There’s a been a lot of speculation—on the Internet, in places like Wizard magazine, between Hibbs and myself—as to what, exactly, is DC Countdown? A one-shot? A miniseries? A sequel to Identity Crisis? A one-shot tie-in to the next several miniseries that themselves are sequels to Identity Crisis? Nobody really seems to know, but recently I had a theory, doubtlessly inspired by this holiday season. DC Countdown is a parable about the meaning of Christmas. (I should have warned you this was going to be a very goyish theory; sorry about that.)

Growing up, I was exposed to wide variety of messages about the meaning of Christmas: holiday specials, essays in newspapers, lectures by teachers, and very quiet heart-to-hearts with my parents on Christmas Eve by a lushly decorated Christmas tree. And no matter how varied the messages—talks about the religious implications of the holiday, or the historical significance of feasts and festivals, or even the great good that can come from even the humblest effort to give of oneself and be charitable—my response was always the same: “Yeah, yeah. Now make with the presents.”

Indeed, perhaps the deepest insight to Christmas ever given to an avaricious mind like mine was something my father said one Christmas Eve when he found me slitting the tape on a present so I could see if I had indeed scored the primo Micronauts swag I had, with Mammonish zeal, fervently prayed for over the course of the preceding few months. Seeing me there, hiding behind the back of the tree with a pen knife in one hand and an elegantly wrapped present in the other, my father looked at me for a moment with an air of exasperation and sadness while I, for my part, moved not a muscle, fully expecting all of his wrath to descend on me for having broken the Christmas covenant. It was one of those moments, counted not by the gears of a clock but instead the more organic mesh of human hearts and blinking Christmas lights, that might have lasted for five seconds, or five minutes, or five hours: it was all the same near-infinite period of time where something seemingly unmeasurable is weighed and judged and decided. And at the end of it, my father looked at me and said, “Well? If you’re gonna do it, do it. But you won’t have anything to do on Christmas but sit there and watch us open ours.”

It was a lesson that has stuck with me to this day: if you’re going to open your presents before Christmas, you’re not going to have anything to do on Christmas. Similarly, if you find out what you’re getting for Christmas before it’s actually Christmas, there’s no real excitement to Christmas itself—there’s no element of surprise or mystery anymore, only a pay-off. Part of the delight of Christmas is not knowing what you’re going to get.

So that’s one possible interpretation of the cover to DC Countdown right there: Batman opened his Christmas present early, someone gave him a dead body (probably Superman, judging from his posture), and now there’s no excitement to Christmas anymore. There’s a whole bunch of other characters on the cover of DC Countdown—Hawkman, Green Lantern, Dr. Fate—but do they seem particularly upset? No. They all seem annoyed, like they’re thinking, “Hey, nice work ruining Christmas, dick.” And Batman, by contrast, is clearly going, “Hey, fuck you. Does this look like the Baron Karza/Andromeda two-pack to you? No. It looks to me like a dead body. Do you know how many of these I’ve got already?” Clearly, Batman couldn’t handle the tension of the DC Countdown…to Christmas! (On the other hand, he looks to be a victim of a particularly bad regifting strategy, so I do have some sympathy for him.)

In fact, perhaps this little Christmas parable can be applied to the comics market overall. After all, when we dash to Rich Johnston’s gossip column to read the latest theory about Identity Crisis, or surf the Net for clues about the actual identities of the Young Avengers, or engage in a particularly spoiler-heavy decision on a message board, or even just look to see what’s being released this week, aren’t we, in effect, spoiling our own little weekly Christmas? When I was a kid, there was something almost sacred about my greedy dash to the comics spinner—I had no idea at all what books would actually be there, much less that Hawkeye was going to die, that Scarlet Witch was behind everything, that Wonder Woman was going to be blinded, or that Batman really, really wanted that Baron Karza/Andromeda two-pack. All I knew was that there would be comics, and that I would want them. At the risk of sounding like a complete marketing shill, isn’t that kind of what DC Countdown is doing? It’s an 80 page giant for a dollar, with a cover by Jim Lee and Alex Ross, with work by a lot of the top DC guys. Does it really matter what it’s about? Are people really saying they’re not going to get it if it turns out to be about, say, the Justice League’s accountant fainting after finding out they forgot to itemize their expense reports? It’s 80 pgs. for a buck with the two biggest artists in comics collaborating on the cover!

Now I know what some of you are thinking (and by “some of you,” I mean, of course, “Hibbs”): Sure, it’s one thing for DC to keep readers from finding out what they’re going to be buying until it’s actually on sale, but it’s another thing to do that to retailers. After all, it’s the retailers who are the real customers here, the ones buying their books on a non-returnable basis, the ones actually gambling their dollars, and it’s already a tough gamble when you actually have all the facts at your hand, much less when nothing more than a cover, a list of creators and a crackpot theory from a Micronauts-obsessed columnist who keeps forgetting that the book is being solicited at Christmas but being released in, you know, March. For a product to be ordered properly, retailers need to be informed.

And while that’s all very true, it ignores both the fact that retailers are themselves fans (and just as capable and likely to disseminate spoilers on Internet as anyone), and that DC has gone to some lengths in the last few years to make its in-demand issues available for reorder. If it turns out that DC Countdown reveals the death of Blue Beetle or Dick Grayson or Jay Garrick or Plastic Man (or maybe all four, perhaps in the most brutal game of Twister ever played) and suddenly it’s the next must-have for comic book fanboys everywhere, it’s not like Avengers Dissembled where Marvel won’t go back to press to meet demand. Unless DC’s policies have changed, retailers should be able to order more copies of DC Countdown until everyone who wants a copy has one.

I admit I may be blowing happy holiday smoke up everyone’s butts here (or maybe just earning the contents of this hefty payola envelope I got from DC a few days ago) but maybe Christmas isn’t a particular time on the calendar, but rather a particular confluence of events, a rare joining of the wishes of the interior self and the needs of the external self, where the individual meets the universal, and both are enriched as a result. In short, no matter what month it happens, wherever you have ignorant but eager consumers and frustrated but somewhat satisfied retailers, you have a little bit of Christmas right there. With this in mind, filled with the warmth and good cheer that can only come from convincing myself I didn’t pick the totally wrong topic for a holiday Fanboy Rampage, I would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year, filled with the appropriate amount of Micronauts and/or lifeless corpses, as is your wont and/or need.

Happy Holidays!