BSing @ The Spoiler Comic Shop 7/3/08

I wanted to give something a try here. Bear with me.

I get most of my comic books via an online shop these days, ever since MacGuffin closed down. MacGuffin was really the only shop in the area that I felt was worth abandoning a 40% discount to shop at locally. Heroes & Villains is a great shop in many ways, but they're almost exclusively a super-hero comic shop (as the name might imply). The owner is a great guy, but I figured if I had to constantly check Previews or risk missing a gem of a book, I might as well just stick to ordering online.

One of the things I have missed since going exclusively with online ordering is the camraderie of sitting around the shop, bullshitting with the owner and other customers about this week's books or recent developments. In fact, that probably plays a large role in the frequency of my blogging. Nature abhors a vacuum, after all.

So...I thought I'd try something out: a blog created every Thursday where I invite anyone reading to start posting whatever the hell they'd like to about what's going on with comic books, in the pages or outside the pages. Nothing off limits (as long as we keep it fairly respectable). Spoilers are fair game. They'll be kept entirely in the comments section (even if I'm dying to talk about something, it will be in a comment) so as to not spoil anything for people just browsing the front page.

Probably the worst week to try to roll it out, given the holiday...but what the hell...got anything on your mind this week?

DC Comics Animation On iTunes?

Wow. I hadn't heard about this at all:

Your favorite DC Comics superheroes are now on iTunes. Rediscover your inner child with animated classics from 1941 to 1999, including Batman - The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Superman - The Animated Series, Superman - The Fleischer Cartoons, Aquaman, and The Adventures of Superman. Enjoy them all? Then don't miss Super Friends bringing together Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman, and Robin with teenagers Wendy and Marvin plus their dog, Wonderdog, to defend justice and guard the innocent.

I might have to pick up a few episodes here and there. You can check it out here.

Random Comic Thoughts

• Does Tom Peyer have children? Because his short run on The Flash has led to the West children's inclusion in the book feeling a lot more natural than it did under Waid. Now there are grumblings that he's being replaced on the book permanently. Does DC no longer allow creative teams to find their audience?
• Latest issue of JLA had numerous bits that flew in the face of logic. One of the most glaring (and I know this will sound nitpicky, but hear me out): the new Red Tornado redesign. OK, John wants to marry his lady and continue being a father to that little girl. Is this best done by drastically changing his outward appearance for no apparent reason? There doesn't seem to be an in-story excuse for why the new Tornado body would have a wildly different color scheme, other than letting readers differentiate from the good and bad Tornado. But with everyone trying to help John get back to having a normal life, it makes sense that no one would worry about the effects of a new look on his existing relationships? If I were that girl's age, I'd be pretty damn spooked about a jet-black (not a racial thing, folks, go look at the design) dad that would come in to check on me at night with glowing accents.
• One of the side effects of not having much crossover material for an event like Final Crisis is the possibility of interest waning. I'm much more of a fan of DC franchises than Marvel ones, but Secret Invasion is more ever-present in my mind than Final Crisis. If there was even a little seeding of the Final Crisis story into the other monthlies coming out, it would help.
  
• Nee resigns from DC Comics and 90% of the talk about it is centered around how this plays in the Didio drama or how this measures up as being the big news that Warren Ellis said might be coming that day. That's a shame.
  

I Don't Hate To Do This Quite As Much...

Remember how I took Newsarama to task for someone over there taking a conference call interview and saying that Newsarama went in-depth with the stars? How they threw "Newsarama" in front of every question as if it had been theirs, when it certainly wasn't?

Cue CBR's Dark Knight interview with Christopher Nolan...

They managed to take it a step further. The front page says that "CBR's Andy Khouri goes in-depth with director Christopher Nolan". The interview has "CBR News along with other members of the press spoke with Christopher Nolan", but they then proceed to label the first question as theirs and continue on in a way that implies each question is theirs.

Some of the same answers are over on SuperHeroHype.com, with the questions paraphrased. Actually, there's a few parts where the answers diverge slightly, in ways that indicate one of them is supplying a quote that isn't actually a quote. Given that SHH uses XXX as a stand in for parts of their recording that were unintelligible, I'd lean towards it being CBR that has the iffy quotes. Then again, that could indicate more of a need by SHH to get the idea of the statement right, if not the exact words. Given that SHH seems to include even the less necessary words (including verbal crutches like "you know"), I'm still leaning strongly towards CBR being the one supplying answers as direct quotes but getting the verbiage wrong.

I never thought I'd say this, but Wizard actually got it right. When I googled one of the sentences of a Nolan answer, I found it in their coverage. But, instead of dressing it up to make the casual observer think it was a question and answer led by one of their people, they wrote an article peppered with quotes from the director (and others, as they seem to have "blown their load" by sneaking multiple interviews into it).

