Kontinuity Kop--Countdown #38

Oh, man, where to start with our violations this time?

There is a distinct difference, I think, between screwing with continuity to fix problems or for a reboot, and screwing with continuity because you're too damn lazy or cowardly to write your way out of a problem you've created yourself. This issue, I'm afraid, is the latter.

After 14 craptacular, repetitive, and boring back-up "stories," Countdown has finally gotten to actually explaining why having people cross-over to different universes is bad thing (to save you the pain of actually reading it, it seems every crossing over between Earths opens a breach in the Source Wall separating them, and enough breaches and the walls will collapse, and we'll have anarchy, and cats & dogs living together, and who knows what else). So, the obvious solution to 51 of our Monitors: kill everyone who travels between worlds. Yup. Me, I'd just work on plugging the breaches and preventing future travellers from breaching, but these Monitors are action Monitors, and believe that offing the odd Duela Dent will somehow stop other people from reality-hopping.

But the panel to the left is the topper in illogical mendacity. Let's ignore two of the three, except to mention that a) No, Donna Troy is not from another universe...it's just that DC's inability to stick with an origin for her has left her continuity best handled by only by those wearing bio-hazard suits; b) Jason Todd is not from another universe...sure he's back from the dead, but so is Hal Jordan (Please, please please let Hal Jordan be from another universe..). We saw Jason escape his own coffin, dammit! Seriously, what other world have we even seen a Jason Todd on?? But I digress...


Which leaves us with Kyle Rayner. Is he from another universe? Well, in Infinite Crisis (snore) Alex Luthor (hardly a reliable source, as he lied to everybody else in that series) had the first Crisis not occurred, Kyle would have been on Earth-8. But so what?? Half the JSA would have been on Earth-2. Why aren't they on Monitor's list? What about Power Girl--we know for a fact that she's a "unresolved holdover" from Earth-2. Why shouldn't she be eliminated? What about the Freedom Fighters?

Actually, there's one, and only one, reason why Kyle Rayner has been singled out, and not Power Girl et al. It's:

"We killed Hal Jordan and replaced him with Kyle, but we didn't have the cojones to keep Hal dead, so we brought him back, and now we don't have the least idea in the world what to do with him, so we'll call him an anomaly and have another Crisis as a convenient excuse to get rid of him/rebrand him. Oh, and that goes double for Donna Troy and Jason Todd."

It's lazy, hacktastic writing, disguised as "anomalies" and "continuity corrections." It shows no love or respect for the characters, their fans, or their earlier creative staffs. It's illogical on its face, and non-sensical if you think about it for 30 seconds. And the best part--it's not even a good or interesting story.