Giffen's not mad why should you be?

Personally, I'm getting a little sick of so many people complaining about the deaths of characters in comics. Yes we're supposed to become attached to these characters, but not so much that we actually mourn the passing of someone who never existed. Keith Giffen recently talked to CBR about DC's recent treatment of the characters he fleshed out in the various Justice League books of the 1980's in books like Identity Crisis and Countdown:

"It was like, 'Oh, well, that's not the way I would have done it,' and really, when you think about it, 90% of comics criticism is just that," Giffen told CBR News last week by phone. "Would I have killed Blue Beetle? No, I wouldn't have, but I'm not the guy writing it. It's not like they went out and took the guy out back and shot him. Any one of us could get a call a month from now saying, 'Bring him back' and you type 'Blue Beetle walks in the door' and everyone goes, "Oh, he got better!' It's comic books! Did anyone really believe, except for those who don't read comic books and fell for it, that Superman was really dead?

Thank you Keith. Everyone knows the first law of comics: no one stays dead except for Bucky (unless you count the Heroes Reborn version...but who would do that?). Besides, has the comics world or even the DCU changed with the death of Sue Dibney? Her death has brought about a lot of change, yes, but is the DCU going to miss her? When was the last time you saw her, or Beetle for that matter, in a book and said, man that was awesome? Regarding Sue, it was probably Starman, your guess is as good as mine with Beetle. Speaking of the characters, Giffen gives fans the lowdown on his Justice League roster:

Let's set the record straight: Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Fire, Ice and those characters, the only reason why we used them is they were the only characters we were allowed to use. Captain Marvel was only on loan to us for the first six issues, we knew he was going bye bye. [Editor] Andy Helfer had to fight every single day to keep Batman in. So, it wasn't like we said, 'Let's bring in Booster Gold,' it was much more like going to DC and asking who we could have. And don't forget we were handed a certain Justice League membership and Blue Beetle was front and center. It's not so much that I adopted Blue Beetle, but that all these characters came to be very convenient mouthpieces for the types of stories we wanted to tell. Their personalities were the kind that Mark DeMatteis and I both enjoyed exploring. It's an unfortunate circumstance, but it's also business. Is the book selling? Yes! Did they make the right decision? I'm going to have to go with yes."

Giffen also comments on the one aspect of Countdown that didn't sit well with other readers, as well as myself:

"If I have any dismay about what I've read so far in 'Countdown' is that in order to make a point, some of the writers just forced shit in there that shouldn't have been there. J'onn J'onzz turning around and treating Blue Beetle like that came out of the blue. The fact that he was treated like such a shit heel, all right, that might be some people at DC's attitude towards the character, but the people who scream the most about consistency and continuity should be the most consistent and continuity minded. Just to make a point, to shift things around like that, it's unfortunate, but I didn't write it and that's just my opinion.

Regarding this, I'm giving DC the benefit of the doubt. Who knows what the greater story arc is? With all that's going on, maybe J'onn was getting overloaded with psychic stress. It may also be a writer's trick: throw something in that just doesn't fit to grab people's attention and explain later. This is part of a larger work. If you want to see the big picture you'll have to read the minis, if not, don't. It's pretty simple.