At the time I'm writing this, Newsarama hasn't posted their interviews on the set of Dark Knight. Their first part is about the costuming, which involved interviewing but I haven't checked elsewhere around the net to see if others framed theirs as their own interview. Troy Brownfield wrote his up as an article with quotes scattered through it like the Wizard article.

Maybe The Rama Is Getting Dogpiled (& The Dixon Saga)

I'm a comic industry gossip addict. I hit The Beat & Blog@ everyday...many times. I occasionally hit Journalista and Spurgeon's site. Journalista get hit daily from time to time, depending on how recently Dirk has picked a fight or stirred shit up on some topic.

I go to these sites because it seems to me that blog sites run with bits and fragments of news and stories more quickly. I think it is just the nature of the animal.

So, I'm a fan of the work done by The Beat and by Blog@, regardless of what people at either site might think of me. They are both damn entertaining.

That said...

I feel like the following from The Beat paints a disingenuous picture:

Covering breaking news seems to be a work in progress at the new ‘Rama. While l’Affaire de Chuck Dixon was all over the blogosphere last week, it was absent from Newsarama’s front page, something that did not escape Valerie’s notice. Matt Brady came back the next day with a solid story that was mostly background and no comment but at least it was something.

First of all, Newsarama wound up covering it on Blog@. Was it front page when there was little-to-know meat to the story? No. Could they have linked to the Blog@ coverage from the front page? Sure. But there seems to be an effort to trump it up into a bigger issue.

Then there's trying to frame Newsarama as responding to people criticizing their lack of front page coverage by giving it front page coverage the next day. The Beat seems to try to do this with subtlety in the above quoted piece. Occasional Superheroine did it with less subtlety by following this blog with "Guess What Story Is On The "Front Page" Of Newsarama?" Never mind that the front page article went live at 7:45am that morning, meaning it was certainly being worked on much of the previous night. That would seem to demonstrate that Newsarama was, gasp, trying to focus on good journalism practices more than rushing to get something on the front page that was already covered on Blog@ and countless other sites.

The final bit seems to be critical of Newsarama for their being nothing new in the reporting, despite their best efforts. They can't make anyone talk if they're unwilling (though, holy shit, what a difference a week makes with Chuck Dixon, apparently).

It seems like, due to the timing of this story with the changeover in the site, people want to see a major problem where there isn't one so they can tie it to the site transition.

-----------------------------------------------

Oh, while we're talking about the Dixon situation, Val's take seems to view the whole thing through the lens of her life instead of what actually went on with Dixon. Dixon spoke out like he did to defend his reputation and it is partially appropriate because DC wasn't doing anything to explain the situation? That's how I read it from her blog, but feel free to steer me in the right direction if I'm wrong. Because, if that's what she's saying, there are a few problems with it as it pertains to Dixon (but no problem with how it pertains to her; she may have avoided names, but she gave a clear picture of the circumstances).

1. It would be kind of odd for DC to come out and announce that Dixon has been kicked off the books before there were any solicitations that would necessitate an explanation for his absence.
   
2. If there's been any demonstration that DC was leaking negative info about why Dixon was no longer on the books, requiring him to counter by harshly ripping "someone" at the top, I haven't seen it. Feel free to link me to it in the comments if I missed it.
3. Telling everyone you didn't quit doesn't really seem to defend your reputation. Bashing the conditions at the place you didn't quit doesn't seem to be much of a defense of one's reputation.

It seems clear that Dixon went a touch past defending his reputation in his blog commenting/Didio bashing. I can't argue for or against the comments being warranted or deserved. But I can certainly argue against them being necessary to protect against being slimed by his past employer. No, he seemed to be preemptively sliming his past executive editor. Last I checked (and I'll give you that it's been more than 24 hours), there still wasn't a clear picture of what exactly happened.

Chuck's not really being entirely fair when he says, "BG1, I simply stated that I was off my titles and that I did not quit. This was to get out in front of the rumors."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one knew anything to make rumors about until he decided to tell the world that he was off the books. THEN he had to get in front of rumors (that he created a vacuum and market for) by saying he didn't quit, which didn't exactly fill that vacuum.

In all of this, he goes through basically spelling out who the problem was by telling everyone who it wasn't. Shit, at some point, his not naming the person when he was doing everything BUT THAT to make it clear who he was talking about, his continued resistance to naming the name makes it seem like he's missing part of his anatomy. I won't say what part, but it certainly isn't the head and don't blame the shaft.

