Morrison: Pissing On Countdown Before The 'Rama Interview

Over on ComicFoundry.com, they had an interview published with Grant Morrison on April 29th where the following exchange took place:

"You’ve done several big event books for DC. What’s the hardest part about writing them?

Trying not to disturb continuity too much, particularly in cases where said continuity is best described as a car wreck. Back in 2006, I requested a moratorium on the New Gods so that I could build up some foreboding and create anticipation for their return in a new form … instead, the characters were passed around like hepatitis B to practically every writer at DC to toy with as they pleased, which, to be honest, makes it very difficult for me to reintroduce them with any sense of novelty, mystery or grandeur. So in cases like this, where fellow creators have overlooked my carefully established additions to DC continuity or ignored my pleas to hold certain characters in reserve, my intention is to follow the through-line I’ve established in my own work so that there’s at least some long-term consistency."

Wow...this says two things to me:

1. Comic Foundry really needs to make its online presence a little more well-known. The blogosphere erupted much more about Grant dismissing Countdown in his Newsarama interview, despite the fact that he had pretty much already told the world that he didn't care to match up to what DC did against his wishes over in CF's interview.
2. DC editorial really managed to find the worst of both worlds. They have apparently frustrated some creators by wanting to stick to the Morrison road map but disregarded what appears to be a pretty important setup point because the man at the top felt the New Gods needed a proper tribute. From where I sit, that send off could have been an out-of-continuity Death of the New Gods...or even just the in-continuity Death of the New Gods without making Countdown hinge on New God participation.

All the info I have read on the subject seemed to indicate that the decision to give the Kirby versions some sort of send off originated from Dan Didio. He's the only DC guy I've seen making statements about why they focused on them in Countdown and in their own mini. No other editors or creators have stepped up and said it was something they championed.

So, if a personal desire from Didio is at the root of Countdown, Death of the New Gods, and the resultant disconnect with Final Crisis, I can see why things could be a bit tense for Didio. He's in a position where you normally defer to the creators under contract, rather than spend time putting your own ideas out there. His being co-architect of Countdown with Dini is a double hit on Dan doing his job: one hit for approving the idea and another for expanding his role into being more hands on with the writing than he maybe should have been.

Makes me wonder...is he AJ Lieberman after all?

(CF article brought to my attention via a link from 4thLetter.net, which I got to via DigitalFemme.com)

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.
  

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?

Final Crisis: Grant Morrison's Interview At Newsarama

Over at Newsarama, Grant gives an interview about Final Crisis in general, but I want to pick apart where he talked about how Countdown and Death of the New Gods fail to mesh with Final Crisis.

Final Crisis was partly-written and broken down into rough issue-by-issue plots before Countdown was even conceived, let alone written. And J.G. was already working on designs and early layouts by the time Countdown started. There wasn’t really much opportunity, or desire, to modify our content at that stage.

OK, I'm just going to leave that there for now. Well, alright...I can't resist pointing out that layouts are nothing set in stone. It's really not a defense of why things couldn't match up so well (not that Grant needs a defense here).

Obviously, I would have preferred it if the New Gods hadn’t been spotlighted at all, let alone quite so intensively before I got a chance to bring them back but I don’t run DC and don’t make the decisions as to how and where the characters are deployed.

You know, when I first read this, it read more like, "I asked them to leave the New Gods alone until my Final Crisis work," but it now seems more like he just expected that DC would see the pieces he was using in Final Crisis and try to leave them exactly where they were rather than risk messing things up. I'd still put the onus on editorial to possibly double check that their work on the lead up to Final Crisis is actually leading up to it, rather than shooting it in the foot.

GM: Again, bear in mind that Countdown only finished last month so Final Crisis was already well underway long before Countdown and although I’ve tried to avoid contradicting much of the twists and turns of that book as I can with the current Final Crisis scripts, the truth is, we were too far down the road of our own book to reflect everything that went on in Countdown, hence the disconnects that online commentators, sadly, seem to find more fascinating than the stories themselves.

All well and good. One bit of advice to Grant Morrison regarding his last sentence: get over it. Look, you're a great writer and I'm sure you're about to tell a great story. But you're pretty damn well aware that the DC Universe line of books have quite a bit of continuity. I'm sure you're fairly aware that DC sold Countdown as setting the table for Final Crisis. If DC sold us a product at least partially by convincing us it tied into another, more attractive product, the we're going to be a bit distracted by that, regardless of how well you executed your ideas.

And here is where I call a bit of shenanigans:

GM: What mattered to me was what had already been written, drawn or plotted in Final Crisis. The Guardians didn’t call 1011 when Lightray and the other gods died in Countdown because, again, Final Crisis was already underway before Countdown came out.

C'mon now, Grant. You have a good enough case for all of this not being your fault without making shit up. Lightray died in Countdown #48. Are you telling me that you and JG Jones were in a "there's no going back now" position back then? Bullshit. Pure, unadulterated bullshit. It was approximately the same time that Barda and that other character got killed in Birds of Prey. You weren't put in a position where you couldn't do anything to reflect that.

There wasn’t really much opportunity, or desire, to modify our content at that stage.

You had PLENTY of opportunity here, just no desire. And that's fine. But don't plead that it was impossible when it was clearly just uncomfortable or unattractive. I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy this version of the mini more than I'd enjoy whatever you would have had to morph it into in order to accommodate all the stuff that Countdown and Death of the New Gods did.

I mean, doesn't the following settle the issue just fine without exaggerating the circumstances:

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

Of course, there's a little exaggeration there, too. It's been a few weeks since the first issue came out. Is there really anything that ridiculous about initially venting some frustration over how this company that's been selling the idea that they've got such a cohesive universe with an amazing plan in place goes and violates all of that cohesion after sucking out 52 issues worth of their money for the DC Universe spine? It is a little early to suggest that a group of a size worth noting is going to still be bitching and moaning in a few months.

