Countdown: Arena

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Countdown: Arena
Cover to Countdown: Arena #1.
Publication information
PublisherDC Comics
ScheduleWeekly
FormatMini-series
Genre
Publication dateDecember 2007
No. of issues4
Main character(s)

Countdown: Arena is a four-issue American comic book mini-series published by DC Comics. It is written by Keith Champagne with illustrations by Scott McDaniel, and ran for four weeks in December 2007.

Spinning out of

the Ray
to compose the squad.

Summary

Monarch's battles get underway as Eve of Shadows (

Earth-16
's sacrifice, the Red Son Superman of Earth-30 becomes Monarch's final team member.

Battles

Nightshades

  • Eve of Shadows of Earth-13: a sorceress named Eve Eden can manipulate shadows and controls a shadow realm. She is married to Brigadier Atom.
  • Eve Eden: A Nightshade who appears similar to her New Earth counterpart, can manipulate and control darkness.
  • The Shade
    , a female who carries a cane and wears a top hat. She is able to control all shadows.

The Shade attacks the other two Nightshades, mentioning she has not killed anyone in almost two days. Nightshade's limbs are severed by Shade. Eve of Shadows manages to pull the Shade into an alternate dimension called the Shadowlands, where Shade is defeated. Despite the victory, her husband and country are destroyed due to her violation of Monarch's rule against attempting to escape.

Batmen

  • Batman of Earth-19: A Batman who started his career in the 1880s and defeated Jack the Ripper. Featured in Gotham by Gaslight.
  • Batman of Earth-40, The Bat: A Batman who was a covert government operative under the alias The Bat during World War II. Featured in JSA: The Liberty Files.
  • Batman of Earth-43: A Batman who became a vampire after fighting
    Batman & Dracula: Red Rain
    .

The two human Batmen unite to blind the vampire Batman with daggers, poison it with a cyanide capsule, and break its neck. But the creature turns into smoke and disappears before the Bat can plunge a dagger into its chest. The two remaining Batmen square off, agreeing not to use weapons or tricks, just skill. The vampire Batman chooses this moment to rematerialize behind the Batman of Earth-19, enabling the Bat to knock Batman of Earth-19 out when he turns around. The vampire Batman bites the Bat in the neck and tosses him away, but is blasted by Monarch before he can bite the fallen Batman (Countdown's interior art swaps the two defeated Batmen). Monarch removes the combatants from the arena, keeping the Batman of Earth-19 in stasis as a "spare". The Bat later rises as a vampire and attacks Monarch's disposal crew.

The Rays

  • The Ray of Earth-10: A fascist Ray who bears a glowing swastika on his chest. Oddly, the Ray of Earth-10 shown in #52 fights alongside Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. It is possible that this Ray is Ray Terril, as his costume resembles the New Earth Ray Terril's new uniform. The heroic Ray was possibly Happy Terril, his father (he is shown wearing the costume of the original Ray).
  • Apollo of Earth-50: Member of the Wildstorm Universe's superhero group, the Authority (Keith Champagne said: "It doesn't necessarily mean Apollo is a Ray analogue, just that Monarch grouped him together with the other two [due to the solar-powered connection]").[1]
  • Ray Palmer of Earth-6: Formerly the Atom of his Earth, Ray retains his size-changing belt in addition to light controlling powers as the Ray.

The Ray of Earth-10 immediately attempts to fly out of the arena but is stopped by a force field. He then attacks the other two Rays, blinding Apollo with a blast of light. Ray Palmer helps the Nazi Ray escape the arena forcing Monarch to kill the Ray of Earth-10 for violating his rules. Apollo attacks Ray Palmer, mistaking him for Monarch. Ray shrinks and jumps into Apollo's head, blasting him from the inside out, defeating him, but leaving him alive. Monarch keeps Apollo in stasis alongside his spare Batman.

Blue Beetles

  • Ted (Kord) of Earth-33: A giant man-sized blue beetle, pet of his world's Mr. and Mrs. Kord.
  • Danny (Garrett) of Earth-39: A Dan Garrett whose scarab has bonded with him as New Earth's scarab has to Jaime Reyes.
  • Scarab: A swarm of Blue Beetles from Earth-26 (mistakenly labeled Earth-21 when introduced).

Danny's scarab abandons him to join the swarm, leaving Danny defenseless and the swarm eats him. Ted attempts to crush the swarm piece by piece but the swarm flies inside the giant beetle and destroys him from the inside out. The swarm is victorious. Before his death, Ted screams for someone to "finish [his] work" (some sort of high-tech vest), but Monarch confiscates and destroys it.

Green Lanterns

  • Green Lantern of Earth-5: A Green Lantern named Hal Jordan who comes from a world home to Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family.
  • Green Lantern of Earth-12: A Green Lantern named Hal Jordan III, grandson of the original Hal Jordan, from the world of Batman Beyond.
  • Green Lantern of
    Earth-32: A Green Lantern named Bruce Wayne who found Abin Sur's power ring. Featured in Batman: In Darkest Knight
    .

