to lull away any remaining shreds of that initial shock and horror. For some reason.
So I'm going to keep watching those, haha.
Also? Bwahahahaha! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aajmDlX-188&NR=1)
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on 2007-12-17 03:00 pm (UTC)Exactly. :D