The Didio thing...

[Frontier]

From Deathstroke #17:




And this is from 2017 when he was apparently in the Teen Titans and was in his early teens. He does not look like he's in his early teens.

Raven, like Beast Boy, has been drawn inconsistently in regards to her age. She looks like a full adult not in Titans, but was drawn as if she were 13 in some issues of Teen Titans.

I think artist inconsistency has always been a problem for Raven and Beast Boy, of course DC's deliberate inconsistency with their age doesn't help either...

[byrd156]

lol
good reference



a retcon can not just be used change a story, it also can eliminate other stories completetly

like the classic "it was all a dream"



This shower scene is a retcon not reboot

or another example, Wonder Woman by Rucka, the entirety of the previous runs pretty much didnt happen, it was "A Lie", an illusion.



most of the times retcons will not be awknowledge do to its nature, its not like they will say that X event didnt happen but rather that Y event happen instead

I did mention it on the thread, this week's Young Justice pretty much erased the entirety of Lodbell's Teen Titans and Ravager started on that.
Tim Drake talks to Zatanna who reveals to him that the entirety of the original Young Justice is now cannon, because how TT reintroduced most of those characters and their relationships with eachother then saying that the 90s YJ is cannon completely throws that out of the window

without TT, there is no Culling, without Culling, there is no Ravagers and without Ravagers thats why BB ISNT RED.



I completely disagree the notion that we are still somehow in The New 52 era
this is post-Flashpoint, but simply because, well, everything that has happen and will happen is after Flashpoint but that doesnt make it exclusively New 52.

Like with Crisis on Infinite Earths, not everything after COIE falls under the same era or continuity because of other events like Zero Hour, or IC.

My argument was never like "the universe was rebooted again so we are in a different continuity"
rather that the concepts and major elements that were originated from the New52 and that make it "THE NEW 52" are for the most part irrelevant.

There's still plenty of New 52 elements still around and the same heads making decisions at DC. I don't see much of a difference other than more legacy characters slowly coming back just to get misused and screwed up.

That's my argument because that's how DC uses their continuity. Most people consider Pre-flashpoint to be one big thing same for Pre-CoIE. Saying it isn't is just arguing semantics for specific characters that got changed then reverted back then changed again. The continuity stayed the same, some elements changed but that's it.

[DrNewGod]

Once again, we're all over the map. Lotsa opinions that deserve their own threads (or that belong in others that already exist).

So let's try focusing again:
"The best thing Didio has done for DC is...?"
"The worst thing Didio has done to DC is...?"

[Ascended]

Once again, we're all over the map. Lotsa opinions that deserve their own threads (or that belong in others that already exist).

So let's try focusing again:
"The best thing Didio has done for DC is...?"

Hmmm. I'd argue trying to branch into wider distribution systems. The earth-1 line of OGN's, the new Ink and Zoom imprints, Black Label, same-day digital, etc., all interesting attempts to find new readers beyond the LCS/direct market crowd. I think Didio is keenly aware of the fact that us old guard fans are not enough, and he's desperate to branch out into new audiences.

Those attempts haven't revitalized the industry but it's more than anyone else is doing, and I give Didio full credit for trying.

"The worst thing Didio has done to DC is...?"

There are so many things........but I think perhaps the worst thing is seemingly letting his personal opinions cloud business judgement. There's individual examples like Nightwing, but there are other examples that impact the entire company line. Didio seems to love the Silver Age characters and status quo, but loves the 90's sensibilities of excess; big guns, lots of random death, etc. The New52 was full of this sort of mentality and likely would've been crazy popular in 1993, but in 2011 the market had moved on and fans didn't want those things anymore, outside of a few characters like Deathstroke or Lobo where that sort of grit and gore actually makes sense. If he had looked at any market research I suspect he'd have known the hard edge he and Lee put on the New52 was doomed to fail.

[Restingvoice]

Once again, we're all over the map. Lotsa opinions that deserve their own threads (or that belong in others that already exist).

So let's try focusing again:
"The best thing Didio has done for DC is...?"
"The worst thing Didio has done to DC is...?"

Right. I never actually answer the question.

The best thing Didio has done for DC is tightening continuity between titles, or at least try to because the way the books are connected during Infinite Crisis era was the reason I was interested in the shared universe in the first place. It was the first time I saw a comic book universe can be interconnected.
Disclaimer though, I haven't actually read the books from that era. it just that impression of interconnection is what draws me to this universe in the first place.

The worst thing is... either the hierarchy or the clear bias against certain characters that erases, ban or censor them.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, as far as I know, before New 52, while the books are interconnected, there is no definitive hierarchy that says which books are more important.

Starting New 52, Justice League became the backbone, then the members' book, then the family book. While this makes it easy for new readers to determine what they should prioritize, it became a problem when the family book has to follow the story determined by the head book.

It makes you think that there's no point in buying those family books. This won't be a problem if your favorite character or the best writer is on the most important books but often that's not the case. Every fan has every right to support their favorite without the story or status quo having to be interrupted, changed or canceled by the head books' event. Especially when those interruptions are done without warning, to the point where the writer decided to leave. It's unfair for the fans and the writers.

Each of the books should have the same chance to shine, with only sales to determine whether they should keep publishing it or not.

[Vampire Savior]

The best thing DiDio's done:
I honestly don't even know. I can't think of anything he has done that I've been especially impressed by, and I'm not trying to be cynical. I can't think of anything especially novel, innovative, or vital that he has brought to the table. I guess Batman, Harley Quinn, and Green Lantern have enjoyed a lot of success during his tenure, but he's completely dropped the ball with Superman, who hasn't been much of a powerhouse franchise since the 90s.

