So – with Day of Vengeance and The OMAC Project wrapping up last week and this week, respectively, are you left with the feeling that something’s a little…dangly? Not that the stories in and of themselves weren’t set with beginnings middles and ends, but that the stories that were marketed as preludes to Infinite Crisis, bridges between Countdown the seven issue miniseries debuting next month didn’t reveal everything about how they’re tied to the Crisis?

Don’t close the longbox on Day of Vengeance, The OMAC Project, Rann-Thanagar War and Villains United just yet. Each of the four miniseries that led up to Infinite Crisis will have a 32-page one-shot special released during Crisis which will tie the miniseries storylines in to the unfolding, larger story.

“The specials will all tie directly into Infinite Crisis that also explains how things were tied into Infinite Crisis in ways we didn’t know about,” DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio told Newsarama. “It pulls back the curtain on the four miniseries, and shows just how their storylines are directly related to Crisis.”

Obviously not wanting to go into too great of detail, DiDio did give some general ideas of what would be covered in the Day of Vengeance one-shot: “That special will show the Spectre’s story to its conclusion, and we’ll also find out who was behind Eclipso’s move to seduce the Spectre and goad him into attacking and destroying all magic in the DC Universe in the first place.”

So – by that take, DiDio said, the one-shots aren’t strictly epilogues, catching up with the characters after the events of the miniseries, nor are they direct continuations of the stories from the four miniseries.

“They take the themes from the miniseries, and wrap up some of the points from the stories as they tie into Infinite Crisis,” Didio explained. “The four specials are much more Infinite Crisis-centric than they are miniseries centric. The one that will probably show this the clearest will be the Villains United Special which doesn’t focus on the Secret Six as much as it does the villains of the cabal, and their role in Infinite Crisis.”

All four specials are currently slated to see the creative teams from the miniseries re-team, and will be spaced out, one a month, starting with the Day of Vengeance Special in January, which will be followed by Rann-Thanagar War Special in February, The OMAC Project Special in March, and Villains United Special in April.

And yes, there is significance to the timing. Those particular specials, those beats, tie in to what is occurring in the Infinite Crisis story at the same time,” DiDio said. “We wanted the sequence of the specials to have a certain sense of priority and importance, and we didn’t want to give away some of the secrets of Infinite Crisis, and we didn’t want to weaken the stories that we could tell in the specials, so when we put them all side by side, we realized that it really adds value to space them out like that.”

And yes, DiDio knows that figuring out the battle plans for Infinite Crisis and all its various lead-ups and ties ins’ trade collections is looking like a nightmare. Thing is, DiDio said with a laugh, is that it’s not his nightmare.

“Yeah, the guys in Collected Editions want to kill me. Thing is, I’m approaching this story the same way we approached things before there were collected editions to worry about. It’s the same problem hey run into when they try to figure out how to collect comics that were done in the ‘60s and ‘70s in regards to a trade. Stories in those days weren’t clearly wrapped up – there were subplots and things sometimes didn’t fit into nice, neat packages.

“I’m worried about doing the best comics, and I figure it can be collected as things move forward. These are good problems to have though. I want to make sure that everyone is excited about what’s coming out at that moment, and we’ll make sure that everything of importance is collected somewhere down the line. Honestly, we did give this a lot of thought, but in the end, I didn’t want collected editions driving the way the story will be told.”

Oh, and one final Crisis tease – DiDio confirmed that DC is playing its cover game again, and stated that the Jim Lee cover to Infinite Crisis #2 (featuring Power Girl in front of a vortex) isn’t the final cover that will see stands. “Jim gets paid too much money to do something like that as the final cover,” DiDio said, laughing.

And finally, throughout the run of Infinite Crisis, DiDio will be bringing his “Crisis Counseling” panel to Newsarama! Every Wednesday that an issue of Crisis is due to his stands, DiDio will answer questions from readers on the previous issue, as well as tease events that are coming up in the upcoming issue. Look for more on this shortly.