Okay, I’m sure people have seen the last two reviews by me and either agreed 100% or were the total opposite and thought the issues were fantastic.  After the last two issues I really wanted them to get back to the task at hand.  This issue seemed to finally have gotten back to it.

I’m going to do something a little different and talk about the art first.  It was okay and I now see why Conor enjoys the previous artist so much.  I thought the last artist, Jim Starlin, was much better then, Carlos Magno and Rodney Ramos.  Their art looked a little thin for me, I’m a big fan of bold lines.  Also Mary looked a little odd in this issue to me along with Jason.  Something about their faces, just felt weird.  On the other hand the action in this issue was decent and I enjoyed it.

Now I saw that a lot of people were not fans of what happened in this issue.  I’m going to say it because the cover is a spoiler and if you looked at it, you know what happens.  Mary is seduced by power again and reclaims her role as Black Mary.  I thought it was a little rushed and forced, I think this could have taken longer then the couple pages it did.  The sad part is this book doesn’t have the time to take that I would have liked to see.  You may ask why I like Mary as Black Mary, to me it seems appropriate.  I have not read the Trials of Shazam, mostly because I want to get it in trades, but the idea that Freddy and Mary possibly duking it out gets me really excited.  Any time a brother and sister become enemies I find it cool.

Although there can also be the argument that it seems like it’s a cop out when they take a character that they don’t know what to do with and turn them into a villain.  In this scenario I find it fair mostly because of the evolution of her brother.  I don’t remember there ever being the equivalent to Captain Marvel in the older books and it seems like she should evolve as well.  Not too mention I was never partial to the character in the first place.  Also I’m a big fan of Black Adam and I think it would be odd to see Freddy and him battle.  It just wouldn’t feel right.

Other than that there was only two other things that happened in this book that could be major points of interest.  I won’t talk about them because you would need to read the issue to know that they happened, but I am curious to see how they play out.  Especially the one with the Atom that I’m sure people overlooked.

I do have to say that after two issues of narrative I enjoyed this issue and it got me hooked back in to wanting to see what happens next week.  I would still like to note that this book still is not what I hoped it would be.  In about 3 weeks does anyone want to buy all the issues of Countdown, cheap?