Who Was Who Is Who #34

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I can predict who will make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a Pariah's chance.

ORION - with the events of the Justice League first arc, I think it highly likely that Orion will make an appearance at some point but I don't think it'll be before the end of 2012.

O.S.S. - this World War II precurosr to the CIA could get a mention in the pages of G.I. Combat, I suppose, but I doubt it. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong!

THE OUTSIDER - a surprise inclusion in the original Flashpoint series was an updated version of this little-known villainous alter-ego of Alfred Pennyworth, Batman's butler. As far as I know, though, there's been no hint of him making an appearance in the New 52.

Darkseid's Back

Actually, it's his front that's been revealed as DC show off Jim Lee's redesign of the DCU's big villain who, as they say, "has not appeared inside a DC comic since early 2009" . . . unless you count Justice League: Generation Lost #14 (November 2010) or DCU: Legacies #8 (February 2011) that is.

But anyway, here's the new look Darkseid:

Is it me or has the old fella put on a couple of pounds in the last couple of years when he's been hanging around in Limbo? He was always a sturdy chap but now he seems sort of . . . portly.

Still, at least he's lost the little mini-skirt he had for a while which left nothing to the imagination and led to more than one Basic Instinct style moment, like the time he flashed his own son Orion:

or when he gave Mary Marvel a bit of a shock in Countdown To Final Crisis:

No wonder she dropped her Soder Cola.

Morrison On Final Crisis

There's a good interview with Grant Morrison over at Newsarama where he addresses some of the continuity/plot discrepancies between the end of Countdown and Death Of The New Gods and the beginning of Final Crisis. Put simply:

"Final Crisis was partly-written and broken down into rough issue-by-issue plots before Countdown was even conceived, let alone written."

That explains a lot. One thing I did like was the way he sums things up with regard to the online debate about where Orion died - was it Death Of The New Gods, Countdown or Final Crisis #1?

"The way I see it readers can choose to spend the rest of the year fixating on the plot quirks of a series which has ended, or they can breathe a sight of relief, settle back and enjoy the shiny new DC universe status quo we’re setting up in the pages of Final Crisis and its satellite books."

An admirable sentiment, I think; I'm sure as hell not going to worry too much about Countdown and the differences between it and Final Crisis. As I've said before, the sooner we forget about the whole "Who monitors the Monitors?" scenario the better.