Funny that I haven't seen anyone (least of all Dixon) refute the rumor that Lynxara shared on the infamous Comics Should Be Good blog:

So I’ve heard an interesting rumor about this, not quite inside info, but sourced well enough I’m inclined to take it seriously. I cannot disclose the source as the information was passed along entirely off-the-record, so you may take this with a grain of salt.

What I’ve heard regarding this situation is that Dixon was approaching the books as regular runs and so had written very far ahead on all of his titles– I’m hearing something like two years’ worth of scripts. However, editorial didn’t give him full details of the outcome of upcoming events like Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis, so the vast bulk of what Dixon wrote ended up being unusable.

This led to sharp disagreements about rewriting the scripts and whether Dixon should have produced that much material in the first place, and presumably the end of Dixon’s employment at DC.

He wrote possibly two years ahead on off-shoot books. He knows that Robin will always be lower on the totem pole than Batman or Detective. Same goes double for Batman & The Outsiders. He doesn't stop to think that the main titles might dictate enough to the spin-off titles along the way to present a problem? Maybe he's just not used to writing a spin-off without having more of a hand in the parent titles?

So...again...he writes ahead, presumably gets told that some elements crucial to his writing ahead aren't usable, and he doesn't agree that he should have to scrap that work and start over? That makes DC the heel and Dixon a saint?

What other type of employment is that acceptable in? What other type of employment is that not basically quitting by fact of refusing to do your job? If I behaved like what his role in that rumored scenario in any job I had, I'd at least be denied several weeks of my unemployment, if allowed to file at all.

Could Carlin Be The Culprit?

Warren Ellis sent out a Bad Signal e-mail about the current state of DC and Didio. One of the parts that caught my eye:

People like talking shit about Dan Didio online. The truth is that he's actually a smart guy who, on entering the company, had to make some tough decisions fairly quickly. It's also true that some lifers at DC editorial are very resistant to any kind of change. Are some of them just plain nasty and dumb enough to say, "screw Morrison, we'll do our own story, and if it blows his big reveals, well, fuck ím''? I would hope not, but it does seem to have happened anyway.

I was initially set to point out that DC lifers didn't have much to do with those lead-in projects. Marts was on Countdown at the start and Death of the New Gods. Much of it was Didio's darling to begin with.

But how could I forget Mike Carlin? You know, the guy who seemed to go through many a weekly 'Rama interview (and issues of the event he was editing) with a "I just don't give a f***" attitude. Used to be one of the more important people 'round those parts, seems to be much less so now. He was on Countdown for a longer (and, ultimately, more important) time than Marts, when it comes to matching things up. He wound up on Countdown because an editor that management likes better begged off it (that's the perception).

Could his "f*** it" attitude be part of why Countdown didn't match up to Final Crisis? Could his "f*** it" attitude really have been more of a "f*** Didio and this project he stuck me on/I'll show him" sort of thing?

Mind you, Ellis didn't say anything to imply that he was talking about Carlin. This is just my own spitballing and shouldn't suggest that anyone else was going in that direction.

And Comics Journalism Needs A Russert

• Rumors persist that Marvel_b0y was a viral campaign run by employees of Marvel, despite at least some sort of denial from Joe Quesada.
• Countdown counted down to nothing, since it certainly didn't countdown to Final Crisis.
• Grant Morrison says that he gave DC his first issue script and the outline for the entire mini-series long ago, yet rumors persist that Didio traveled out to Scotland because Morrison was delivering something different than he had previously laid out.
  
• Dixon leaves DC; he didn't quit, yet he says he didn't have quite the passionate "YOU'RE FIRED!" moment. There are strong indications that Didio is the reason he's gone, but he won't spell it out further, as of yet. Keep in mind he said no comment next week and now he's been posting up a storm of comments alluding to what the heart of the matter is.
  
• And now, despite protests to the contrary only a matter of weeks ago, JG Jones has obviously NOT been on schedule with his artwork for Final Crisis, as revealed now by Carlos Pacheco being added to the series as of Final Crisis #4.
  
• Kinda indicates that Grant Morrison was full of it when he protested that things were way too far gone for them to have adjusted anything to meet up with where Countdown to Final Crisis left things. It wasn't a combination of things, it was simply the lack of desire to change things. Again, nothing wrong with that on his part. Should have left it at "I didn't want to" rather than trying to say circumstances made it too difficult.
  

Man, I wish there was someone that comic notables felt that they HAD to submit to being interviewed by and could press for firm answers (without being spat upon by half of the fans out there).

You know what is a shame? I find the mysteries of Marvel_b0y (still) and exactly what the fuck is happening at DC more compelling than the comic book event series at either company.

