I think Sentinel did work for a while, though, and it did allow Alan to get more use in the DCU during that time because he wasn't competing with Hal.
They focused on his ring being more magical and he got to play with DC's mystical community.
And he had a snazzy costume.
But if he went back to Earthh-2, I'd want him to be Green Lantern over there.
"There's magic in the sound of analog audio." - CNET.
I feel like Didio consistently misses the boat on what readers are looking for and love in DC books.
Legacy!
Teen Titans, Titans, and younger favorites that were our gateway into starting the comic habit in the first place.
Relatable characters who DO in fact have personal lives. (Otherwise they are just nameless, faceless costumes...at which point why do I care?)
Didio seems to be overly focused on "protecting the brand", but I have to ask "for whom?" As someone who has learned this lesson over and over in corporate retail,
if you alienate your customer base in favor of some "reach" customer you perceive as better, what you end up with is no customers. Build on your base, but don't piss them off and disdain them. Well, unless you just want to close your doors.
Certainly, some reasonability should be considered regarding the number of characters running around with the same name. Give Wally a new code name, Dick already had one, and they need to just hurry up and name Donna "Fury" (given that Troia is pretty universally hated). But don't shunt all the legacy favorites into obscurity because they compromise the brand. They ARE the brand IMO. Same with Legion and JSA...they give the DC it's history.
As others have said above, I'd only be OK with Jay as Flash if he were on his own Earth again.
Barry and Hal are really NOT legacy characters as Jay and Alan had been canceled for years. Once they were brought back, they were on their own Earth as guest stars in the Schwartzverse comics. Jay and Alan never had their own comics again from the late 1940s to this day. But Barry and Hal were not created to continue the legacies of Jay and Alan. So, Barry and Hal are absolutely the FIRST to have their codenames on their Earth.
What I thought was cool about what Marv Wolfman did was that he gave new names to Dick, Donna, and Roy to let them establish their own identities. They were no longer sidekicks, but the whole "Junior Justice League" conceit of the original Titans was nicely abandoned. Every child wants to grow up to be his or her own man or woman, not take on his or her parent's name.
The legacy aspect and the expansive Family aspect are still there without also getting rid of the older family members -- especially when they're in their mid-30s at most!
Anyway, back to DiDio: I wouldn't be against some new blood at the top, but aside from Karen Berger, I wouldn't know who to pick. Mark Waid? Perhaps, but I think his relationship with DC is permanently kiboshed.
Again, I don't think Jim Lee should be part of the management equation either.
"Multiple names dont work"
*looks at Into the Spiderverse, literally built off of that concept with its Oscar and its $250,000,000 + profit*
Weird flex but ok....
I dunno. It was weird for me reading Johns' JSA and seeing them call him Sentinel.
I mean, c'mon, he's Green Lantern
Although to be fair, Into the Spider-Verse works around the concept of multiple Earths rather then multiple individuals with the same codename permanently residing on one Earth.
Despite being a huge part of the biggest selling comic ever, Jim Lee doesn't deserve the position he has and his talent is wasted working that job. Jim Lee doesn't seem to know anything about effectively telling a story or running a publishing company. Why would you make a guy a publisher after running his own company (Wildstorm) into the ground?
Jim Lee is an artist, and a really good one. That's where his strength lies. Not writing. Not directing a universe. Not running a publishing company. Alas, now he rarely draws. I guess it's the same thing with Todd McFarlane. I think they have so much money now they're not going to slave over artwork 10 hours a day like they used to, and that makes sense, and I don't really blame them for it. It's just interesting watching that great resource (Jim Lee) go to waste at DC doing a job he really isn't suited for.
There have been plenty of great comics/runs during his time, but there's been also plenty of boneheaded decisions as well.
Even if he dislikes characters, he needs to put that bias aside when he's in the position he's in.
Which is very odd, if he's a pre-Crisis fanboy the sidekick generation he should love the most is Dick's. Dick being in his 20s doesn't age Bruce that much, Bruce is at most a little over a decade older than Dick. I believe he was stated to be 29 to Dick's 19 in the pre-Crisis era. So a mid-20s Dick means at most a mid-30s Bruce, which is not that old...at all.
Dick's generation isn't the ones making their mentors look older. Adding not one, but two generations of kids AFTER that group is the main cause. And Damian's generation is being built up during Didio's reign.
He's not entirely wrong about that. The Fab 5, at a glance now, are just a discount JL.
They don't have to be though, it'd be better to put some creative energy into finding new roles for them instead of killing them or banishing them from continuity.
I don't think people forget that, it's just when you bring up the fact that Clark, Bruce and Diana are legacy versions of themselves, the "Legacies existed across the Multiverse" argument becomes nonsensical. The existence of a Trinity on Earth-1 acting as peers to Barry and Hal instead of being from a generation before really drives home the fact that Barry and Hal were revamps, not legacies as they were retconned into being (and as we view the term today).
I agree that focusing on the brand at the expense of character and callously dispensing of the characters he dislikes is bad, but I'm not sure legacy is what everyone is looking for. Many of DC's major characters/icons are not legacies, and it's not always the younger characters that are the gateway drugs. Batman and Superman get a lot of movies, cartoons and video games, so I'd say they are just as likely to be the visible gateway characters despite how old they are.
Relateable characters are key, but that's not as simple to determine. People relate to different things. Personal lives and relationships are good, but a character who is not relateable to some may be relateable to others.
I dislike the mantle passing on one Earth (JSA should be on Earth-2). Wally worked out great, and I like Damian, but aside from them and the JSA, I'm not crazy about swapping costumes.
If there's one good thing you can say about Dan Didio, it's... uh...
...uh...
I'll get back to you.
One thing for me is that the work put into them by Wolfman made the Titans much more relatable than the JL.
The JL are too iconic and set in their ways.
Superman will always come back to Lois Lane and the Daily Planet.
Wonder Woman will always have Steve Trevor.
Batman has been so dehumanized that there's really not much left to get attached to.
The Titans face real human issues alongside their crime fighting.
They don't have 'set in stone' love interests, so you can have that drama.
They don't come with preset occupations like the Trinity. They can go from one job to another in search of stability and security. There's more drama.
Their team is formed more out of a desire to have a place to belong and find support from friends, unlike the League which is more structural and like a job. So, different dynamics and possibilities for even more drama.
"There's magic in the sound of analog audio." - CNET.