As Countdown/Countdown To Final Crisis limps into its final month, it seems as appropriate a time as any to take a look at the series, because let’s face it, if it’s sucked consistently for 48 weeks, it’s not going to suddenly get great. Oh sure, it did take a step up in quality around the time of the midpoint title change — but only one step. The problem from that point forward was that there was at least the chance an issue could be decent, so each week the reader would think well hey it’s POSSIBLE Countdown won’t be utterly cringe-inducing this week. After that midpoint shift there might be decent Pete Woods or Scott Kolins or Jamal Igle art instead of utter shit Dennis Calero or Carlos Magno art but still, once you actually read the thing oh my god it was always just stupid shit that made no sense whatsoever.
The problem wasn’t that it was weekly. I have no problem with weekly as long as it’s done well and consistently, as it was in 52, which always had at least good-to-decent art and was always well written. When I was a kid I thought Action Comics and Millennium each coming out weekly was an awesome idea until I actually bought those series, and they sucked (well, the Blackhawk strip in Action was good). I have wondered for years why Marvel didn’t just put out Amazing Spider-Man more often instead of having secondary spinoff Spidey books; now, thanks to the consistently mediocre three-times monthly Amazing I see why*. It can be done though, as 52 proved; it just wasn’t in Countdown. (I have high hopes for the upcoming Busiek/Niceiza/Bagley Trinity weekly project.)
All of the spinoffs were consistently terrible as well — except for half of one book. It’s a shame Steve Gerber’s Dr. Fate got shoved under the Countdown To Mystery banner, but it clearly had nothing to do with Countdown anyway as it involved no outside characters and Gerber admitted knowing nothing about what was going on in Countdown (granted, Steve had bigger problems at the time than keeping up on the weekly doings of Jimmy Olsen and Mary Marvel). The Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer “one-shots” were useless — DC couldn’t call it a miniseries, since that would imply some sort of narrative progression. So even though it was series of connected issues starring the same characters that came out sequentially, they’re all somehow ‘one-shots’. Yeah, fuck you too, DC. We’re not all that stupid. Countdown: Arena was just so offensively bad it made me wonder what the hell kind of promise I saw in writer Keith Champagne’s JSA fill-in issues. I haven’t even been able to convince myself to read past the first three issues of Countdown To Adventure (Forerunner…shudder). Lord Havok and the Extremists was pointless — even DC couldn’t pretend they give a shit about this series, they didn’t even care enough to bother to get the number of issues in the series right on the cover. It was a shame, too, because the concept behind it could have led to an interesting satire on the Marvel Universe — but it didn’t.
And that’s the real problem with Countdown: the concepts behind it weren’t inherently bad, and it’s easy to see how they could have led to some really cool stuff, but the execution was just awful. I honestly don’t think any of the multiverse/time-travel/whatever stuff is particularly confusing, as some people seem to think. I don’t think it’s being done at all well in Countdown, but that’s a failure of storytelling, not of the multiverse itself.
My first comic in memory was an Adventure Dollar Comics giant which started off with a straightforward Flash story (why I picked the book) and continued with Deadman, which at the time was the kind of thing they’d probably shunt off to Vertigo these days, and then rolled into an awesome JSA story with a completely comprehensible 2-page explanation of Earth 2 and why this Flash (COOL THERE’S ANOTHER FLASH?!!) wore a hat and this Green Lantern (ditto) was vulnerable to wood. I just accepted it and rolled with it and enjoyed the hell out of it, and I couldn’t have been older than 8. It wasn’t even slightly confusing and it made me excited to learn more. Wow, that Shazam guy is on yet another Earth? Cool! And there’s, like, an EVIL JLA? Awesome!
It’s not like the multiverse/time travel stuff isn’t being done well at DC right now — I’m enjoying the hell out of it in Action, Booster Gold, and Justice Society of America (and I’m glad to see DC finally getting serious about the Legion of Super Heroes in the last year or so because it’s one of their properties with the most untapped potential–I mean, it frankly could be a mass-market commercial juggernaut, since it combines elements of sci-fi, superheroes, soap opera, and fantasy. Done right, LSH could be Star Wars times X-Men times Lord Of The Rings.)
But Countdown is continuity-laden to the point of being mired and unable to rise above it, with its mediocre writers tethered to an interminable, barely-advancing plotline and without the latitude to introduce any more interesting aspects to the series. This shit CAN be a lot of fun when written properly, but it’s not INHERENTLY a lot of fun just by itself, and that’s the premise Countdown seems to have gone with.
The best thing one can say about Countdown/Countdown To Final Crisis at this point is that it’s almost over — with each issue one can look at the decreasing numbers on the cover and think “That’s not so many left, thank god — and then Final Crisis is absolutely going to rock bells.”
Perhaps the series was doomed from the first by its very name: after all, a countdown implies nothing really happening, but the promise of something interesting immediately afterwards — and that’s how it worked out.
* Although this week’s Zeb Wells-written issue was actually quite good.
4 comments ↓
I quit Countdown after 5 issues. I’m glad to see that I didn’t waste my time or money. Sorry that you had to.
I’m starting to get leery of these big events. At the end I shouldn’t be saying, “That’s it? Are you fucking kidding me?” It’s hard not to get wrapped up in it though. The big build up. Wizard promoting them a year in advance. The variant covers. Big artists and writers attached to them. I think I start expecting too much and then get let down when it doesn’t meet my internal hype.
Countdown (and its numerous time ins) was one of DC’s worst events ever. I’m glad I bailed at the end of 52 and read Superman Homepage reviews to keep me updated. The only saving grace of the upcoming Final Crisis is that Morrison is writing it. It boggles the mind to think that the editors approved of this fiasco.
And of course Marvel had to jump on the band wagon with their crappy One More Day storyline.
what’ insane is that Carlin gets on newsrama every week, gives his interview, and actually seems pleased and enthused with what was put out. He’s like a cheerleader, seriously.
I’m actually young and naive enough about my comics that I liked Countdown, even through Search for Ray Palmer. That was until I saw Arena and its Crayola-like artwork. I have become jaded and cynical since then.
C2 Mystery is incredible. I wonder why they felt the need to put it under the Countdown banner. You should have given Adventure a go, though. It actually made me like the Forerunner character and it featured more Starfire/Animal Man/Adam Strange goodness. They need a team name, seriously. The Forerunner story was pretty good until the last issue, where they wrapped it up so quickly my head was spinning and I was left disappointed by the lackluster ending.
FINAL CRISIS is going to kick unholy amounts of ass. Coupled with Secret Invasion, I am going to have a good summer and fall (and winter?).
[…] To Final Crisis #1: I covered the failings of Countdown at length already in Countdown To Final Crisis is Consistently Terrible, so rather than elaborate at length I’ll simply add this: thanks god this shit is over, and […]
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