History YMMV / CountdownToFinalCrisis

* CompleteMonster: Superman-Prime. You could at least sympathize A LITTLE with him in Infinite Crisis but the [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first thing he does here]] is killing a pregnant woman. It gets far worse from here.

* {{Wangst}}: Superman-Prime.

* {{Narm}}: a lot, but Superboy-Prime's dialogue probably take the cake:
--->"I'LL KILL YOU TO DEATH!"

** And then there's The Jokester, a mirror-universe Joker who uses comedy to fight evil. He was actually quite well-written, had a compelling backstory, and [[EnsembleDarkhorse fans began calling him the saving grace of the series]]. So of course, [[ShooTheNewGuy he was killed off after about four issues]].

** And then there's The Jokester, a mirror-universe Joker who uses comedy to fight evil. He was actually quite well-written, had a compelling backstory, and [[EnsembleDarkhorse fans began calling him the saving grace of the series]]. So of course, [[TooGoodToLast he was killed off after about four issues]].

* ShootTheShaggyDog: Will Karate Kid and Triplicate Girl manage to find the cure to his mysterious virus? Nope!

* CompleteMonster: Superman-Prime. You could at least sympathize A LITTLE with him in {Infinite Crisis} but the [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first thing he does here]] is killing a pregnant woman. It gets far worse from here.

* CompleteMonster: Superman-Prime and Monarch.

** The whole series can be this if you take the view that it's so bad it's funny. It's all [[DarthWiki/{{Narm}} unintentional]], but there are some comedy gems like Jason Todd (the gun-wielding crazy guy) telling a Monitor that he's [[{{Hypocrite}} not fond of gun-wielding crazies]], Donna Troy's "I'm Donna Troy BITCH!" and of course "I'LL KILL YOU TO DEATH!" from Superman-Prime. There's also Jimmy's awful Mr. Action costume and Darkseid on Mary Marvel's couch...

* CanonDefilement: Where do we even begin? It would be easier to list the parts that ''aren't'' {{Plot Hole}}s!

* CanonDefilement: Where do we even begin? Well...let's just say that it would be easier to list the parts that ''aren't'' {{Plot Hole}}s.

* CanonDefilement: Where do we even begin?

** [[TheSimpsons "I must go now. My home planet needs me."]]

** The whole series can be this if you take the view that it's so bad it's funny. Its all unintentional, but there are some comedy gems like Jason Todd (the gun-wielding crazy guy) telling a Monitor that he's not fond of gun-wielding crazies, Donna Troy's "I'm Donna Troy BITCH!" and of course "I'LL KILL YOU TO DEATH!" from Superman-Prime. There's also Jimmy's awful Mr. Action costume and Darkseid on Mary Marvel's couch...

* MoralEventHorizon: In his ''first'' appearance, Superman-Prime kills a pregnant woman and her husband, Dru-Zod (who was that Earth's Superman). [[ItGotWorse And then that Earth's entire Justice League.]] [[EarthShatteringKaboom And finally that entire Earth.]]

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Jimmy Olsen gets all his SilverAge powers back! Brother Eye merges with Apokolips! Mary Marvel, "deserted" by Captain Marvel, turns to Black Adam! Harley Quinn and Holly Robinson vs. Granny Goodness! A crazy, universe-hopping adventure searching for a character missing for (relative to the reader) years! Paul Dini writing! A lead-up to the biggest Crisis of all! A followup to the beloved ''52''! A look at the seedy underbelly of the DC universe from the perspective of two repentant Flash villains! The genesis of the Kamandi-verse! WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?! Short answer: '''EVERYTHING.'''
** And a lot of these perfectly good plots were really good when Grant Morrison pitched them for Final Crisis. They were so good in fact that DC decided to shoot their load early and jam them into this, the lead-in to Final Crisis. Which was only the beginning of what went wrong.
** And then there's The Jokester, a mirror-universe Joker who uses comedy to fight evil. He was actually quite well written, had a compelling backstory, and [[EnsembleDarkhorse fans began calling him the saving grace of the series]]. So of course, [[TooGoodToLast he was killed off after about four issues]].

* TheWesley: Forerunner, who the creators obviously thought would be seen as really cool and a {{breakout character}}. She even got her own (half a) spinoff miniseries. Fan reaction was tepid at best, and most seemed to view her as TheScrappy. Apparently this eventually got through to the writers, as the last issue of the miniseries has Forerunner [[PutOnABus transported to a distant planet to rebuild her species]].
** [[TheSimpsons "I must go now. My home planet needs me."]]

* CompleteMonster: Superboy Prime and Monarch.