The worst thing DiDio's done:
Alienating fans of certain very popular characters because of his clear personal biases. Examples include Dick Grayson, Wally West, John Stewart, Spoiler, and the Teen Titans.

[byrd156]

Once again, we're all over the map. Lotsa opinions that deserve their own threads (or that belong in others that already exist).

So let's try focusing again:
"The best thing Didio has done for DC is...?"
"The worst thing Didio has done to DC is...?"

I would mark these tangents under the worst things Didio has done. The reboot was just so mishandled. These are just symptoms from his terrible fracturing of the DCU.

[Ascended]

I do give Didio a little leeway when it comes to how the New52 was executed. From what I hear, and I dunno how true it is, but supposedly his bosses at WB told him to pull the sales up and do it quickly. At that point the entire industry had been in a nosedive for years. So Didio and his crew decided to do a reboot, which always gets a lot of attention (and Didio had been wanting to do for years), but they had limited time to plan it out. That's why the continuity is so screwed up and why editors were driving the narrative (and driving creators away).

None of this excuses all the mistakes of the New52, but it does provide some context (again, if this is true) and I can understand that business realities get in the way of creative choices. That doesnt make the New52 okay, but it does explain some of the "why" it was so screwed up.

[paulojrmam]

I don't know why people complain about New 52's execution so much. The idea is bad IMO. I liked it at the time, but in retrospect I think it was a bad idea. But the execution was good in my opinion, with the possible exception of Batman and Green Lantern that rebooted nothing at all.

[Ascended]

The problems with the execution is usually found in the five year timeline. Did Superman die? Were there Titans before Tim's New52 team? Hard for writers to write characters when they don't know what parts of their history are intact. And editorial was doing a lot of heavy re-writes without letting the creator's know, and back tracking on stories that were already approved.

For example, Perez (who did Superman) didn't know what kind of origin and status quo Morrison was establishing on Action, which made Perez's job way harder. Lobdell name dropped previous Titans teams in his Teen Titans and Outlaws, only for editorial to decide there had been no other Titans (and had scenes changed for the trade). Whoever was on Batwoman at the time (Williams? I forget) had the story of Kate getting married approved, and even had art coming in for the issues, when editorial changed their minds and cancelled the story at the last second.

It makes sense, to a degree. Didio had limited time to execute the reboot so his editors were driving the story a lot. They didn't have time for the writers to nail down their own stories and then see how it could all link up. It had to be designed from the top down, rather than letting creators actually create. But word is it was hell to work under and even with such heavy editorial control tons of inconsistencies popped up within months of the reboot launching. Even if those inconsistencies were fairly minor kinks, the fact that they began to crop up so quickly was seen as a bad sign.

[superduperman]

I do give Didio a little leeway when it comes to how the New52 was executed. From what I hear, and I dunno how true it is, but supposedly his bosses at WB told him to pull the sales up and do it quickly. At that point the entire industry had been in a nosedive for years. So Didio and his crew decided to do a reboot, which always gets a lot of attention (and Didio had been wanting to do for years), but they had limited time to plan it out. That's why the continuity is so screwed up and why editors were driving the narrative (and driving creators away).

None of this excuses all the mistakes of the New52, but it does provide some context (again, if this is true) and I can understand that business realities get in the way of creative choices. That doesnt make the New52 okay, but it does explain some of the "why" it was so screwed up.

Stuff like this is why I kind of wish DC would be more honest with us about how things work behind the scenes. If New 52 was a top down mandate from WB, then tell us that. We'll understand. If you chose to go in a certain direction, tell us why. This sounds like his job was at stake if he didn't turn things around. No one can function properly under that kind of pressure. Given that, I'm surprised it turned out as well as it did.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Stuff like this is why I kind of wish DC would be more honest with us about how things work behind the scenes. If New 52 was a top down mandate from WB, then tell us that. We'll understand. If you chose to go in a certain direction, tell us why. This sounds like his job was at stake if he didn't turn things around. No one can function properly under that kind of pressure. Given that, I'm surprised it turned out as well as it did.

It doesn't sound like New 52 was mandated by Warners. It sounds like DiDio was given a mandate to "increase sales ASAP."

HOW DiDio chose to do it was his idea. It seems that he'd been wanting to reboot the DCU for quite awhile before New 52 -- maybe that was the original plan of Infinite Crisis.

So, when DiDio got the mandate, he saw the Flashpoint story as a way to get his reboot. I don't think Johns thought of Flashpoint being a line-wide reboot at all when he first conceived the story.

[mr_crisp]

Once again, we're all over the map. Lotsa opinions that deserve their own threads (or that belong in others that already exist).

So let's try focusing again:
"The best thing Didio has done for DC is...?"
"The worst thing Didio has done to DC is...?"

Under his regime we got the 52 weekly series.

[Gurz]

Under his regime we got the 52 weekly series.

Didio was against that... It wasn't how he wants it to be... it was good. So he was pretty pissed, count down is what he wants 52 weeks to be which is a shit storm... lol I think this pretty much sums up Didio....

[Pinsir]

Didio was against that... It wasn't how he wants it to be... it was good. So he was pretty pissed, count down is what he wants 52 weeks to be which is a shit storm... lol I think this pretty much sums up Didio....

But it still happened under his regime...