#36- The Problem With Suspense

Once again this week, we have a perfectly serviceable issue that accomplishes pretty much nothing and leaves us with nearly every member of the cast in moral peril.

Come to think of it, Countdown has been chock full o'mortal peril, but this issue is especially overflowing with it.

But before we get to the subject of peril, let's address the gaping hole between this issue and the last. #37 ended with the most significant development we've seen in Countdown to date: Jimmy's discovery that Clark is Superman. This is a major story beat that's been subsequently dropped from this issue. I was willing to go along with the idea that Jimmy suddenly "knew" Clark's secret, but the writers have made a huge jump from there to Jimmy's JLA induction. It's implausible enough that Jimmy would come off his Titans rejection thinking he was JLA material, but if the writers are asking us to believe he essentially blackmailed his pal Supes into getting him a membership card, and that Supes went along with it, some amount of convincing is needed. One more ball dropped by Countdown, not that anyone's still keeping score.

This brings us pretty directly back to the idea of the cliffhanger as deployed in the book. I hate to keep comparing the structure of Countdown to 52, but the latter managed to exist almost entirely without cliffhangers due to its real-time structure. Only a handful of issues resorted to the 24 trick of having a momentous event occur at the perfect moment in time to carry over into the next issue (thinking here of Lex's switching off his newly minted metas). Countdown, on the other hand, has been an almost endless string of cliffhangers that seem based on the Batman TV series model. Will the Rogues escape the clutches of [whoever the hell has captured the Rogues this week]? Will Black Adam maul Mary Marvel? Will Forerunner disembowel Donna? Tune in next week to find out!

Granted, leaving a character in mortal peril is a standard device of serialized storytelling. But it's not the only device available and it's kind of the cheapest one out there. Last issue's cliffhanger, for example, hinged on the reader caring about the emotional lives of Jimmy and Superman/Clark. It required a knowledge of their prior relationship and a vested interest in whether or not their friendship could survive this revelation. The kick off to the series demonstrated another kind of hook: a pure narrative hook, the introduction of some sort of mystery. Something like this can be character driven, but can also just be an intriguing story idea. Countdown has tried this a couple times, ending issues with a question posed: What happens when A GOD DIES? What happens when AMAZONS ATTACK? Of course, they failed to follow up on either of these questions, but I'm just saying, it's a way to create suspense, as long as the reader is interested in the answers to the questions posed.

Cutting a story the moment before a character is stabbed/punched/shot/dismembered requires none of this. Given a situation where someone is about to be grievously injured, regardless of the person, a reader is going to feel some compulsion to find out what happens. In fact, this device works equally well for characters the reader cares nothing about or openly dislikes. Take the example of 24's "Kim is trapped by a cougar" cliffhanger (let your memory drift back, dear reader). A character the writers had rendered as unbearably idiotic, to the point most viewers could do little but wince every time she spoke, found herself in a completely ridiculous predicament that was in no way germaine to the plot. In the unlikely event the viewer still cared about the character, they'd be forced to return the next week to see if she escaped mortal peril. In the more likely case that the viewer kind of wanted to see Kim get eaten by a cougar, they'd still need to tune in the following week.

This kind of suspense is cheap and easy, and used far too often in Countdown at this point. What makes it even worse is that the cliffhangers' resolutions more often than not fall into the gutter between issues. 52 handled this smoothly, partly because the passage of time was so transparent and the issue ending cliffhangers less dire. We leave Ralph at a crisis moment and return to him weeks later, with an explanation of the intervening time. With its muddled and broken sense of narrative time, Countdown attempts to do the same thing with emotional cliffhangers and fails (Jimmy's story this week, for example), but more amazingly, fails to do this with the mortal peril-style cliffhanger as well. Next issue should pick up with one of two things, followed immediately by the other:

1. The MM/Zatanna throwdown
2. The KK/Equus throwdown

These two storylines need to pick up in the next moment to generate or fulfill any sort of suspense, while the predicament of the Rogues and the Challengers can wait a couple beats. But so far, Countdown's track record doesn't really indicate this is going to be the case. I'm betting with at least one of these storylines, the narrative is going to jump the next moment and drop us into an already resolved situation with little explanation of how we got there.

Are there positives here? Yes. There is a talking moose! It feels as if MM's storyline has finally hit the break point it's been creeping up on since she got Black Adam'd. KK and singular Girl actually find the object of their quest, unlike some folks I might mention. The Challengers fall into the clutches of an evil...hand. Any guesses on the prickly hand in question? Maybe it's just because Equus is here, but I'm reminded very vaguely of Jim Lee's version of Zod in the "For Tomorrow" storyline. Could we stress, as an aside, how much both the magic storylines would benefit from John Constantine's presence in the DCU? I understand editorial's position on this, I'm just saying. In and of itself, the one-page Jimmy appearance plays out well. The story beat with the Rogues moves well, even if Ivy's motivation for capturing Trickster and Piper has inexplicably changed since last issue. Piper being saved from Ivy's influence by his power of homosexuality could have been handled with a little more subtlety and I'm not sure it's been demonstrated that Ivy's pheremone tricks work only on those who'd be sexually into her to begin with. I was relieved the writers didn't feel the need to drop an even more blatant "Hey, this guy's gay" comment into Trickster's mouth here. Thank god for small favors.

On the Deathstroke origin: how many evil kids does this cat have anyway? Seems like a lot of action for a prematurely gray pirate assassin.

Absolute last word: the DC nation page should either be filled or dropped. Even though Dan Didio has been absent from the page for months, at least we've gotten a next issue teaser image. If Mike Carlin is going to complain there's no space for editorial to step in with some "See Also..." notes, maybe he should think about this little spot?

Oh, and I know this is a little late in coming, but for those of you not reading every book in the DCU, here's the casualty list on the New Gods:

1. Lightray (in Countdown)
2. Sleeze (in Countdown)
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Deep Six (in Countdown)
9. Speed Queen (in Outsiders: Five of a Kind)
10. Grayven (in Outsiders: Five of a Kind)
11. Knockout (in Birds of Prey)

So there you go.