Quote of the interview, though:

Once you’ve had the image of Dr. Light hammering away at Sue Dibny’s ruptured rear end burned into your neurons, it’s hard to write him as one more cackling gimmick villain.

Alrighty, then. ;)

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.

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 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 the situation that led those points to be spoiled, but there's been no real addressing of how something as important as that war could be virtually ignored while they covered the bachelorette party of Black Canary. Not the fault of Marts, though...since he was begging off since issue 6.

Mike Marts: All right, let's take a look around the desk...in the last twenty-four hours, here is what's hit my inbox related to Countdown...color proofs from Guy Major on #47...second proofs for lettering on #46...the third script revision from Paul Dini for that same issue...cover inks from Terry and Rachel Dodson on #42...final pencils on #38 from artist Jesus Saiz...cover pencils and inks for #31 from one of Wildstorm's top artists...plot revision on #27 from writer Sean McKeever...and confirmation for the story conference call with Paul Dini on #26. How's that?

Fans of the "Marvel method" of scripting might disagree, but the highlighted sentence fragments above point out another possible item contributing to the inconsistent product. The "Marvel method" might work for regular monthly production, but when plots are already being penciled several issues ahead and you might script yourself into an inconvenient spot...it is a little more difficult to fix with a weekly.

MM: Each artist-be it Jim Calafiore, Jesus Saiz, David Lopez or Carlos Magno-may bring their own unique drawing style to the pages of Countdown, but we're fortunate to have layout artist Keith Giffen back on board for this new weekly series. Keith is essential in providing the series with a consistent, unified look and feel.

Newsarama Note: As Dan Didio explained on Wednesday, Giffen was finishing his commitment to 52 during the production time of the first few issues of Countdown.

OK...so...Keith is so essential that they basically went half the series without him and without any other layout artist? Don't get me wrong...I believe that Mike Marts felt Keith and/or some layout artist was essential...but the decision to go forward at a time that wouldn't allow Keith to participate or to not use someone else in the interim probably came from above him.

NRAMA: Story-wise, this week, we saw the first tie-in with another event in the DCU, that is, the scene with Batman and Karate Kid fighting, from JLA. Where much of that fight was off camera in that issue, are we correct to assume that this is that fight?

MM: That great action sequence from Calafiore is indeed "the fight" from the JLA/JSA crossover. We hope readers enjoyed this subtle crossover. Fortunately Paul Dini and the guys responsible for writing that issue-Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray-had Brad Meltzer's JLA script to work from fairly early on.

NRAMA: Okay - given the economy of pages, nothing in comics is there without a reason, and Dan has said that Karate Kid will be playing a roll in the series - any hints as to what we'll see with him? And will it be just him, or the entire Legion?

MM: There is so much more coming for Karate Kid...a journey that I'm sure no one is expecting. And I'd love to spoil some bits about the Legion, but Didio, Meltzer and Johns would break my neck. What I can say is that Karate Kid won't be alone on his journey...

Ah...one of the first major gripes that people bunched their panties over: the Batman/Karate Kid fight appearing in detail HERE instead of in the actual Lightning Saga crossover. That was a pretty bad move, as far as pleasing the customer. I, also, think it was one that was pretty easy to see coming from months out. It is one thing to show what happened in the series, but to do it to the exclusion of it appearing in the Lightning Saga (whether real or perceived).

And "a journey that I'm sure no one is expecting"? Well...that's one way to classify the character having the black plague, coughing from universe to universe and dying at the end. It was so great that he brought along Una to die, too. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, either...but it doesn't make it a good thing.

NRAMA: By and large, and if they can be put into a single group, how do these crossovers occur? I'd assume that Paul can pull in the elements he needs, but how do other writers get to use Countdown elements in their titles?

MM: Dini was great in that he had an extremely detailed weekly outline of Countdown in before the end of '06...this allowed the editorial staff-and in turn their writers-to plan these "crossing over" moments well in advance.

That's funny. Not to focus too much on this, but we all know Geoff Johns plans stuff out fairly far in advance. Yet we have Kyle Rayner not only appearing hale and hearty in Countdown before his storybeats were over in Sinestro Corps, but he had been advertised as being a member of that group long before it came to pass, effectively killing any tension over his Parallax moment as soon as Countdown solicits came out. That's on top of the point that there wasn't really much touching upon and reflecting done in Countdown regarding the whole fear/will war.

NRAMA: Okay - into the events in the issue…first off, the Red Hood thing - now Jimmy knows who he is, and on top of that, knows that Dick Grayson was a former Robin? What the heck?

MM: Oh, you caught that...? We thought we were playing it fairly subtle, but hat's off to those who picked it up. This will have major story ramifications down the road-oh, wait-did I just give something else away?

NRAMA: Sure, sure, play it coy - but doesn't that mean that he (along with any other reporter) knows who Batman is?

MM: No, definitely not. The Jimmy/Jason Todd connection is a unique situation-one we're not going to spoil by revealing in the second issue!

NRAMA: So, bluntly, it's not a goof?

MM: Nope. Trust us.

Hmmmm. I knew there was something that would fall on Marts at some point. This is it right here.

I don't remember seeing that whole goof addressed. Oh...and it was a goof. A straight fuck up. No cute little idea. A fuck up. If I want to try to play favorites on this one, I can only save Graymiotti, at best. I mean...they were given what had to happen in the issue from Dini, I do believe. Ah...screw it. Everybody who worked on the issue probably slapped themselves in the head at some point and said they should have done something to keep that from slipping through. ;)

Alright...that's it for the third installment. I'm probably doing this for myself at this point, since most people just want to forget that Countdown existed.

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 tha