Once in the arena the three Lanterns ally together and cover it with a green field, preventing Monarch from being able to observe them, and forcing him to burn his way inside. The three Lanterns attack him, but their combined attacks have no effect at all. The Green Lantern of Earth-32 turns off his ring's safeties in order to throw one, powerful blast at Monarch's face. The blast destroys the face-plate of Monarch's containment suit, resulting in a massive explosion which kills the Earth-5 Green Lantern and renders the other two unconscious. Hal Jordan of Earth-12 the first to rise, though missing an arm from earlier in battle, is recruited by Monarch. The Earth-32 Green Lantern is held in stasis.

Starmen

The Starman of Earth-17 and Starwoman chat in the arena while waiting for Starman of Earth-48 (who is still on the Shiftship attacking Monarch). Once teleported into the arena, the blue skinned Starman disintegrates the gorilla Starman's upper body instantly, seeking to win the fight as quickly as possible. He then tackles Starwoman, who blasts his face with her star rod in self-defense. She inadvertently decapitates the angry Starman, winning her match in a matter of seconds.

Flashes

Johnny Quick chases after Lia before being punched in the face by Jay and being knocked out. Lia then betrays Jay with a blinding flash and starts punching him while yelling that she is not the crying wimp she made herself out to be on the ship. Jay warns her to look behind, but she ignores him and is impaled through the chest with a vibrating punch from a recovered Quick, incapacitating Lia. Quick challenges Jay to a race which Jay wins through treachery (throws his helmet at Johnny). Johnny feigns to be critical wounded and then vibro-punches Jay in the neck when he stoops down to help him, knocking Jay out, leaving Quick the winner.

Wonder Women

The three Wonder Woman agree to give this fight their all, and proceed to slug it out with punches and kicks. Just when the Wonder Woman of Earth-18 is about to step on Earth-21 Wonder Woman's face, she's knocked out by a punch to the neck from Earth-34 Wonder Woman. She and Earth-21 Wonder Woman square off, delivering simultaneous blows to the head. Being the first to rise, Earth-34 Wonder Woman is declared the winner by Monarch.

Captain Atoms

  • Breach
    (Major Tim Zanetti) of New Earth but is thought to be from Earth-8.
  • Earth-37
    : merged to create Quantum-Storm.
  • Captain Atom of Earth-38: Leader of his world's Atomic Knights.

The final fight will be between the Captains Atom and the Monarch. Sensing this, the now-vampiric Bat uses the teleporter (built by Blue Beetle and powered by Breach) to send Breach to scour the Multiverse for more Captains Atoms. He then takes the other two Captains down to help him rescue the survivors. Breach assembles a team of his many counterparts including Earth-13's Brigadier Atom, Earth-22's

the Monitors
and taunts Atom with the fact that since they are essentially the same man, a spark of Monarch's personality exists even within him. Breach betrays Monarch by giving Earth-31 Superman the fully charged teleporter device to save the heroes out of Monarch's holding cell. Monarch kills Breach for his betrayal while admitting that he was planning to kill him anyway.

Supermen

  • Superman of Earth-16: As verified by Keith Champagne, this Superman is
    Superman-Prime
    .
  • Superman of Earth-30: A Superman who lands in Communist Russia 35 years earlier and directly leads the Soviet Union to openly conquer most of Earth-30. Similar to the character featured in Superman: Red Son.
  • Superman of Earth-31: A super-patriotic Superman as seen in
    Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.[3]

The three Supermen battle, with Chris Kent holding a definite advantage. The Earth-31 and Earth-30 Supermen fly out of the arena and are nearly poisoned by radiation, but Chris saves them. The trio again battle with Chris absorbing enough of the other two's powers to become a glowing red giant. He tries to destroy Monarch and fails dying in the attempt. The proceedings are then interrupted by Breach, who has brought with him every other version of Captain Atom in the Multiverse. Monarch proceeds to kill them all and adding their atomic power to his own. During the confusion, Earth-31 Superman is given the transporter rig by Breach, who managed to free himself from Monarch's control, and uses it to free Monarch's "spares" and escape. In the aftermath of the battle, the Earth-30 Superman is the only fighter in the Arena alive protected by the Earth-30 Captain Atom. Monarch adds him to his roster and prepares to attack the Monitors.

Other

A page from the comic which appears in Previews and online solicitations also features Earth-26 (animal)

JLA: The Nail
. Monarch obliterates all these characters shortly after bringing in Superman of Earth-31, the last combatant, in order to demonstrate his own seriousness and ruthlessness.

Website

DC launched an Arena website in September 2007 where fans could vote for which heroes would appear in Monarch's army. The only heroes that people were able to vote for were alternate versions of Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman.

Collected editions

The series has been collected into a trade paperback:

  • Countdown: Arena (168 pages, August 2008, DC Comics, )

References

  1. ^ "Keith Champagne's comment on his blog". Blogger.com. 2007-12-11. Retrieved 2011-02-04.
  2. ^ Champagne Wishes 2.0, entry for September 14, 2007.
  3. ^ "CBR News: THE COMMENTARY TRACK: "Countdown: Arena" #4 w/ Keith Champagne". Comic Book Resources. 2007-12-28. Retrieved 2011-02-04.