More, More, More (How Do You Like It? How Do You Like It?)

Countdown to…well apparently they’re counting down to the Final Crisis (“final” huh? Yeah, okay, whatever…) but Countdown itself is already spinning off the tracks by ignoring the things that made 52 work as a weekly comic.

I liked 52 a lot (the weekly thing didn’t mean much to me because I get my comics once a month) even though parts of it rambled pointlessly (the space heroes thing especially) and even though it finished the galling and annoying thing that Identity Crisis started, that being the deaths of the most grounded, happy, and fun-loving married couple in super-hero comics, Ralph and Sue Dibny (are comic book writers really so cynical and/or emotionally scarred that they don’t think there should really be such a thing as happily married super-hero couple?) But hey, they told a good story featuring characters that don’t often get such a high profile spotlight and they got it out each and every week for a year…kudos all around for that.

But the problems already creeping into Countdown did start to crop up near the end of 52. The World War 3 spin-offs were a blatant, undercooked money grab and the truncated final issue of the main series (the writers apparently wanted and expected to have 52 pages for the final issue but were denied by editorial concerns over having the increase the cover price on the last issue of the series) had to cram so much stuff in that it was just barely coherent.The main problem with Countdown is that it appears to be much more editorially driven…as opposed to the writers steering the ship on 52…with its overall impact being diluted by stream of scenes and plots that lead into and out of other titles as well as burgeoning number of crossover series (something 52 eschewed save for the World War 3 thing.) A glance at the latest Previews shows DC scrambling to exploit the Countdown “brand” to the utmost. With 52 weekly issues to tell its story one wonders why so many spin-offs are needed (of course, one really already knows why…mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money…which makes sense DC Comics is a business first and foremost.)

Countdown to Mystery…Countdown to Adventure…Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer…Countdown Presents: Lord Havok and the Extremists…Captain Carrot and the Final Ark (a Countdown tie-in we’re told)…Death of the New Gods (spinning out of Lightray’s fate in Countdown)…yadda…yadda…yadda…

Add to that the continuing attempts to draft off of the success of 52 with series such as Booster Gold, Infinity Inc., 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen, Black Adam: The Dark Age, Crime Bible: The Five Lessons of Blood and you get a feeling that DC feels that their bread is buttered on the side of events and as many event spin-offs as they can jam into the pipeline. It’s a short-sighted plan…but hopefully something cool will come of it nevertheless. We shall see.