5.09.2008

52 vs Countdown vs Trinity

Are people just stupid?
I keep reading over and over all over the internet people whining about how they aren't going to read TRINITY because "52 was a let down" or because "COUNTDOWN sucked."
I'm like "What the huh?"
How is that any kind of relevant argument? Because all three titles were/are weekly?
Seriously, that's like saying "TEEN TITANS sucks; so I'm not going to read JONAH HEX -- they're both monthlies!"
If you can't stand Kurt Busiek. If you think Mark Bagley is a hack. If Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman aren't your cup o' tea. Those are perfectly fine reasons for avoiding TRINITY.
But if you're basing your decision on stories/titles/characters/creative teams that are COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY UNRELATED -- what the hell?

6 comments:

  1. What I keep hearing people say is that they were burned with Countdown (can't say that I blame them for that... Countdown was bad) and that's why they don't want to read Trinity. But you're right about the Titans to Jonah Hex comparison. I'm jumping in with Trinity even though I thought Countdown was shit.

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  2. That's exactly what I'm saying.
    Imagine someone saying "I got burned by THE TITANS #1, so I'm not going to buy POWER GIRL because they're both monthly."
    It makes NO SENSE!
    If they were saying "I got burned by COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS so I'm not going to buy FINAL CRISIS." That would be somewhat justifiable. At least the books are (if only by title) related.
    But COUNTDOWN and TRINITY have absolutely nothing in common EXCEPT for the fact that they are both weeklies.
    It just boggles my mind...

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  3. as someone who has said that exact statement, the sentiment is more along the lines of "the dc editorial staff proved twice in a row that they are incapable of producing a weekly comic of any good quality, therefore, why should i think trinity will be any better?"

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  4. I guess I see your point. I don't buy books based on editorial anything. I base it on what it's about, the characters involved, the creative team and/or whether or not it sounds interesting.
    If I did use editorial as a basis; I guess I'd have to skip Final Crisis and Secret Invasion, seeing as how editorial mucked-up past events like Millennium and Secret Wars II.

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  5. Hmm.. I'm nit sure that's a good comparison. Millennium and Secret Wars II were indeed skip-worthy. However, they also happened over 10 (15? 20?) years ago. After 10 years or so, I would probably lose my gun-shyness about an "event" and give a book a try, but the horror stories that were 52 and Countdown fell one so hot on the heels of the other that I can't believe anything was learned about how to make weekly books work and then judiciously applied to Trinity.

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  6. Well, I don't want to argue with you, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I just think that that line of thinking is erroneous.
    52 was a first shot. And I don't think it even turned out bad at all. But there were a lot of hands in the pot. 4 writers. A gazillion artists. And they had to get the end of the story to the place where all the One Year Later books were...a year ago.
    Countdown was a complete mess. But again: a lot of hands. And they were trying to tie it into the ongoings of the DCU. Which was a brilliantly stupid idea when you consider all the problems they'd been having with lateness prior to Countdown starting.
    Trinity, on the other hand, is basically a two man show. Busiek and Bagley. And it isn't tying directly into anything. It's (supposedly) a stand alone story. To me, aside from the weekly frequency, this is a completely different animal. That's why I don't understand the line of thinking that "It's weekly, so it'll suck like the others did."
    But that's just me.

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