(except for the obvious) The Best Idea DC Ever Had Was...

[DrNewGod]

Superman and Batman are off the menu. Beyond that, what was the best idea DC ever had?

[Buried Alien]

The Multiverse, when originally introduced during the early 1960s.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[DrNewGod]

My answer is Green Lantern. Regardless of Magic Lamp, or Space Légion Étrangère, the idea is: If You Care Enough, You Can Make A Difference.

PS: None of the Green Lanterns are my favorites, they trail Hawkman(woman)/Wonder Woman/Hourman by a mile. I just think the concept is better.

[SiegePerilous02]

Wonder Woman

[numberthirty]

Starting the "Vertigo" imprint when it did.

[K7P5V]

Definitely the creation of the New Teen Titans

[My Two Cents]

hands down the biggest creation after Superman and Batman
Was Justice Society Of America in All Star Comcis #3 !!!
What would comcis be with out the concept of gathering
Heroes from different places and/or with dofferent
Powers and abilities to form a team???

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Starting the "Vertigo" imprint when it did.

Yeah but I would argue that it was even before this when DC made a conscious decision to go for a more adult market and especially when they decided to start hiring a bunch of maverick British talent to do so.

[Lee Stone]

The early '90s were a perfect time for Vertigo.
College Rock was big, RPGs and video games were going into darker and psychological areas.
It was like lightning.

Other things I liked:

Solo, the short******d series that gave a top artist a whole issue to do what they wanted.

Wednesday Comics, really captured the essence of the old full-page adventure strips.

Showcase Presents, okay so Marvel thought of it first... but still it was a great idea that got comics previously not affordable into the hands of readers relatively cheaply. And they make great coloring books.

Who's Who in the Legion, DC had just did a couple runs of Who's Who for their overall universe, but someone must've realized that there was a lot more that could be told just about the Legion, which had had a very long history. Unlike the other Who's Who's it also gave a story detailing the Legion's history highlighting key moments and when members joined. It also had an Interlac key and a guide to all the Legion worlds.
Reading that, it just baffles me how later writers just couldn't grasp the concept.

New Teen Titans, talk about lightning. I read that Wolfman and Perez didn't know it was a hit until they were working on #6 and got word that it was beating everything at DC and almost all of Marvel. It's a shame DC let it go to waste.

JLI, another surprise hit. No Superman, no Wonder Woman, no Flash, the Green Lantern was Guy Gardner. The League veterans were Batman, Martian Manhunter and Black Canary. DeMatteis had just finished a JLA run that failed with Batman, Elongated Man, Zatanna and Martian Manhunter. It might've been marginally better than JLA without Vibe, Steel and Gypsy, but a hit? By 1990 it had four spin-offs (JLE, JLQ, Mister Miracle and Dr. Fate) and inspired books at Marvel (Excalibur, with Peter David's X-Factor arriving in 1991). Sadly, another franchise that was squandered.

(Edit: the censored word is short - lived, I retyped it three times. Don't know where the extra asterisk is coming from).

[godisawesome]

Legacy heroes and legacy teams.

Justice Society, then Justice League, then Teen Titans, then way on down the line, the Legion of Superheroes.

Jay, then Barry, then Wally.

Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian.

That stuff really worked.

[Frontier]

DC Animation.

[Lee Stone]

DC Animation.

Oh, yes.
Especially the DCAU.

[K7P5V]

DC Animation.

Oh, yes.
Especially the DCAU.

Agreed. A definite trailblazer:

[Midnight_v]

DC Animation.

Wow. Yes. Hands down.


Whatever I was thinking went away because nothings been more significant to keep the fire burning.

[WillieMorgan]

The Multiverse, when originally introduced during the early 1960s.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

This for me too. The introduction of the Multiverse in DC Comics was best summed up by Grant Morrison in his novel Supergods:

'By spreading a different brand across multiple versions of a character designed to appeal to different sections of his audience, Julie had invented a trick that would be adopted as the industry standard. Schwartz was a world builder, and, under his guidance the DC universe became part of a 'multiverse' in which an infinite number of alternate Earths occupied the same space as our own, each vibrating out of phase with the others so that they could never meet. The idea of infinite worlds, each with it's own history and it's own superheroes, was intoxicating and gave DC an even more expansive canvas'.