Chuck Dixon Was Fired

Reading the blog over at Comics Should Be Good, it appears that Dixon was fired and that he has some serious issues with Dan Didio.

Countdown was Didio's baby. Giving Morrison the keys to the entire universe was his call. Letting him be uncommunicative about whatever changes he was making to the FC story in such a way that it screwed up the flow between Countdown & FC likely had the fault shared between Didio and Berganza.

I've appreciated many of the strides that DC made under Didio, but Countdown was his clusterf*ck and he follows that up by failing to make his people ensure that they bounced back. If you believe Valerie D'Orazio's picture of what happens when a series bombs (like she described with Titans), it appears that the editorial staff may have been too busy whispering jokes back and forth about how bad Countdown was doing and how bad Carlin looked in many of his Newsarama interviews, so more stupid mistakes were missed along the way.

Final Defecation On Countdown Part πέντε

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back.

Everyone having fun?

No?


Regardless, we're going on with the poo-slinging.

In Week 46's Counting Down column:

Newsarama: Ballparking here - since Jason and Donna are talking about it, where does this issue fall in relation to Amazons Attack #1 and #2?

Mike Marts: Countdown #46 falls somewhere in the middle of Amazons Attack #2. Check out the issue for Donna and Jason’s lead-in scene to this Countdown #46.

That's offered without real comment at this point. I'm just sure that, with the way AA kinda demonstrated that Countdown would never really be the "spine" with any semblance of each month's issues happening in the same calendar month, it will be worth referencing later.

NRAMA: Since we've got a shot of her again in her costume, how did Mary's costume manifest itself - that design, specifically? Why not the "Mary Marvel" look, but black replacing the white?

MM: We won’t find out the true nature of Mary’s new costume or powers for some time...but some readers tend to think it had to do with Mary¹s fragile state of mind when she acquired her new powers. Others think it may be Teth-Adam’s evil influence. Maybe it’s a combination of the two - or - something completely different. Some other third party, perhaps?

I still don't fully understand that. I know the third party they're alluding to was Eclipso. But how she managed to have that kind of effect on her without sniffing the same zip code for so long still escapes me.

NRAMA: Got it…back to Mary herself - is she...changing as a result of Adam's magic? After all, she didn't seem too upset when five pregnant women blew up in front of her...seems like that would've gotten a jolt out of the “old” Mary...

MM: Mary has definitely changed...and not to the good side of the Force...let’s hope we haven’t seen the last of old Mary.

Yeah...I guess we should still be hoping?

And...wow...that week's Q&A was incredibly short. Even after taking a few weeks off, I might still be able to go over all of this before Final Crisis wraps.

In Week 45, we have two statements that seem to contradict each other a bit:

Newsarama: Okay - big picture wise, and looking at the bigger picture of the series, would it be safe to say this issue was a pause for exposition? After all, we had the explanation of who Forerunner is, Jimmy's recap of the story so far and his explanation of the New Gods, and a recap of the Legion members in the present-day...

Mike Marts: While there were a few short pauses to explain things a little more thoroughly than usual, I don’t remember it being a conscious decision on our part. I think it was more a case of the natural progression of the story...the timing was right for Jimmy to recap who the New Gods are, etc. Let’s not forget, the bulk of this issue was the action-packed fight in Washington DC between Forerunner and Donna Troy…

...and...

NRAMA: Mike, with 52, there was always talk of the first few issues setting the stage, and then, things really taking off once all the players were where they were supposed to be. Is that similar to what we're seeing in Countdown's first few issues?

MM: No, with Countdown we took a different approach—we decided to blow #%&! up from the very first issue and never allow readers to catch their breath.

From the looks of things, what they were blowing up were stink bombs. What? Too easy?

But honestly, if Matt Brady is indicating that they seemed to slow down here, I'm guessing they actually did slow down. I don't have the issue here. I remember the Forerunner fight sort of framing the rest of the story in that issue. I guess shit was still blowing up, but it would seem that readers were still allowed to catch their breath a bit.

And we're on to Week 44. Wow, do these start to fly by or what?

Here, we see the fruits of the aforementioned "begging to get out of the pit of despair that the editor of Countdown resides in":

NRAMA: So what we're seeing here with Billy, and what he's referring to with Freddy - this is what's going on in Trials of Shazam, right?

MM: Exactly, this scene reflects the current status quo in Judd Winick and Howard Porter’s Trials of Shazam... a title ably edited by Mike Carlin, a.k.a. The Great Carlini...

...who by the way (see how I’m segueing?) will begin co-editing Countdown with me starting next issue. Then, after a dozen or so issues of the two of us playing mad scientist together, Mr. Carlin will take over full-time as Countdown editor as I devote all of my energies to editing the Batman titles. And who said being a comic book editor wasn’t fun?!

