Final Defecations on Countdown Pt. Deux

When last we left you, we were quoting from the initial Newsarama interview with Dan Didio and Mike Marts about Countdown. There were so many "interesting" bits that we couldn't get through the whole interview in one blog. So, we start back up with it today...

MM: When all is said and done, the entire series will have taken place over the course of a year, so fans will get the sense that there was a year-long journey with many things happening. But major things that happen in the DC Universe – if someone dies, we will see it and deal with it in Countdown. If someone gets married, we’ll see it in Countdown. Something like Amazons Attack – that will be reflected in Countdown.

Funny...those three bits seemed to be all that really crossed over into Countdown. Lightray's death (and Jimmy's being present), the Green Arrow/Black Canary nuptials, and the craptastic Amazons Attack.

NRAMA: With that mention of Amazons Attack – Dan, you’ve kind of become famous for putting things into book that payoff farther down the line. That said, have we seen the startup to Countdown in the regular DCU titles?

DD: Absolutely. Amazons Attack is key to one of the main through lines of Countdown, but it exists as its own story, in its own right. Again, we’re in the business to tell serialized stories. So, realistically speaking, we bring our stories to a conclusion, but we always want to leave some thread or two that can carry on to something else so we always feel like we’re building, and feel cohesive in respect to the world our stories take place in.

Ugh. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we might have part of the root cause of Countdown's being printed shite: Amazons Attack was so integral to one of the main stories to be told. If your ingredient list starts with fecal matter, you're not really going to be able to aspire to greatness.

NRAMA: Before we talk about the various through lines that are going to be running through Countdown, where did that desire to have Countdown be the project that would pull the Kirby aspects of DC back into the fold, proper, come from? When did that notion get rolling? DD: When I walked in the door. NRAMA: So this is part of “Dan Didio, Day One: My Goals:”? DD: DC Comics – what you’ve got to do in my position and what we all did when planning out the larger picture, is that you want to identify things that are great in the DC Universe – things that stood out and things that people still remember. The things that Kirby created when he first started at DC Comics over 30 years ago still resonate today.

It may be too early to really rule on this, but it is hard to put "still resonate today" together with "let's kill them all in a mini-series". Completely reinventing them along the lines of what Grant Morrison did in Seven Soldiers of Victory doesn't seem to jive with the idea that they still resonate if you need to go to a version that isn't very identifiable with the originals.

DD: Also – personally, I have to add in there that I think in his creation of the character of Darkseid, you have one of the greatest single characters created in comics.

NRAMA: But if he’s so great, where is he? Why isn’t he being used more?

DD: Just like so many of our characters can get overused and overexposed, one of the first things we did was remove Darkseid from a lot of our storytelling. If you go back through our comics, you can probably count on one hand how many times Darkseid appeared over the last five years. Probably the most prominent appearance was with the return of Supergirl in the Superman/Batman arc.

One of the things that we wanted to do with Darkseid was that we wanted to create a story that was elevated to what we felt the true value of the character was. In Countdown, you’ll see some of that come to fruition, as well as other aspects of Kirby’s creations and characters.

Ummm...Countdown is supposed to show the true value of Darkseid? I'm guessing that Dan would really like that quote back. ;)

I get the idea that he was probably thinking ahead to Final Crisis and how Countdown had to set that up, but any story where Jimmy Olsen and Ray Palmer best Darkseid doesn't fit the concept of elevating the character, IMO.

NRAMA: It’s probably also fair to say that it’s a tricky corner to mine though – after all, in those thirty-plus years, it’s not as if others, both creators and editorial administrations haven’t tried to explore the Fourth World and shine it up for modern times, meeting with varying degrees of short-term success… DD: This is where Mike and Paul have been key, actually. Like I said, Mike’s not familiar with the DC Universe, so he’s approaching Darkseid and the entire Fourth World with a fresh eye; and Paul, obviously, is a guy who’s been able to distill down the strengths and weaknesses of so much of the DC Universe, in regards to how he told stories in the various cartoons and animation that he’s worked on over the years. So, with the two of them working side by side on these characters, they found a way to unfold a story that I believe really identifies the strengths of the characters and what makes the characters great, all the while with an eye on moving them toward the future. As I said, it’s such a strong concept and an idea that it has to be addressed, and I think we’re doing it in the best way possible.

