Pregame: The Launch of a Non-Concept

There's been plenty said already about the assets "52" had starting out. First of all, the sustained weekly narrative was a fairly new concept (or at least one that hadn't been used in quite a while) and there was a certain element of wondering whether they could pull it off, especially as Marvel's concurrent seven part monthly superevent threatened to fall apart with delays. "52" also benefitted from the momentum of its predecessor, "Infinite Crisis". Say what you will about the quality of the series, but "IC" was a huge seller and left a lot of unanswered questions. DC also made the brilliant move of deferring those answers with the "One Year Later" stunt, so "52", picking up moments after the end of "Infinite Crisis" filled a necessary void for readers. To top all of these, DC signed up a dream team of writers for the project. Anyone who has been reading comics over the past ten years has almost certainly developed an affection for at least member of the "52" team, and as a Grant Morrison completist, I felt compelled to read "52" even after the disappointment of "Infinite Crisis".

But more than all these factors, "52" benefitted from a clearly outlined concept. "A year without Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman." Given that framework, "52" introduced its cast in a way that rewarded but didn't require readers who knew four decades of backstory. Readers with no prior knowledge of Booster Gold could get a handle on the character by the end of the first issue, and readers who'd been keeping up with the character since his Keith Giffen days would recognize the same Michael they'd come to...be mildly ambivalent about. And within the first three issues, the writers set more hooks than a Bassmasters Tournament, launching a dozen mysteries we were encouraged to parse out as the clues were sparingly dropped.

The in-house marketing for "52" actually amounted to little more than "Have you figured out the mystery"-style ads in other DC books, ads which could only serve to encourage people already reading the book.


Which brings us to "Countdown". DC has already shown they can "pull off" a long-form weekly book, and so "Countdown", which abandons the narrative constraint of "52"'s real-time, is not formally experimental. With attrition levels natural to a year long, 1000+ page book, the sales of the final issue of "52" were not really significant enough to say that "Countdown" started with any kind of sales momentum. Similarly, the one year jump between the end of "52" and the beginning of "Countdown" short-circuited any kind of direct narrative momentum. Although obviously events and repercussions from "52" were always intended to play out in "Countdown", it does have the effect of making the year's worth of books published concurrent to "52" have the feeling of dead time for the big story of the DC Uni/Multi-verse.

And then there's Paul Dini. Dini is a clearly gifted writer who's shown himself adept at crafting amazing self-contained stories dealing with icons from the DC stable. But "Countdown" seems to be structured to preclude a showcase of those talents. Dini is working involved in a long-form, plot-driven work that centers around second and third tier characters and, unlike Morrison or Waid, has yet to prove he can craft a narrative of this scope.

But the big problem is simply that there's no concept. The clever and well designed in-house advertising for "Countdown" has only highlighted this problem. Teaser images like the "Jimmy Olsen Must Die" and "I Found Ray Palmer" ads are striking (provided, of course, that the target market knows and cares who JImmy Olsen and Ray Palmer are), but only map out a selection of disparate plot points, with nothing linking them together. While most superevents have monikers clearly laying out what's going on within ("Amazons Attack", "World War Hulk"), "Countdown" leaves open the most obvious question: Countdown to what? With no strong hints of an answer coming out of the DC camp (sorry, but "Final Crisis" is not a content-bearing phrase at this stage of DC fandom), DC's approach going into "Countdown" seems muddled at best, and at worst, pinned to the hopes that a reader cares enough about Jimmy Olsen, Ray Palmer, Jason Todd or any of the other second-stringers in the cast to play along for 52 weeks and $155.48. Or that readers are still invested in the outcome of DC's near constant cosmological tinkering. A marketing campaign or overall company stance fronting the "Great Disaster" might have overcome this, the build up to "Countdown" made the Great Disaster seem about as important as two low-rent villians handcuffed together, buddy movie style. The series needs something that sums it up in one sentence, and here at the start, all we're getting is that it's the prelude to...something.

The last and certainly not least obstacle faced by "Countdown" is that it's being forced to run alongside DC continuity. In a world where 24 pages of one comic may account for three months of narrative time while the same page count covers only an hour's narrative time in another, the effects on a weekly comic are potentially disastrous. Add into that the pre-planned garbling of schedules on DC's flagship books (Morrison's "Batman" is about to split its second storyline and Donner's "Superman" schedule can only induce aggreived skull-clutching), and "Countdown", even with its outlines and story bibles, will be tightrope walking over a moat full of bees. While carrying a box of hornets.

And yes, I know giving a pregame rundown a full month in is totally cheating. But...hey look, over there: it's a confusing and obscure "Kingdom Come" reference!