Let's see...I'm told that Mike started asking off the book six issues in. That'd be two issues before the column I'm currently dissecting. Two weeks from asking to arranging a path out of hell, with a relatively short stay in purgatory along the way. I'm glad Marts was lucky enough to be a high profile new signing or his talent may have withered on the vine here rather than putting in such good work shepherding the Bat titles.

NRAMA: Okay - Monarch...let's bring in whos and hows for folks who may not know him...who is he?

MM: See Wikipedia! Just kidding. Monarch—once upon a time in the future—was some evil guy in high-tech armor who ruled over all and was hated by everybody. The catch, however, was that the true identity of Monarch was an actual DC hero! After some big battles, etc. in Armageddon 2001, it was revealed that Hank Hall--a.k.a. Hawk (of Hawk & Dove fame)--was the guy who eventually became Monarch. Still with me? Okay. Then, later on, Monarch and Captain Atom fought a little bit, got sent back in time together, and eventually Captain Atom was given the Monarch armor through some weird timestream/duplicate copy explanation. Oh yeah, he’s also hung out in parallel universes, the Bleed, and has been known to pal around with Parallax.

Hm. Maybe you should see Wikipedia after all.

AB: If I can try…Monarch is the identity Captain Atom assumed after his dimension hopping experience in the Armageddon limited series. The armor he wears contains his unstable, and incredibly powerful, energies.

NRAMA: He seems to be spilling a lot of inside info about Forerunners as a race...how'd he get to know so much?

MM: See above answer! For a guy so well-traveled through both time and space, you figure he probably picked up some decent Forerunner trivia along the way.

AB: My guess is, his experience bouncing back and forth between dimensions gave him a lot of insight into how things really work, not just as far as the Forerunners go, but about a lot of things.

OK, I quoted a lot there. All of it was just to set up the last sentence. You see, Countdown how 51 issues to meander through so much, but they had to leave how Monarch obtained this information as something to get explained away as happening off-panel before the series launched? Really? No time to spare for flashbacks?

NRAMA: Holly - er...she don't look like Holly from last issue from her outfit to her hair. Production-wise, how does something like that happen between issues and artists?

MM: Answer A: We’re fairly lucky that most of the artists working on Countdown have a similar style...and we keep an extensive database of visual reference that all of the artists work from...but that being said it’s tough to match up every single detail page in and page out. We strive to keep things consistent, but every now and then an inconsistency or two sneak through.

Answer B: in Countdown #45, Holly was having a bad hair day.

NRAMA: Maybe a little of A, a little of B?

MM: Maybe.

Yeah...I remember this. It really was a drastic different between the two appearances. While it is a relatively small thing, it is another in a long line of things that went awry with Countdown when they supposedly made the whole "show runner" change to make things run more smoothly. I do remember some less than stellar art in 52 (which we, also, had here), but not drawing lead characters as unrecognizable from one issue to the next.

Week 43 is where they had the funeral for Bart Allen. It's late (God bless scheduled postings in Blogger) and I'm weary, so I'll start on that later this week.

This Or That: Final Crisis Explanations

While being slightly busy getting defecated on by testy ex-Wizard employees, I wandered back over to Heidi's reporting on Dixon's departure from Batman & The Outsiders.

The comment that stood out was from Dweeze:

I think what Lukecash is referring to are earlier reports that when Morrison turned in the final script for Final Crisis 1, it was vastly different from what he had told editorial it would be and from what editorial had originally approved. As a result, a contingent from DC editorial went to Scotland to discuss what could be done, and the result was what eventually became DC Universe 0.

I had forgotten all about the rumors that the purpose of Didio's Scotland trip was because Grant had made changes to Final Crisis from what he had previously provided to DC editorial. In light of Grant throwing Countdown under the bus in his interview, I thought it might be worth trying to get an idea what people think is most likely the true story.

THIS: Grant Morrison changed Final Crisis significantly, which resulted in Countdown not matching up with Final Crisis.

or

THAT: DC editorial did a sloppy job of coordinating Countdown with Grant's expressed vision for what Final Crisis would be.

What do you think?

Chuck Dixon Out At DC Comics

Heidi MacDonald reports over at THE BEAT that Dixon is no longer employed by DC Comics.

Reaction from fans, thus far, seems to be mixed. Some are lauding his return of Spoiler, but I have reliable info that says the broad strokes of her return have been sitting with DC editorial just waiting for the right time to execute.

