Countdown #1

Well friends, here it is. The “Great Disaster” has occurred, the dice have been tossed, and the year long epic Countdown (subsequently renamed Countdown To Final Crisis) is coming to a close this week with Countdown #1, the second of DC’s weekly comic experiments.

I give DC full credit for making this work a second time. There was a lot of doubt at the beginning of last year’s 52 as to weather or not DC could keep up production on a weekly book. Well, 104 issues of weekly story later the question of production has been answered. The question of quality however, still remains up in the air.

My problem with Countdown is virtually identical to my problems with 52. There was simply not enough direction for these books to be consistently decent. Both 52 and Countdown rose out of big events, and promised to fill in gaps and bridge stories, and neither occurred. Both series ended up in a radically different place than what was promised at the beginning. All I can say about Countdown is at least we were spared a terrible series cap like World War III. That said, we’ll see if I eat those words with next week’s DC Universe #0.

The art and writing in Countdown both suffered, probably due to the production schedule. I give DC full credit for getting all these issues out on time, but you could see where things were glossed over both in terms of story and art, presumably to get the thing out on time. We were promised all kinds of huge events in this book that never really delivered, and as we approach the end of the run, nothing is terribly different. The characters involved haven’t really grown, the stories weren’t the cataclysmic events we were promised, and frankly it has me looking back saying “so what?”

Now we look ahead, and see DC’s next weekly epic, Trinity waiting in the wings. This book will look at the relationship between the “Big Three,” Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman on a weekly basis. DC has proven that they can put out books on a weekly schedule, which is great, but what I think will make Trinity a bit more interesting is that it is (as I understand it) taking place outside of normal continuity. I think this will take some of the pressure off the book, and stories and events evolve naturally, as opposed to trying to make things fit to lead up to a major event. It will also put Trinity in the perfect position to take on Marvel’s almost-weekly Amazing Spider-Man.

Who will win the war of the weekly book? DC may have Marvel in terms of experience with projects like this, but time will tell if they can get their story telling up to par with Marvel’s, and who will walk away with the hard earned dollars of the comic buying public.