Yeah...OK. I think Dini has demonstrated that he can distill down the strengths and weaknesses into animations and have them well-received because the audience knows you can only get so much detail in 22 minutes or in an 80 minute feature. In comic books, where stories need to be fleshed out, he flounders with DC product. In animation, he has the option to adapt. In comic books, he has to come up with new ideas and flesh them out fully to win over the audience.

Mike Marts gets a pass because...well...he was out the door so quickly. I have a very reliable source with insider knowledge that tells me Mr. Marts was begging off of this albatross as early as issue 6. Apparently, it took a fresh set of eyes to realize that this event was FUBAR'd from the start. I know that, if I were him, I'd hate to see creators I was fond of turning in some of their worst work because they were being used as writer-monkeys instead of creators.

I'm going to cut this off here for now. Partially because the hour is late and partially because I'm kinda digging the idea of picking apart the first interview in a way that requires 3+ blogs to get through it all. ;)

PS - Notice how few of the people shown in the above cover image actually showed up in the series significantly or at all. Gotta love that.

Blue Beetle All-Spanish Issue

You know...not to get pulled completely into the debate that has been going on for the last few weeks about the Blue Beetle issue...but...

It has been argued that there was an in-story reason for the issue being almost completely in Spanish.

Not so much.

The in-story reason is supposed to be the family reunion with the side of his family that doesn't speak English at all. Right. Lilly, who is married to a businessman with a private plane who is in Metropolis for work, doesn't speak a word of English? That's kind of suspect already. But let's leave that alone for now.

Jaime leaves the shindig and winds up now, for no apparent story reason, talking to the scarab in Spanish...and then conducts his whole discussion with Parasite in Spanish, despite the fact that Parasite's first language is English.

So...let's just completely chuck the idea that this was an all-Spanish issue for story reasons. It wasn't. A majority of the Spanish in the issue didn't even happen around Traci 13, who was supposedly who we English-only speakers were meant to identify with in being lost in a new language.

No, this was a clear grab at trying to attract more Hispanic readers at the risk of alienating the current readership. Not alienating them based on their being racist or ignorant, but from the distinct reading discomfort of not knowing what is going on in the panels without having to awkwardly keep flipping to the back of the book. Yeah...that makes for an experience that immerses you in the story.

And these readers who apparently couldn't be bothered to check out a Hispanic super-hero until there was an issue almost exclusively in Spanish? They're not getting an issue done in Spanish next month...or the month after...or the month after.

So, while incredibly well intentioned, DC Comics risks alienating their already small readership for this title for a particular audience that doesn't really seem to be that likely to come around or stick around? Doesn't seem wise to me. But, then again, this could be a last ditch effort to draw attention to a book that, given DC's recent history of low-selling books that switch creative teams (cough...All New Atom...cough), might not be long for monthly publication.

Terry Dodson's Women of the DC Universe BATWOMAN Bust

According to Dodson, the bust is in stores today. Here's a look at his design sketches for it.

88 Minutes Goes Wide, But VICE Gets One Screen In NYC?

It's a crime that, in this day and age, a shitty Al Pacino flick that sat on a shelf for two years (88 Minutes) gets 2000+ screens, but VICE (starring Michael Madsen & Daryl Hannah) currently has only 28 screens (only one of which is in NYC).

Detective Max Walker (Madsen) was once a highly respected cop until he lost his wife and his life unraveled. Haunted by her memory and harboring his rage, Walker has nothing left to lose. He is a loose cannon waiting for an excuse to explode.

A drug bust operation goes awry. A large haul of heroin is discovered by Walker and his team; including Salt (Hannah) and Sampson (Williamson). The bust attracts a great deal of heat after several people are killed and one gang member escapes from the scene.

Murder and mayhem ensue. The officers involved in the bust are being killed off one by one. No cop is safe. With no suspects in sight, a bewildered Walker joins forces with Salt to investigate the slaughter of his team.