* EvilIsSexy: Mary Marvel: 16-year-old JailBait who giggles like an idiot over a [[FreudWasRight phallic looking rod.]]

** The whole series can be this if you take the view that it's so bad it's funny. Its all unintentional but there are some comedy gems like Jason Todd (The gun wielding crazy guy) telling a Monitor that he's not fond of gun wielding crazies, Donna Troy's "I'm Donna Troy BITCH!" and of course "I'LL KILL YOU TO DEATH!" from Superboy-Prime. There's also Jimmy's awful Mr. Action costume and Darkseid on Mary Marvel's couch...
* ItGetsBetter: The Earth-51 arc. It went on (almost) uninterrupted by unrelated things, had a lot of cool fights, some really strong moments (like [[spoiler: Jason Todd meeting its Batman and this Batman's death]]) and ended with a bang. Sadly, right after that series became much worse than ever before.

* MoralEventHorizon: In his ''first'' appearance, Superboy-Prime kills a pregnant woman and her husband (who was that Earth's Superman). [[ItGotWorse And then that Earth's entire Justice League.]] [[EarthShatteringKaboom And finally that entire Earth.]]

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Jimmy Olsen gets all his SilverAge powers back! Brother Eye merges with Apokolips! Mary Marvel, "deserted" by Captain Marvel turns to Black Adam! Harley Quinn and Holly Robinson vs. Granny Goodness! A crazy, universe-hopping adventure searching for a character missing for (relative to the reader) years! Paul Dini writing! A lead-up to the biggest Crisis of all! A followup to the beloved ''52''! A look at the seedy underbelly of the DC universe from the perspective of two repentant Flash villains! The genesis of the Kamandi-verse! WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?! Short answer: '''EVERYTHING.'''

* {{Wangst}}: Superboy-Prime.

** Also Hal Jordan, who blasts off to Oa to get help with the Morticoccus virus and warn off visitors to earth, only to ''carry'' the virus across space, breaching its one-planet quarantine.

** Mostly due to CharacterDerailment

* CharacterDerailment: Many characters, but Mary Marvel has it the worst. [[spoiler:She supposedly learns her lesson about being evil and rejects the dark power, only to [[AesopAmnesia take it back from Darkseid]] ''anyway'']].
** Almost everybody featured.Even [[StrawFan Superboy]] [[JerkassWoobie f'ing]] [[TheScrappy Prime]]
** The Trickster is randomly made into an unpleasant boorish homophobe. Fans expected this was leading up to some character development where he learns a lesson about how hating people for their sexuality is wrong in a VerySpecialEpisode and some even guessed that the Trickster was a closet homosexual and that was where his character arc would lead. Nope. Instead, he made a bunch of unfunny bigoted gay jokes and then got shot in the head by Deadshot in the most pointless story in the series.
** Notably averted with Harley Quinn and The Joker. No amount of ExecutiveMeddling will stop [[BatmanTheAnimatedSeries Paul]] [[BatmanArkhamAsylum Dini's]] magic from working its wonders on these two, it seems.
*** Holly Robinson as well. She and Harley are the only really well written characters in ''Countdown''

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: Piper, once armed with the Anti-Life Equation, [[ThePowerOfRock blows up a planet by playing]] ''{{Queen}}'s "The Show Must Go On"''. [[http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/494442.html Hell yeah.]] This may be the only Awesome Moment in the entire fifty-plus issue series.

* EvilIsSexy: Because when I think sexy, [[SarcasmMode I think of Mary Marvel]]: 16-year-old JailBait who giggles like an idiot over a [[FreudWasRight phallic looking rod.]]

* EvilIsSexy: Because when I think sexy, I think of Mary Marvel: 16-year-old JailBait who giggles like an idiot over a [[FreudWasRight phallic looking rod.]]

* BileFascination: A number of people have read this series and picked up the trade paperbacks because they'd heard how [[SoBadItsHorrible horrible it is]].

* WallBanger: Pretty much ShapedLikeItself at this point.
** The fact that DanDidio said that "Countdown was 52 done right." Out of context, that just sounds like InsaneTrollLogic, but even ''with'' context, it's still a stupid statement. You see, what happened was that during the plotting and writing of 52, the four writers decided that creating a good plot that somewhat gave reasons for the changes made in the ''One Year Later'' jump was better than just trying to conform the story to explain said changes. The result was that 52 was a success, but had to have a number of spin-offs to help explain everything, not just because 52 was a success. Dan Didio '''hated''' this decision made by 52's writers and vowed that Countdown would explain the editorial changes to be made for Final Crisis. The problem was that most of these changes a) didn't make sense or were extremely stupid, and b) didn't even match what supposed to happen in Final Crisis itself.

* SoBadItsHorrible