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?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.
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.
More to come...
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