I haven't been much of a fan of his Batman & The Outsiders, as it suffers extreme decompression, IMO. Probably not the one to look to for a fair critique of that book, as the creative musical chairs and pulling a switcheroo with the cast (especially after having the readers invest in a five week event meant to select them) soured me before the first issue hit.

Thoughts?

SCHWAPP!!! Encore: Black Adam: The Dark Age Review

One of my weaker attempts to put more of a multimedia twist on my vlogging. Still, it reviews the whole of the Black Adam: The Dark Age back when it was only available in single issues. Now it is out in a paperback form, is still a great piece of work by Peter Tomasi and Doug Mahnke, and still carries a SCHWAPP!!! guarantee that you'll love it.

SCHWAPP!!! Final Crisis As Major Event

And here's the second take: looking at Final Crisis as the first issue in a major event meant to shake up and redefine the DC Universe. The event we've been counting down to for a year. The Crisis to end all Crisis...umm...Crisises...Crises! Yeah...that's it...the Crisis to end all Crises.

SCHWAPP!!! Final Crisis As Art

I'm reviewing Final Crisis from two different angles. The first, seen here, is taking it on its own as a work of art. I'm stripping it of the expectations put upon it by the DC Comics hype machine, the fact that it is an event or the idea that we had an event (and off-shoots) counting down to it for a year.

Encore: NYC SCHWAPP!!!: Passing A Message To Grant

Given that Final Crisis just dropped today, I thought I'd post this again while everyone's talking about Grant Morrison



Before hitting the road to NYCC, my friend Aaron asked me to pass personal messages from him to Grant Morrison and Jenna Jameson. While I wasn't able to get the message to Jenna, I did deliver his message to Grant. It was a little more impersonal than he may have desired...

SCHWAPP!!!: Beats Of The Week Volume 1

Introducing a new vlog angle. I'm going to attempt to just touch upon the story "beats" of the week, both good and bad. It will, unfortunately, never be all inclusive of what comes out in a given week. I can only read so much. If something big happens that I haven't already bought and read, I'll definitely try to get my hands on it.

Without further ado...

Final Defecations On Countdown Vier

As we continue, it looks like the Counting Down columns aren't always as long as the first few. Might actually be able to dissect several per blog, which is great since I don't want this to go on longer than the actual series did.

NRAMA: The Monitor's conference - there's a point that's been raised among fans - why kill the aberrations? Why not capture and relocate them?

MM: Some of the more zealous Monitors would argue that simply capturing and relocating the aberrations wouldn’t solve the problem...in their eyes, the damage caused by these multiversally displaced individuals might not necessarily be done...it might just be getting started.

NRAMA: Okay, so as the Monitors point out Alexander Luthor as being the worst case scenario of dimension hopping...wasn't he just a one in a million occurrence? MM: Perhaps he was...but at the present time, the Monitors may not be entirely concerned with how these individuals became aberrations...for now, their main focus seems to be on the fact that there are aberrations...many of them.

NRAMA: So - the other aberrations the Monitors point out - run 'em down for us...

MM: Duela Dent—the Joker’s Daughter—is the first aberration we come across. At the beginning of Countdown we know she’s out of place, hanging out in the wrong universe. Will we ever learn what universe she came from? Maybe... Then there are a few other characters that the Monitors have labeled as “problems”...individuals who for whatever reason are responsible for “hiccups” in the Multiverse: Donna Troy, Jason Todd, Kyle Rayner, Supergirl, Nightwing... That’s four to start us off...but there are more.

NRAMA: So when will we see that aspect of Countdown pick up, that is, the "hunting of the aberrations?"

MM: It’s a theme which carries throughout the entire series, but readers will see one of the first “hunts” occur about the second week of June. And this hunt will result in the kicking off of one of Countdown primary storylines.

OK, besides the fact that there's a math problem there (he named five characters, not four), there's the little problem that they almost completely ignored both Supergirl & Nightwing for the entirety of the series. This is the editor of the year long event that is privy to all the pre-planning. I'm guessing that there was a mid-series decision not to increase the scope of how many characters were given a turd coating by this Countdown thread. It is obvious that they weren't ever meant to be part of the "Challengers of the Multiverse" or what have you, but to drop them as anomalies and have the Monitors give them nearly zero attention?

Just to make certain that we drill this point home as much as possible before picking apart Carlin's inability to keep shit straight later:

NRAMA: Time-wise - next week, we'll be four issues into Countdown - will that roughly correlate to one month's worth of time in the DCU?

MM: Yes.

Remember that, folks.

And that, above, was all of the stuff from Countdown #49's weekly treatment. See what I mean about shorter stuff? And on to issue 48...

