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.