Ahhh, DC Countdown.  Who doesn’t love DC Countdown?  A one-dollar 80 page giant of original story tying the events of Identity Crisis to four upcoming miniseries, most of the major titles in the DCU, and laying the groundwork for Infinite Crisis (the sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths), DC Countdown was lovingly crafted for those of us who finished Batman: Ten Cent Adventure, and said, “Well, that was pretty good, but it didn’t kill any established characters, totally make a hash of what I knew about other established characters, and, most of all, I just didn’t feel like I was gonna have to lay out 50+ bucks to see how it’ll all come out.”  DC Countdown totally satisfies that nagging feeling I had, since the four minis alone will cost almost seventy bones.  And it was solicited as DC Countdown but it was actually DC Countdown to Identity Crisis, so even though I only paid for a two word title, DC threw in three extra words! For free!

But the red-hot buttery DC Countdown goodness doesn’t end there—oh my, no.  Just a few days ago, DC posted a timeline (at http://dccomics.com/features/countdown/) of significant events in Identity Crisis, DC Countdown, and events in other books that led from one to the other.  For example:

--In The Flash #214-#216, Wally West learned of Barry Allen's involvement in the Dr. Light mind-wipe. He also discovered that they had done the same to multiple villains over the years, including the Top, who in turn had altered the personalities of several of the Flash's rogues.

--In Manhunter #6, Kate Spencer began the prosecution of Shadow Thief for the murder of Firestorm [in Identity Crisis]. Also in that issue, the Society employed Calculator to find someone to "deal with" Shadow Thief.

Interestingly, some events that obviously tie in, such as The Red Hood’s acquisition of 100 pounds of Kryptonite (which is discovered stolen in DC Countdown) in Batman, are not listed on this timeline, and rampaging fanboy minds want to know why. Why have a timeline of events important to DC Countdown and Infinite Crisis and not include all events, unless those events are so important they cannot be revealed without spoiling everything that is to come?

Now, it’s not common knowledge, but Fanboy Rampage has been runner-up in the annual awards from the American Association of Yutzes Who Always Screw Stuff Up for People (known as “AAY, WASSUP!” for short) three years running.  This award, alternately known as The Spoilee or, more formally, the Spewlitzer, is much coveted and comes with a hefty cash award, which explains why critics will sometimes give away the ending of movies in their reviews, Ain’t It Cool News is still able to operate, and why Entertainment Weekly seems almost sexually fixated on Lost.  The bigger the secret, the better the chance of winning a Spoilee, and I realized in contemplating the timeline of events that if I could get ahold of the full list of important events for Infinite Crisis, I would finally get what was coming to me.

So I started making calls to contacts I had, working the contacts I had cultivated among a shady and disreputable network of plushie aficionados, superhero slash-fic writers, transvestite cosplayers, Grant Morrison stalkers, pathological liars, and inveterate gossips.  In other words, I called Mark Millar.

He was initially reluctant, but after I pointed out how the revelation of the information would be a blow to DC Comics thus causing tremendous indirect harm to Paul Levitz.  “Right,” Millar said. “I’ll have the information faxed to you in twenty minutes.  Just don’t give any indication you got the information it’s from me, or I’m a dead man.”  Three days later, it still hadn’t arrived and I feared that maybe someone had caught on and had Millar “dealt with.” (Just like Shadow Thief!)  But I caught Millar at home, apparently unharmed.  “You haven’t gotten it yet?  I finished it four days ago!  Hitch still must have it.”  When inquired why Hitch would have his fax, Millar coughed a few times.  “Well, he draws the fax covers, doesn’t he?  Every fax I send out has a personalized fax cover, drawn from my stable of ‘sex bitches’ as I calls ‘em, so people know that absolutely positively that fax is from me.  Accept no substitutes, mate!”  When I pointed out that this information was supposed to be completely anonymous, Millar thought for a couple of minutes, said something about Hitch being incredibly slow because of the degenerative sexual diseases he had caught from Warren Ellis during his time on Authority, and said that if he called him right away, he might be able to stop him from doing the faxcover.  Twenty minutes later, Millar called back and said he was faxing it at that very second.  Four days later, the fax finally arrived, and its contents blew my tiny mind: the true timeline was a painstaking document chronicling events throughout DC, stretching back, in some cases, more than a half-century.  Although the document didn’t explain how these events would tie in to Infinite Crisis (or some of its odder historical entries), my hope is the perceptive reader will be able to suss things out from the excerpts below.  (I also hope the perceptive reader will also write my name in on the Spoilee ballot at www.aaywassup.org, but no pressure, of course.)  Lo and behold, an excerpt of the true checklist of events leading up to DC’s Infinite Crisis:

--The Golden-Age Hawkman defeats The Thought Terror with the help of two well-placed pizzas (Flash Comics #4, 1940);

--Spectre exiles Zor to the far reaches of the universe in an Ectobane coffin (More Fun Comics #57, 1940);

--Superman defeats Domino, red-headed playboy Jeff Farnham (Action Comics #46, 1942);

--Queen Hippolyte tells her daughter Wonder Woman, that “the only real happiness for anybody is to be found in obedience to loving authority” (Wonder Woman #28, 1948);

--The Conqueror from 8 Million B.C. accidentally turns a normal bystander into a genius (Flash #105, 1959)

--Johnny Thunder of Earth 1 creates Earth A (Justice League of America,Vol. 1, #37 and #38, 1965);

--Superman and Jimmy Olsen discover the miniature world of Transilvane (Jimmy Olsen #143, 1971);

