Paul Dini talks COUNTDOWN with Wizard Universe
February 20, 2007

DC unleashes its next weekly comic event, and head writer Paul Dini gives Wizard the exclusive scoop!

By Rickey Purdin

Toss out your stopwatches, people—DC Comics takes control of counting down from now on.

Beginning May 9, the week after the final issue of 52 hits shelves, DC unleashes COUNTDOWN, a massive, yearlong weekly series with writer Paul Dini sitting at the steering wheel. The series literally counts down as it starts with issue #51 and screeches to a deafening halt with issue #0. Along for the rip-roaring ride will be a slew of backup writers, the entire DCU and enough action to melt your face.

"This is the 'sh-- blows up' book," deadpans the series' Associate Editor Jeanine Schaefer about Countdown's mammoth tone. And Senior VP-Executive Editor Dan DiDio couldn't agree more.

"[COUNTDOWN] takes the best of INFINITE CRISIS and best of 52 and gives an even broader look at the DCU," says DiDio. "It is going to be a fast-paced action story that really ties in and plays through all of the DC Universe on multiple levels. Paul Dini is the head writer, and he'll be bringing consistency in tone and voice to all the characters. [It's] something he did so well on Batman: the Animated Series and all the TV shows he's worked on."

We tackled the COUNTDOWN chief, Dini himself, to tell us why he's doing the book, how much Lost influences the title and what surprising characters will find themselves in the spotlight.

WIZARD: What's the easiest way to describe COUNTDOWN?

DINI: We envisioned this as the ultimate tentpole movie. When they make superhero movies there's a Superman movie or a Batman movie. But the movie that every comic fan wants is a Spider-Man Meets Daredevil movie or a Justice League movie. They want to see kind of all their favorites together doing cool stuff. So a part of our desire was "What if we could do the world's coolest DC Universe movie and bring in every character that we wanted and put them through all these great character beats and action sequences?" It would be a movie you'd have to sit through for four days—a huge epic.

WIZARD: What's your role in the whole process?

DINI: Sort of an executive story editor and head writer. What we're doing is something not unlike the way a lot of television shows are written, where there will be one head writer who is charting the direction of the series with a writer team handling the creation of the episodes. I am writing a couple of scripts. My job is more working with the other writers to do the weekly books, and then coming in once the script is completed to make sure that the voices of the characters are the same, that the storyline is working and that we're all on the same page. I brought a lot of myself to that main story, and now I'm imparting that to the other writers. They're bringing their own takes and their own creativity and their own imagination to work on the characters, and I'm trying to make sure that it all fits together. I'm sure if I looked at the whole thing I would scream, but day-to-day it's a lot of fun.

Check out the rest here:
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/003562848.cfm