Countdown

I'm sure all of you are sick of hearing about comic books, but I haven't mentioned them in a while, and I happened to finish a particular series that I wanted to talk about.

I've been reading Countdown which began a year ago. It started with issue 51, and counted down to issue 0. It was a weekly comic, which is HIGHLY unusual, though it is the second time DC comics has done one. I missed the first weekly comic which was called 52, but I was given it for Christmas in collected paperback form, so I could catch up. Honestly, I think 52 is slightly better than Countdown, but I enjoyed both. Both involved the entire DC universe. We're talking from Pied Piper (an ex-Flash-villain, who reformed, sort of...) to Superman. And everyone in between. It was touted as the most important book to pick up every week, so I decided to start with it.

That's really what this is about. Countdown was the first comic book I ever bought from an actual comic book store. My friend, Phil, brought a magazine to AMDA one day that had an article about it. He's primarily a Marvel guy, but he thought it looked interesting and wanted to read it when it came out. He had me read the article, and told me I should read Countdown too.

"But comic book stores," I whined, "they're scary!"

"They're not scary," Phil insisted. "As long as you go in there knowing what you want, you'll do fine."

So, when Countdown made it's first appearance, I went online to find my nearest comic book store, and headed out. I only got the one comic book (Countdown issue #51) and had to ask for help to find it, which made me feel like an idiot, but once I had it in my hands, I knew there was something special about it.
This is the cover of that first issue.


What, you might ask, was Countdown counting down to? That would be the next big thing to hit the DC universe: Final Crisis. Apparently, there were two other crises before (I read Infinite Crisis in novel form, though I can't say I understood half of it. Trying to remove the pictures from a comic book story is basically like cutting out half the plot) and now this will be the last. A crisis is defined as something so big and catastrophic, it requires every hero in the universe to put a stop to it and save the world. It's also apparently a tradition to kill a Flash in every crisis, though this one seems to be starting off by resurrecting a Flash.

Anyway, I've gone into this more than I intended. The point is that Countdown is finished. Actually, it finished a few weeks ago, but I only just got around to reading issues 6-0 last night. I would buy them every week, but then they would go on a pile next to my bed. See, I lost the thread of the story a bit, and had to go back and re-read, and I figured if I was going to do that, I might as well re-read the whole thing from the beginning, which took a while. It's hard, sometimes, keeping track of all these story-lines. Since starting Countdown, I have picked up 23 other titles. Oh, don't give me that shocked look. Most of them are limited runs, only 6-8 issues. See, Countdown also spawned Countdown to Mystery and Countdown: The Search for Ray Palmer, which were miniseries in which the main people in Countdown get a little more room to tell their story. There's a lot of story to tell, you can't just shove it all in one book. Only 13 of the titles I'm reading are long-running series which only come out once a month. Remember, Countdown is unique in it's weekly-ness. Most titles are monthly, and they don't all come out on the same day. Wednesday is new comic book day, and I typically pick up about 5 comic books every Wednesday. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.

So, there you have it. Countdown. Undoubtedly coming to a book store near you in convenient, collected form. Though if you want to pick one up, I would start with 52, which is a truly fantastic book. 52 documents a year when Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman all took off to "reassess" their position as heroes in the world. They had become jaded, paranoid, and had forgotten why they were heroes in the first place. Batman went off to train with some monks; Superman (having lost his powers in the previous crisis) spent time recuperating with his wife, Lois; and Wonder Woman grappled with the fact that she killed a man. A very evil man, but still.
But the great thing about 52 is that it's not about them. It's about everyone else trying to deal with the fact that the world's greatest heroes have gone missing, and the world is going to Hell in a handbag. "...A world without it's three greatest champions: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. But it was not a world without heroes."

All right, all right. I've rambled on for long enough. And, anyway, I have to get ready for work.

Later,
Jules