What follows is a series of twists, intrigue and foul play. When it is discovered that some drugs from the bust went missing the cops start to look amongst themselves for the killer. Trust is compromised, comradeship dissolves and friends turn their guns on one another until the last man is standing and the truth is revealed.

Madsen said in an interview on Opie & Anthony that it is one of the top five movies he's done. Madsen may never had become an A-List actor, but when you look at the flicks he's been in, that top five is an impressive spot.

You can see the trailer here.

Mike Choi: Voice Of Reason

Mike Choi comes with the logic that most fanboys always want to ignore when arguing against Wizard's practices (linked above).

Now, I'm all for being giddy about Wizard possibly going the way of the dinosaur if you project them selling their property as a sign of the end (with all sympathy to those that would be out of a job, naturally). But you can't blame Wizard for producing a magazine that people buy. It's like knocking Marvel for putting Wolverine in so many books when so many keep buying anything he shows up in (as Choi pointed out) or knocking DC for having so many books featuring Batman & Superman.

I said I'd be giddy for them to go, though, and that's definitely true. It's part the hope that whoever fills the void will be more like Comic Foundry (who Choi praises even in his defense of Wizard) and part because the fallout from Wizard disappearing would be damned interesting to observe.

• Where would the Big Two turn for print coverage of their events and major properties?
• Would CBR or Newsarama attempt to come out with a print publication?
• Would there even be an attempt to fill the void or would coverage just get that much more focus online?

I know I'll stay tuned to see how it all shakes out.

Adam Hughes Convention Selling Plans

From Allison Sohn on the Hughes-Fan Yahoo Group, regarding what prints Adam Hughes will have for sale at what conventions:

Chun Li, I believe I stated earlier, will be at San
Diego. Part of Adam's agreement with Udon is that he
can do prints for San Diego, but no sooner. San Diego
marks the release of the book that the Chun Li art is
featured in.

The Rocketeer, as previously stated, is also for San
Diego. That was as close to a "home town show" for
Dave Stevens as it got. Also, as it will be a
charitable fund raiser, it makes sense to bring it to
the show with the highest attendance.

I have no idea what the "ASWW teaser" is... and I'm
the one making the prints. Anyone care to clue me in?

I bring this to the blog for the rumor of their being an All Star Wonder Woman teaser print...and Ms. Sohn's shooting it down by saying she hasn't heard a thing about it. So...unless DC is printing up some giveaways of an All Star Wonder Woman drawing, it looks like anyone buying into that rumor will be disappointed. Shame...it might have indicated that things were closer to being published.

I brought more than the teaser image discussion so that I could plug the charity sale of Adam's Rocketeer prints. Make sure to pick some up, folks.

Of Jihads & Stupid Jokes

Rich Johnston pointed out how there was an uncomfortable exchange in an interview with Paul Cornell, conducted by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean over on Newsarama. The exchange (and almost all posts referring to it) later disappeared.

No explanation. No apology. Nothing.

Rich got his hands on a print screen of the bit.


After Cornell finished an answer that indicated Faiza (the muslima character he's created in his upcoming series) will not be a stereotype and is a character that he will do his damnedest to avoid cliches with (religious or otherwise), BOPKean's next question was:

NRAMA: Did she join this team with motives of her own? Is she on a jihad mission, going on an all-out holy war against...what?

Knowing how a lot of these interviews go, it is entirely possible that Kean sent a bunch of questions via e-mail at the beginning, so that his follow-up question would not have been informed by the response to the previous question. Still...the exchange finished up with:

PC: You *what*?! I typed something much ruder in answer to that originally. What the hell?

NRAMA: Oh blimey! We're all doomed!

That right there is why I think the interviewer was just colossally stupid, rather than a bigot. I fully believe that the jihad question was just asked out of ignorance or an attempt at frat boy level humor. There's evidence to back that up...namely the fact that he left the idiotic question, the angered answer, and the frivolous and inappropriate wrap-up comment in the final article he sent into Matt Brady.

Someone who was less ignorant of or oblivious to the situation would have e-mailed an apology to the creator and a few new questions to give a better wrap-up to the article. This guy sailed on with a bliss that can only come from complete ignorance to the ugliness he caused by answering the question or the shitstorm he could create for his employer by that running on their site unedited.

