(Re)start Together

And thus begins the ill-advisedly named Wednesday Week Week. Nearly every day of the week to come will feature a new piece from one or both members of our crack(ed) team, the first and very probably last time we'll ever have the inclination to post this frequently. Today, we start things off right with a review of Countdown (fans of the book are recommended to look elsewhere for validation). Coming up this week: a discussion of Marvel's trade policy; an examination of Superfolks, a long-out-of-print novel by Robert Mayer that Grant Morrison calls "a daft and beautiful little jewel of a book [that] should be savored like silly wine"; and the obligatory Sin City review. So. You know what to do. Read. Tell us what you think. Tell your friends. Come back, do it again.

Perhaps needless to say, here there be spoilers.

Chris: I've always been more of a DC man than you, I think. So I found certain aspects of Countdown to be somewhat... boring? Redundant? Certainly, for me, unnecessary. Interesting, to get the Cliff's Notes version of what's been going on in the DCU over the past year, to get a sense of what they thought was Important rather than just (hopefully) good storytelling, but ultimately I thought that the travelogue aspect of it was pretty and vacant. How'd it work for you, though, as someone who hasnt spent a lot of time (or, to your credit, money) here?

Matt: Since I am the newcomer to the DCU, I'm beginning with questions for you, very much the more established resident here. Before I ask, I think that Rucka, Winick, and Johns did a good job of making this accessible. I understood all of it, I just believe I missed out on some nuance by not knowing certain characters, organizations, etc. (This has also lead to me track down issues of Identity Crisis). Here we go:
1. Who is Maxwell Lord?
2. Why is it such a deal that he's in charge of Checkmate?
3. What's Checkmate?
4. Who were all those villains, and will they be in Villains United? I know Luthor, and I can understand who Black Adam is (though I've no idea why). And I remember Deathstroke from old Teen Titans. Is this supposed to be a good cross-section of the bad guys for the big guns of the DCU?
5. Why do you smell so pretty?
6. Martian Manhunter's a dick, don't you think? (Had to make it a question somehow.)

Chris: I'd like to take the second part first. Or something. I think (seriously, though, folks) you raise some interesting points with your questions. Namely, some of those answers might be easily accessible to regular readers of DC Comics, while some answers are clearly meant to be answered somewhere down the line (one of the four mini-series, maybe, Infinite Crisis itself, whatever form that ends up taking). The fact that it was unclear to you which was which shows a failing on the part of the creators here, a failure to clearly delineate between which parts of the story are catch-up and which are progression. But onto your questions (which shall be answered old-school letter column-style).
1. The short line on Maxwell Lord (I'm not entirely sure of the long view; apparently, he died and got better, if you can believe such a thing as that...) is that he was a member of the Justice League during the Giffen/DeMatteis era. Or rather: He wasn't so much a member as an ambassador between Super and not, a regular guy who put the weight of his salesmanship (to be conservative) behind a collection of B-Listers (Beetle, Booster, the good Dr. Light) and those who didn't always play well or often enough with others (Guy Gardner, Captain Marvel, Batman). Hilarity, unprecedentedly, ensued.
2. Honestly, the big deal seems not to be so much that he's in charge of Checkmate as that he's still around. I mean, he's been back on the scene in Formerly Known as- and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League, but those two series almost seem not to count, especially given that another one of the main characters is now dead, all evidence to the contrary.
3. I dunno what Checkmate is. I know basically what it used to be--Government-sponsored Black-Ops of the "doing what needs to be done, cause we're the only ones with the balls to do it" sort--but I have a feeling that this is something entirely different, more of a predatory sort of police organization. Some version of Checkmate showed up at the end of Rucka's run on Detective Comics (a quality run, if you'll allow some brief editorializing), and given that they're supposed to be the focus of his OMAC series, I have a feeling that that fleeting appearance was the first of Checkmate 2.0. (or is it 3.0, 4.0, X.0...?)
4. The short guy was Dr. Psycho, a Wonder Woman baddie. The (other) guy in suit and tie was the Calculator, who showed up in Identity Crisis, pretending like we should care who he was until we all actually did (despite the fact that his biggest moment therein was getting in Mrs. Atom's way, resulting in the death of Boomerang and Jack Drake). The lady was Talia Head, daughter of the (probably temporarily) late Ra's al Ghul and head of Lexcorp during Luthor's presidency. I'm sure we're meant to be scared of this not-a-cabal on behalf of our heroes, but I find it difficult to get that worked up. Luthor's a resourceful son of a bitch, and Deathstroke's probably the most formidable villain around those parts, but Black Adam? Talia? Even if these two weren't occasional Good Guys, I don't see as how they pose much of a threat. And the Calculator? Seriously? The Calculator?
5. I've started showering with a loofa. Bar soap is so not hot.
6. This is my biggest problem with Countdown. There was so much inaccurate characterization, I was legitimately unsure as to whether these characters were being intentionally misrepresented. (Wouldn't that be a thrilling kickstart to Infinite Crisis? The revelation that it wasn't Blue Beetle who died, not our Beetle, but instead that of Earth Prime-and-a-Half or something?) Bottom line: Beetle's one of the Good Ones. He was never really a first-stringer, but his charm was in that he never claimed to be. And, to be sure, he was never regarded as one of the most powerful member of the league. But it always struck me that his word was always regarded as one of the most trustworthy. Look, I've got no particular affinity for Blue Beetle. I can't say I 'm upset by his death, having been looking forward to more of his adventures (and Hell, isn't there a new issue of I Can't Believe next month?). But I'm bothered by the apparent (transparent, really) motivation behind his death. It's clear that before having read the story, the three wise men decided that someone needed to die (otherwise how do we know that this time they mean it?) and it just so happened that Beetle had the perfect combination of emotional evocation and irrelevance to future stories. Basically, it seems as though Beetle was the biggest name that they could spare. Rather than making his death mean something, they tried to give it ironic weight by suggesting that it didn't mean anything. Frankly, it's insulting. To the character, to be sure, but worse, to the very non-fictional readers of his story. Exeunt soapbox.

