The Four Color Media Monitor

Reading this interview with the overrated (IMO anyway) Judd Winick on IGN's comics section, I must say, I was very underwhelmed.

For example, he says:

"I kept bringing up that Jim Starlin was able to accomplish so much in one of the first graphic novels which was The Death of Captain Marvel. I didn't know anything about Captain Marvel when I read that, but it was on the stands. I didn't know anything about the character, but I read that and it all held up. And by the end of the book you cared about this character and when he died it meant something. And that's what we thought about when we did Countdown, because a lot of people don't give a rat's ass about Blue Beetle. Let's have them fall in love with this guy over 60 pages and at the end when he dies it will mean something, it won't just be killing off a random character. 'Cause everybody in the room actually liked Blue Beetle.

We all threw around names of characters who would be the one to carry the story, knowing it's going to end with their demise. That's important that there's someone who discovers everything and dies for it. And in the very short list we kept coming back to Blue Beetle. And everyone in the room said, "I could do a great Blue Beetle series." And that's why he has to go, because he's actually the one who means something. And now he's gone and eleven years from now someone will bring him back and we'll be angry men about that. It's generational."

Gee, sounds awfully sugarcoated to me (not to mention that he actually sounds opposed to potential success). Mainly because, while Mar-Vell of the Kree never managed to gain full-fledged popularity in his time, he most certainly wasn't being killed off solely as a publicity stunt that was meant to lead into and market more books, the purpose of Infinite Crisis right now.

And if the rest of the editorial staff at DC could really write a good book with Ted Kord and make him popular with the audience, well then, isn't that why killing him off is a cheap shot? Rather than to develop the character and realize potential, they sacrifice him as a pawn in a sales stunt instead. I'm sorry, that's just simply no excuse.

Hence, that is exactly why Winick's argument here fails.

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