--Jimmy Olsen meets Ginny MacFinney in Scotland while investigating the monster in Loch Trevor (Jimmy Olsen #144, 1971);

--Star of Bethlehem helps Batman save Boomer Katz (“Wanted: Santa Claus—Dead or Alive,” DC Super Special #21, 1980);

--The multiverses appear to end as The Spectre and the Anti-Monitor struggle (Crisis on Infinite Earths #10, 1986)

--Alleged terrorist Jon Charles Collins kills himself when the bomb given him by Maxwell Lord doesn’t work (Justice League #1, 1987);

--Superman dies; sells an assload of comic books (Superman #75, 1993);

--Mark Millar meets with The Flash in a Scottish pub, tries to get Flash to say who is sexier, a teenage girl dressed as Ryu from Street Fighter, or a curly-haired Scotsman dressed up as Kei from Dirty Pair.  Flash diplomatically refuses to answer (“Your Life is My Business,” Flash 80-Page Giant #2, 1999);

--Mark Millar writes a series of sexy Green Lantern/Flash slashfics under the alias The Top (“The Brave and The Very, Very, Very Bold,” alt.slashfic.dc., 2000);

--Mark Millar and Paul Levitz get into a huge screaming match at Plushiecon ’01 over who’s sexier: Frisky Ferret or Rapey Rhino (2001);

--Mark Millar leaves DC, blacklisted, swears vengeance (either 2002 or 2003, depending on who you ask);

--At San Diego Comicon, Mark Millar walks in on Geoff Johns, Judd Winick, and Greg Rucka playing a lively round of “Naked Batman fights Naked Joker while Naked Robin surfs the Internet,” takes copious pictures (2003);

--Hawkgirl orders a pizza; Hawkman explains that, in a previous life, he and Hawkgirl had both been pizzas; pizzas that had helped saved Earth (Hawkman #12, 2003);

--Lex Luthor IMs Tim Drake, asks him if he’s naked (Teen Titans #6, 2003);

--Kid Flash pushes the blue button in the Batmobile (Teen Titans #7,  2004);

--A crew of construction workers break the Bat signal while dissembling it (Gotham Central #25, 2005);

-- Wally West learns of Barry Allen's involvement in the Dr. Light mind-wipe. He also discovers they had done the same to multiple villains over the years, including the Top, who in turn had altered the personalities of several of the Flash's rogues (Flash #214-216, 2005).

So, what are we to make of this checklist of ideas?  Why so many entries about Mark Millar himself?  Why two entries about Jimmy Olsen?  What’s with those pizzas? How could this possibly all relate to the coming Infinite Crisis?  I have two theories.

THEORY ONE:  Stay with me because this one gets tricky.  Red-headed playboy Jeff Farnham, after being defeated as Domino by Superman in Action Comics #46, vows to take his revenge by taking his red-headed son Jimmy and training him to infiltrate the Daily Planet staff to discover the real identity of Superman and destroy him.  Jimmy tries but becomes Superman’s pal and discovers, in Queen Hippolyte’s words, “the only real happiness for anybody is to be found in obedience to loving authority,” which is precisely what Superman represents.  Nonetheless, when Jimmy meets attractive Scottish lass Ginny MacFinney, he falls in love with her, marries her, and together they have a son, Mark, in 1976.  When it appears that the multiverses are doomed during Crisis, they send their only son in a shrink ray rocket to the planet of Transilvane, where the inhabitants are influenced by the movies projected onto their skies.  Landing on a planet where an endless repeat of Oklahoma has been playing in the skies again and again, Mark is adopted by a pair of dancing farmers who have fashioned their last name as a variation from that of the movie’s choreographer, Agnes de Mille.  If things had ended there, Mark Millar would have turned out a very different man: a happy-go-lucky cowpoke who could sing “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” with a Scottish burr.

But things did not end there.  In the strange refashioning following Crisis, Transilvane did not cease to exist, but rather became a miniature world where no movies had ever been shown on its skies, where no superheroes existed, and where life proceeded in an utterly average way: Transilvane became what DC Comics called Earth-Prime; what we know as our Earth.  On this Earth, Mark Millar instead became a hyper-competitive comic book writer, one obsessed with becoming the most successful comic book writer/ plushie aficionado/superhero slash-fic writer/transvestite cosplayer of all time who, like other comic book writers on Earth-Prime, was actually able to meet The Flash.  All was well until that bitter fight at Plushiecon ’01 which led eventually to Millar being fired and blacklisted from DC.  Rendered irreparably insane with vengeance, Mark Millar’s shattered mind regained all the memories of his previous life on Earth-One as Jimmy Olsen’s son.  With blackmail pictures of Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Judd Winick, he forces them to weaken and undermine the heroes of the DC Universe with the events leading up to and following DC Countdown; when the heroes are at their weakest, he will leave Earth Prime/Transilvane via his rocket, return to what was Earth-One and conquer it, making Paul Levitz pay, pay, pay.  And the only hope may be the son of the normal bystander turned supergenius by The Conqueror from 8 Million B.C., a supergenius who saw the coming Crisis and returned to his native Scotland to give his son Grant all the skills necessary to defeat it…the skills, and the two Ectobane pizzas from beyond hypertime…

THEORY TWO:  I dunno, but “the only real happiness for anybody is to be found in obedience to loving authority?”  Wow, was William Moulton Marston, like, the world’s biggest bondage freak or what? Maybe what the DCU needs is a little less fatal headshots and a little more corrective spanking!  Get Milo Manara to draw it, and it could be an Infinite Crisis everyone would buy and nobody would complain about, making it unique in the history of superhero crossovers and thus the better of the two theories automatically.