Now...would it have been nice if Newsarama addressed the issue instead of trying to delete all evidence of its existence and pretend it never happened? Sure. But what are they really going to do? It was an interview done by a contractor that they fixed as soon as they caught what had happened. I don't know any place of business that publicly chastises an employee after a mistake. I'm sure something has been privately been said to Kean to help make sure nothing that stupid or potentially inflammatory (to a creator or the audience) slips into his finished work again.

Gotta Love Southern Justice

(via Heidi MacDonald from Rome News)

Final Defecations On Countdown Pt. 1

Over a year in the making, COUNTDOWN/COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS came out weekly from DC Comics...and wound up largely used as toilet paper by the critics.

With the talent involved, it wouldn't seem like it should be able to turn out THAT bad. But unlike the more organic 52, this series was run top-down with beats handed out to creators regardless of whether they were the best to execute them or, I'm guessing, could even wrap their brain around why these were beats that should even see the light of day.

Remember: Dini was the story guy. It seems that Didio had some influence and, eventually, Giffen was around to help guide things. But the consistency of the four writing teams having any real input isn't clear. If the final product is anything to judge by, the lack of any sort of unified voice would indicate that they weren't involved as much as they maybe should have been.

In defense of Dini, this whole thing probably would have worked better as a cartoon. I know that it worked better getting read in large clumps of books. My best praise ever for the series came in a BEST SHOTS SHOOTOUT that never saw the light of day over at Newsarama. A teammate and I read the first ten issues in one sitting and it really came off better. One of the weaknesses of the book in the early going was that you didn't get enough of one story in each issue to feel you really got anything worthwhile.

But I digress. The point of this is to go over a bit of the history of this book, along with Newsarama interviews with editorial. We're starting from the beginning, folks...I'm talking about Matt Brady interviewing Marts and Didio about the series back in February of 2007.

NRAMA: You’ve spoken before about this grand vision you have for the DC Universe, which began back with Identity Crisis and gained steam with Countdown and through Infinite Crisis to this present point. When did Countdown come into the mix as the “next step,” and when was it decided that the best format would be a weekly series? Did it have to wait for 52 to prove itself in the market in terms of format?

DD: We knew we were doing the “Countdown” story, and we knew we were going to do it by creating benchmark specials and events to keep the story motivated and moving along. But again – we had such success with 52, and such outcry from retailers and fans alike, asking for another weekly series; and also – something that really can’t be ignored – we learned so much from 52 in terms of creating a system by which we were able to do a weekly comic book series and have it work, both editorially and production-wise. We’ve got a machine built now that has all the kinks worked out, that can create weekly comics.

Once we saw we had a way to produce weekly comics, once we saw that there was an appetite for weekly comics, it only made sense to create something that we felt had enough value in regards to story and characters, to be able to continue along. So that’s how Countdown began life and got running as a weekly series.

That bolding there is mine. Ummm...they learned so much that they decided to piss it all away for a new method of producing it. Let's see...they went to a show-runner format instead of the rock band format. They had no one doing breakdowns for the artwork for about the first third of the series. They wanted to make it the spine of the DC Universe rather than give it the freedom to tell its own story and let specials cash in, if necessary, on popular bits.

NRAMA: Mike, how did you get involved in this? Was this something like [original 52 editor] Steve Wacker’s case where Dan asked for volunteers, and he was the only one left as everyone quickly took a step backwards, or was this something that was on the boards even when you were brought over from Marvel?

Mike Marts: Well, a lot of the story pieces were in place prior to me coming over to DC, but as soon as I came in, I was approached. I think it was a case where Dan wanted someone with a set of fresh eyes to come in and tackle this project, because it was trying to tackle so many different things, and reach so many different goals. What Dan had said to me was that he wanted someone who was unencumbered by everything else that had taken place over the last few years to be connected to it.

