A Multiverse Squandered
Now that we're a month past the halfway point of Countdown, and therefore more than halfway through the lifespan of this incarnation of the DC Multiverse (as Final Crisis, from its name alone, will almost certainly scramble and reboot things once again), it's clear that DC has completely squandered the storytelling potential of this set-up.
They could have used the Multiverse to do a series of stories in classic styles using classic superheroes (the original versions of the Fawcett, Quality and Charlton heroes, and the pre-Crisis Earth-Two). They could have used it to develop interesting new experimental variations on the current universe. They could have used it to more thoroughly develop entirely different worlds like the Tangent universe and explore the possibilities of contact between those universes and the mainstream one. And above all, they could have made Countdown a truly multiversal event, with major players from many universes featuring in major plotlines.
But DC has done none of this, instead choosing to use the Multiverse as a backdrop, important in name but in practice supplying only cameo appearances and side stories of so far dubious value. Not to mention the pathetic idea of pitting variations of superheroes that we know nothing and care less about in "hero vs hero" fights that really just take up space. And that's a terrible disappointment.
They could have used the Multiverse to do a series of stories in classic styles using classic superheroes (the original versions of the Fawcett, Quality and Charlton heroes, and the pre-Crisis Earth-Two). They could have used it to develop interesting new experimental variations on the current universe. They could have used it to more thoroughly develop entirely different worlds like the Tangent universe and explore the possibilities of contact between those universes and the mainstream one. And above all, they could have made Countdown a truly multiversal event, with major players from many universes featuring in major plotlines.
But DC has done none of this, instead choosing to use the Multiverse as a backdrop, important in name but in practice supplying only cameo appearances and side stories of so far dubious value. Not to mention the pathetic idea of pitting variations of superheroes that we know nothing and care less about in "hero vs hero" fights that really just take up space. And that's a terrible disappointment.