Matt: I've never read old Justice League stuff, so I never knew Beetle that well. Countdown seemed to make him a bit character... for 80 pages. So I would assume that you are correct. What this brings up is the inability to do a lot of major change in major comics like this. Superman will always come back to life. Batman's back won't stay broken for long. The fans demand Hal Jordan returns as Green Lantern, and he does. It reminds me of why The Maxx was one of my more favorite series. Come issue 20, it completely changed. This brings up the possible issue with Countdown: Is it even going to matter in the end? It took Marvel all of four issues of X-Men to almost completely negate a good amount of Grant Morrison's writing. How long after whatever major crisis is resolved will things go back to the way they were? I like how Martian Manhunter was characterized, as he is often a bit stand-offish, and (he he) alien. I think Wonder Woman was fitting. I think I might like changing the other heroes' opinion of Blue Beetle because it gave this issue a bit more interesting. It seems like secondary characters are getting to be more popular, which is what I think Infinite Crisis is gonna be about: realigning secondary characters in some way shape or form. But it's quite possible I'm wrong. You will now have this document to prove it.

Chris: I don't know what Infinite Crisis is going to be about, nor do I really care. As a sort of teaser for whatever that'll be, Countdown fails fairly miserably. As a story unto itself, the book's marginally more successful, but ultimately disappoints by virtue of the cut-and-paste nature of the plot. Would the book have been any less successful had Booster been the one to uncover Max's plot rather than Beetle? Certainly, the detective work would've been out of character, but that's a liability with which this book seems to have no problem. (Faced, Countdown!) This book, as far as I'm concerned, is a massive disappointment, especially considering the pedigree of the creators (all of whom are generally well-regarded, if not, with the exception of Rucka, my personal cup of tea). Countdown will probably seem different a year down the road, after we're able to retrospectively view what it led to, but for now, it seems sadly pointless. Events like these are generally for editorial function, rather than in the service of a story idea. They realign continuity. They establish new statuses quo. They fix problems. My concern with Countdown to Infinite Crisis is that it'll cause more problems than it's worth.

Tomorrow: Matt on Sin City!