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.

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.

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...

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.

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...