Quote Originally Posted by Dred View Post
I still remember on the old comicbloc forums, Johns promising that Flash Rebirth was not the end of Wally and Barry coming back would be better for him, that he'd still continue to kick ass.

What a load of bullshit that and literally every other public sentiment from DC about Wally has been. I'm sure it wasn't Johns' intent, but when everyone reading the comic saw it coming he's a fool for thinking anything else but stuff like this was going to happen.

Thinking about the history since Didio's been holding the reins, I don't really believe many of the writers have as much say as we think they do.

One of the first major things Didio did when taking over (apart from writing Superboy to cancellation!) was to start injecting death and destruction porn into the DCU, and killing off characters wholesale. Sure, Johns wrote Infinite Crisis, but who was driving the line?

OYL was a fustercluck, a shambolic and poorly planned idea that should have been given a year or so more of planning. From then on, it started to get worse: more death, more characters dropping into obscurity (if not killed off), more reboots, and more and more destruction porn. The events got bigger, with bigger shock values etc, until people just couldn't be bothered any more and stopped buying.

Bang. OYL all over again with the New 52.

But before that, Johns seemed to be clinging to a concept of reparations. He claimed that, although he was responsible for a lot of the death and gore (from a writing standpoint), he was trying to improve it. With Brightest Day there was supposed to be a moratorium on death. No revolving door. Deaths were to be permanent (heh, comics). I think this was to hamper the overuse of the death and rebirth storyline, which was just too stale by far, by that point.

He tried the same thing with Rebirth. I recall seeing his interview at the time, which seemed almost a desperate sales pitch. He even said he thought the readers wouldn't trust DC with their goals. In hindsight, nobody should have, because those goals of a lightness and hope-infused line aren't held by Didio and those in control.

There must be some serious infighting over there, and Johns probably puts up with that crap (when he's not initiating it) every day.

I'd hate to have Didio as a boss if I was a creator. He's got to go. He's like a bull in a china shop, with the impulse control of a toddler.

My opinion, take it for what it's worth.