DD: Also – the best part about Mike, and I use this as a real plus now, is that he was unfamiliar with so much of the DC Universe. Being a Marvel guy for so long, which we’ve forgiven him for [laughs], he wasn’t as familiar with our characters and our stories. The best aspect of that is that in creating a weekly book, we’re hoping to attract new readers – so here’s the guy who’s running the project that actually has a fresh set of eyes, and is unfamiliar with some of the characters and the stories that took place prior to this. One of the things that he’s able to do is to take that sense of, “Okay, you’re being introduced to an entirely new world and entire continuity, but I’m creating it with the idea that you, the new reader, won’t feel like you’re walking into the middle of a movie. Rather, you’re coming in at the beginning, and you’ll want to be with us until the end.”

MM: Right. Because I’d been learning as I’d been going along, I’ve been trying to approach the project in the same way – and thinking that there will be readers who will be in the same boat.

It seems like Mike Marts was brought in with a heady purpose: make this event not only exciting, but new reader friendly. One might guess that his subsequent removal and placement on the BATMAN titles was a white flag being waved on the whole "new reader" move (if not the "exciting") and a hope to not sour their new hire on life at DC by making him go down with the ship that he didn't even initially put together. The Bat titles are going very well right now, evidence that Marts is a much better editor than any Countdown book would be able to suggest.

NRAMA: So – going back to Paul’s involvement, and invoking his previous work with the DC Universe, you’re looking for Countdown to have a feel similar to the DC animated projects, in that, the continuity was there for the people who knew it and wanted it, but at the same time, nearly anyone could sit down to an episode of Batman: The Animated Series and enjoy a good story…

MM: Exactly. We’re dealing with characters in this series where some are heavy hitters, and some are more secondary, but for anyone picking up this series, be it someone new to the DC Universe, or someone who’s been reading it for years, they’ll be able to figure out who the character is, what they’re about, and what their goal is right off the bat.

Ugh. If only. Really...goals? Right off the bat? In this book? We might be looking at another reason Marts got himself clear from this as soon as possible: no longer wanting to deal with ineffective attempts by the creators to deliver on the promises made about the book.

DD: One of the things that we like about this, in the way it’s structured, and in the way Mike is assembling it, is that they’re working far enough in advance so that if we choose to crossover with another storyline or a book which is being driven by another writer, we can allow that writer to come onboard and tell their portion of the story inside Countdown and working with Paul. That way, there will be a real feeling of cohesiveness between the series and Countdown, but it also allows the writer to maintain some level of input and control over the character they’re writing on a monthly basis.

Yeah...we saw a lot of this, eh? Oh wait...we didn't. McDuffie and/or Winick didn't seem to be in on the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding crossover in a real way.

DD: So they lost some of the ability to use cliffhangers for momentum, just due to how 52 was created, but they did a great job in finding ways around that tool of sequential storytelling that we took out of the toolbox to tell 52. What we’re crafting in Countdown is a little different. The four issues of Countdown all occur within the same month. So therefore, all four issues can occur in one minute of the month, or they can occur in thirty days of the month. That way, it allows us more flexibility in regards to the pacing and the cliffhangers in the story itself.

Oh? Happens in the same month? So...each months' worth of issues occurred in the same month...with twelve months that this series ran across? That would mean it definitely took a year. But...on this basic issue that you'd think wouldn't be that difficult to pass off between editors, Mike Carlin said the following last week:

Newsarama: So Mike, given the various points of narration, this whole storyline took one year?

MC: I wasn’t around for the beginning of this project... So not sure if anyone else said it... But I wasn’t under the impression this was happening in real time. Some sections went quicker than others... But as stories were spread out and checked in on for only a few pages an issue... I assumed many sequences were running simultaneously until they dovetailed at end.

Ah...Mike Carlin...an editor thrown on the series with his only goal apparently being to make the trains run on time. We'll get to that later in this series. As great an editor Carlin may have been during his career, this series of blogs will not be merciful to him.

More to come...

SPOILERS: Flash Of Three Worlds?

OK, so Wally West came back directly in the JLA/JSA/LoSH crossover done by Meltzer & Johns.

Now Barry Allen is back in a big way, for who knows how long.

Has anyone thought about that Legion of Super Heroes lightning rod? Has a Flash trapped in it, right?

Process of elimination, people.