Newsarama: Let's start with Mary's issues here - take us inside her head a little. Why's she so eager to get back into the game of super-heroing? There seems to be a desperation...towards an addiction going on here…

Mike Marts: See, that’s the thing...Mary’s desperation isn’t necessarily about getting back into super-heroing....it’s more about feeling the painful loss of her powers. She had her super powers for so long—trusted them, relied on them, perhaps even took them for granted...and now they’re gone, seemingly forever. And Mary’s finding this extremely difficult to live with. She’s lost her sense of purpose, her sense of self. She feels backed into a corner. And now—who knows—she might try anything to get her powers back.

NRAMA: Anything?

MM: Anything.

Wow...I just now realized that Brady's "addiction" angle seems to be prophetic about where she'd go. So addicted to power that, once she even had her old powers back, she wanted more. But...according to the editor...that didn't seem to be anything planned for the character. Maybe the complete reinvention of Mary got brewed up after Mike "I just make sure it's out on time" Carlin took over.

Which is kinda funny given:

NRAMA: On that front, and time-wise, when's Countdown taking place compared to Trials of Shazam?

MM: The events of Countdown and Trials of Shazam may not line up perfectly...but for the most part Trials happens before Countdown and then concurrently - at least, according to Trials editor Mike Carlin. And he knows everything, so he must be right!

Heh...oh, Mike...if you only knew how unreliable Carlin is with keeping even things he has edited straight...

Not to beat a dead horse, but:

NRAMA: Okay – over to Jimmy...Perry now knows that Jason Todd is Red Hood, so, by default, the entire Daily Planet now knows?

MM: No, not necessarily...as hinted last week, there is a story behind the connection between Jimmy Olsen and Jason Todd. A story that will be told within the pages of Countdown.

Yeah...anyone remember that story?

Oh, boy are these things going fast and furious now. We're on to Counting Down for #47. To be fair, since I've recently taken to pointing out the subliminal pornography of certain comic book artwork:



Money shot!

Now, on to the interview:

NRAMA: Back to Black Adam - his word was "sorry?" Captain Marvel changed it to that? And he has the wisdom of Solomon? I mean - wasn't that, or wouldn't that have been one of the first words he said or at least a really likely one if say, he visited Isis' grave?

MM: Did you read the end of 52 or World War III? Did you see what Black Adam is capable of? Still think the word “sorry” is even in his vernacular?

NRAMA: In that he’s sorry Isis and Osiris are dead because he went the wrong way, probably…

MM: Well - but Black Adam editor Michael Siglain assures me that there are still one or two big pieces to Black Adam’s puzzle to be discovered in his upcoming August mini-series.

I would think that calming the whiny masses (which I may have been part of; I can't remember) by saying, "no, we didn't give away the secret word, folks...keep reading," might have made sense. I'm guessing that there may not have been much information sharing going on.

NRAMA: Oh - one question on tie-ins...The Joker was in this week's Detective, and apparently has been around for a while. Er...how? Is that the Joker, the Joker, or "a" Joker...or...who? Just seems kind of strange as he was locked up securely in Arkham recently...

MM: The Joker appearing in Detective #833 and #834 is “the” Joker...er, “our” Joker. The real Joker. You know what I mean!

NRAMA: Yeah…but then who was the Joker securely locked up in Arkham in #50?

MM: The Joker.

NRAMA: “Our” Joker?

MM: Yes.

NRAMA: Not “a” Joker?

MM: He’s the Joker.

NRAMA: Wait – who’s the Joker?

MM: The guy on first – he’s the Joker.

NRAMA: I’m figuring that’s the extent of the clarification we’re going to get on that one, so over to you for the tease of issue #46…hit it.

That's a good spine of the DC Universe, eh? Five weeks into this event and DC editorial already had the wheels coming off their cohesive universe (which is the point of having a "spine" to it). That's not saying any of it was Marts' fault.

OK...that's a few of the weekly columns dissected in this edition, so that's it for going over Countdown.

Over Countdown?

No, I don't imagine I'll ever be over Countdown...

NYCC SCHWAPP!!!: Passing A Message To Grant

Before hitting the road to NYCC, my friend Aaron asked me to pass personal messages from him to Grant Morrison and Jenna Jameson. While I wasn't able to get the message to Jenna, I did deliver his message to Grant. It was a little more impersonal than he may have desired...

Has Anyone Else Brought This Up?

DC really only seems to make a habit of releasing TPBs or Showcases of their less-than-blockbuster properties when there is some sort of new release related to them that might help them sell some copies. The Batman & The Outsiders Showcases were coordinated with the relaunch of Batman & The Outsiders. They put out the DC Special issues to showcase stories that will be important coming up.

