The first thing you need to know is: DC's new weekly series, Countdown, is being numbered like a true countdown. The first issue, which debuted this week, was # 51. Next week's will be # 50. And so on, right down to a penultimate # 1, before concluding with a # 0 issue (Hinckley would approve, I'm sure!) There are a couple reasons why this works for me: first, as mentioned previously, it reflects what the series is; second, coming the week after its predecessor weekly sibling, 52, finished with # 52, it provides the semblance of symmetry with that title. (1, 2, 3 through 52, and then back down through 1 again, plus that crazy 0 issue a year from now.)
The second thing you need to know is: this is being called the spine of the DC Universe over the next year. Unlike 52, which covered a "missing year" in the history of that world, Countdown's going to reflect whatever significant events are going on in the rest of DC's titles each week, while continuing to advance its own stories. I'm not sure how that's going to play out yet, but that's DC's claim. I'd take that to mean that, for example, the feverish violence of Amazons Attack, should show up in Countdown sometime over the next several months. We'll see if that happens.
The last important facet of the new weekly title, it seems to me, is that it promises to be at least one place where the new Multiverse will be explored. Certainly that's confirmed in issue # 51, as one of the characters showcased makes the offhand remark that she's from a neighbouring universe, like you or I might say we're from a nearby city or town. Also, we're shown a couple of very powerful Monitors - the original of which was prominently featured two decades ago in Crisis on Infinite Earths - who apparently are in charge of tracking down and... taking care of... beings who move from one Earth to another. (As one reviewer noted, this makes them the Border Patrol of the DCU, and that comparison of course reminds me of John Sayles' excellent film, Lone Star, and what happened to poor Eladio Cruz.)
In reading other reviews of this issue, it seems many readers were most impressed by the inclusion of Darkseid in the opening pages. Unlike the vast majority of my brethren - apparently - I've never gotten much of a thrill out of Jack Kirby's Fourth World characters, including Darkseid. Part of it is just that reading any of those original Kirby creations from the early 70s is more likely to induce cringes from me than oohs or ahhs, and the rest stems from the various interpretations since then. Even when the characters showed up on the Superman animated series a few years back, I couldn't drum up much enthusiasm. Maybe if Alan Moore had ever left his mark on Apokalips and the rest of Darkseid's entourage, he'd've shown me something more interesting than "evil guy who rules evil planet with iron fist and has scheming sycophants and an endless supply of cannon fodder soldiers at his disposal." It could just be that I don't get Darkseid. At any rate, that angle's hardly a draw for me.
But I'll certainly give the series another several weeks, in order to see where the multiple Earths storyline is going, before bailing on it. The first issue was okay, but not much better than that.
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