Giffen responds to 'Countdown' kerfuffle

Amid the Internet furor over DC's Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Keith Giffen talks sense to Comic Book Resources:

"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. 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?

"... Would this be the way I'd handle things? No, but if you check the book my name is no where near it. It's not as if I'm storming around saying 'How dare DC mess with second rate characters!' 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."