So...Grant Morrison (and Mark Millar) creation, Aztek, just had a TPB released. Grant Morrison is writing Final Crisis. Aztek was a legacy character (the memories of all who had worn the helmet were stored in the helmet itself). Aztek had been sent out to deal with a great evil.

Could a new Aztek be sent out to deal with an evil so great that we're apparently going to see the day it won?

The Wikipedia entry reminds us:

A younger black female Aztek was seen in Grant Morrison's run on JLA during "The Rock of Ages" storyline in which the JLA traveled to an alternate future overrun by Darkseid.

Hmmm...

Final Defecations on Countdown Part Três

Here we go again. I'm picking apart what statements DC made about Countdown that they didn't necessarily live up to. They are inconsistencies that not only demonstrate a lack of solid planning and some small degree of false advertising. But the main point is how difficult it is for them to put together a solid book that is editorially driven when editorial didn't even seem to know what they were doing.

Oh...and we're still pulling some of this from the first Newsarama interview about Countdown...

DD: Right. We’re also going to deal with Mary Marvel in a big way in this series. As Freddy has taken the forefront in Trials of Shazam, we wanted to focus on the other members of the Marvel Family, and this is a great place for us to push Mary Marvel to the forefront and examine that character.

Ummm...did they really do that? Did they examine that character or completely and drastically change everything about her? Let's forget whether the changes were good or not for the moment. But to suggest they were going to examine her when they nearly reinvented her from scratch just seems wrong. I don't recall her being written as the jealous, obsessed or power hungry type. Yes, we haven't seen her having lost her powers...but when she gained them back, she was still willing to make a deal with the Fourth World devil to get a slight bump up in power? That's wholesale change of character.

DD: There’s going to be another storyline that will focus on some of the key villains of the DC Universe that will take us through the underbelly of the DCU again, with lines that will tie all the way back to Identity Crisis.

Ah...another of the storylines that happened outside of Countdown (as Mary Marvel had some Eclipso bits happen in Countdown to Mystery, I believe). It would seem that, if we're talking about villain focus, it has to be Salvation Run. If they're trying to count all the spin-offs in this interview, it's a little disingenuous, in my opinion. Other than using a quick Piper/Trickster bit to introduce the Suicide Squad prison planet deal, Countdown didn't really do much with that.

DD: Where 52 is world-building, which is what was so interesting about it, as we were rebuilding the DC Universe from the ground up following the events of Infinite Crisis, Countdown is the book where, as the expression goes sh-- blows up. There’s a lot of excitement within the pages, and again, how the book is being crafted and paced is different from the way 52 was crafted, just because of the way it’s being assembled.

Ah...the SHIT BLOWS UP talk. If shit really blew up, a large majority of this series wouldn't have made it to the shelves, as there would have been devastating explosions at the printer.

But let's look at the portion of the last sentence that I bolded: it's redundant and tells the reader nothing. Essentially, it "is being crafted and paced" differently because of how it "is being crafted and paced". How it is being assembled is how it is being crafted. It feels like that sentence is one of the best confirmations that DC tried to reinvent the wheel for no real constructive purpose.

MM: Oh, and in regards to JG, we didn’t want to leave him out of the mix completely, so he’ll be doing a few guest variant covers.

We didn't get any variants, but JG did step in for two covers. They occurred during the handoff to Mike Carlin and after the handoff, though.

Finally...we are done with the first interview and work our way over to COUNTING DOWN for issue #51.

Newsarama: Mike, we touched upon it earlier this year when we spoke, but just to recap a touch, can you give us a feel again, from your point of view, why you were tapped for editing this project? It wasn't exactly hazing, was it?

Mike Marts: Of course it was hazing! Dan Didio wooed me to DC with sweet promises of easy projects with quick creators and cushy deadlines... and then WHAM! As soon as I was in the door, he got that sinister grin he’s so famous and told me his real reasons for tempting me over to the dark side...WEEKLY COMICS!

Oh, Mike...if you only knew how it would turn out. Truer words have not been spoken. Though the "dark side" wasn't so much the weekly comics aspect.

MM: Countdown is an ambitious, epic project the likes of which have only been tried once before — 52 (duh)--but this time around we’ve taken a few steps further... while 52 was told in real time, Countdown will be told in current time, and reflect events happening in the DCU right now. Meaning that any major event that happens in the DCU over the next year will be reflected and touched upon in Countdown — and vice versa.

I could be wrong, but I really don't remember that much crossing over with the biggest event in the DC Universe during that time: Sinestro Corps War. That's unless you count their spoiling Kyle Rayner's and Superman Prime's fates. It wasn't really reflected or touched upon. Didio already apologized for