DC's Dan DiDio Out as Co-Publisher

[manwhohaseverything]

...but imagine if fan fiction were the ONLY new stories about these characters to ever appear.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

What's the difference between current comics and fanfics? I don't see much difference. Quality of a story is upto the author. As for the proportions that doesn't matter. If anyone cares enough to write a good superman book. Chances of it beibg good are better. Besides, if we are talking superman and disney. I will advocate for it. Pixar and brad bird enough said. It's not like wb did wonders with the character.Dc's idea of superman is "what batman isn't".

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

What's the difference between current comics and fanfics? I don't see much difference. Quality of a story is upto the author. Besides, if we are talking superman and disney. I will advocate for it. Pixar and brad bird enough said. It's not like wb did wonders with the character.Dc's idea of superman is "what batman isn't".

Uh, the fact that the current stories are by paid professionals and therefore tend to be of higher quality than fanmade webcomics you read online. Also, the fact that there's a cohesive DC Universe (at least it was cohesive before Didio got there) instead of just a litany of fanfic universes.

[manwhohaseverything]

Uh, the fact that the current stories are by paid professionals and therefore tend to be of higher quality than fanmade webcomics you read online. Also, the fact that there's a cohesive DC Universe (at least it was cohesive before Didio got there) instead of just a litany of fanfic universes.

Professional would be able write superman as well. It's not like they wouldn't be able. Chances are since they don't have to answer to corporate overlords they would do some justice. They could do risky things, they wouldn't have to worry about outrage or anything.They wouldn't have to worry about Superman "classic" or any of that nonsense. Their would be people who want to do their own thing with the character. If cohesive means not treating a character as is and treating him as a foil or worse a inferior copy(looking at spidersuperman of postcrisis and zack Snyder's man of steel trying to be Nolan-esque. They even had him as producer i believe ) then i am good. I would take my joker's over dcau's any day of the week.superman can go back to punching robots, corrupt people, bullies and godzillas... Etc for all i care. Its far better than what is being served.Atleast the character could be what it was meant to be or be himself not have to written similar or opposite of something else.An alien vigilante strongman. Nothing more or less.If people have different ideas. Then that's welcome too.

[a kiss to remember]

Uh, the fact that the current stories are by paid professionals and therefore tend to be of higher quality than fanmade webcomics you read online. Also, the fact that there's a cohesive DC Universe (at least it was cohesive before Didio got there) instead of just a litany of fanfic universes.

That's internet fan fiction self made authors are more professional then comic pros

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Professional would be able write superman as well. It's not like they wouldn't be able. Chances are since they don't have to answer to corporate overlords they would do some justice. They could do risky things, they wouldn't have to worry about outrage or anything.They wouldn't have to worry about Superman "classic" or any of that nonsense. Their would be people who want to do their own thing with the character. If cohesive means not treating a character as is and treating him as a foil or worse a inferior copy(looking at spidersuperman of postcrisis and zack Snyder's man of steel trying to be Nolan-esque. They even had him as producer i believe ) then i am good. I would take my joker's over dcau's any day of the week.superman can go back to punching robots, corrupt people, bullies and godzillas... Etc for all i care. Its far better than what is being served.

Dude, professionals would actually want to get paid for their work. Something those "corporate overlords" are actually good for is, you know, giving people money to write stories for the characters that they own. And if Superman or Batman fell into the public domain, why would professionals want to write for a character that wasn't created by them if there was no entity that was paying them to do that? They could just write their own characters.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

That's internet fan fiction self made authors are more professional then comic pros

Very few and far between

[manwhohaseverything]

Very few and far between

So, such diamonds are far better than being stuck with what they decide superman or batman should be being shoved on the rest. See, superman is first his authors. Since, they don't have much claim. He is of the people. People made the character.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

So, such diamonds are far better than being stuck with what they decide superman or batman should be being shoved on the rest. See, superman is first his authors. Since, they don't have much claim. He is of the people. People made the character.

If those people are actually out there, then they should be scouted by DC.

[manwhohaseverything]

Dude, professionals would actually want to get paid for their work. Something those "corporate overlords" are actually good for is, you know, giving people money to write stories for the characters that they own. And if Superman or Batman fell into the public domain, why would professionals want to write for a character that wasn't created by them if there was no entity that was paying them to do that? They could just write their own characters.

If i am not mistaken. They could make money of from superman if he is in public domain. We have the internet now. Anyone with drive can make money of from things if they have content. They don't need a specific company to reach millions there are hundred of avenues. One punch man was born on the internet.

If those people are actually out there, then they should be scouted by DC.

They wouldn't. Because anything risky and doesn't bode well with the perception of the character or what they want the character's perception to be will automatically be trashed.These are the guys that changed jack Kirby's drawing of superman.

[Agent Z]

Oh the wider audience definitely wouldn't be averse to legacy, I don't think. They may even fully embrace it in some instances.

But there isn't the burden of expectations with them. They are a bigger, less fussy audience who isn't (yet) going to break into sub-factions and have passionate and exhausting debates over who should have what mantle. Or care too much about continuity, they just want an easily digestible story with the characters they are interested in. They are gonna go into Teen Titans and expect to see Robin, they won't care about the legacy aspect of it so it being Dick Grayson wouldn't bother them. And they can play out the Nightwing arc and a second Robin, but they are not gonna go up in arms if it isn't the Robin legacy of their choosing.



The POC characters that aren't sharing mantles with anyone would show up rather easily.

We've already seen this, even in a poorly planned reboot. The New 52 set Superman back to the beginning of his career, and John Henry showed up in the first arc. Adherence to the proper debuting order clearly didn't mean much there. Same could be true for the likes of Vixen, Black Lightning, Vibe, Kimiyo Hoshi, Element Woman, Aztek, etc, who are in the same age group as the main JL and don't have to sit around and wait for legacy mantles to come their way.

Then again, Kimoyo Hoshi never appeared once in the New 52, Vibe hasn't been seen since Forever Evil, Vixen was put in a coma and didn't come back until Steve Orlando's Justice League of America and Aztek didn't show up until Rebirth. Pretty much the only poc that you mentioned that anything has been done with as of recent is Black Lightning in Outsiders.

In short, a reboot won't be any better for poc characters.

[iron chimp]

Then again, Kimoyo Hoshi never appeared once in the New 52, Vibe hasn't been seen since Forever Evil, Vixen was put in a coma and didn't come back until Steve Orlando's Justice League of America and Aztek didn't show up until Rebirth. Pretty much the only poc that you mentioned that anything has been done with as of recent is Black Lightning in Outsiders.

In short, a reboot won't be any better for poc characters.

If you choose to ignore michael cray, the sandman universe book, the terrifics, american carnage then yes. If you dont choose to ignore them then DC has had an excellent selection of black led books in last 18 months...

[Digifiend]

Isn't Terrifics the only one of those set in the main DC universe?

[Denirac]

Okay so I just realised this thread has gone 33 pages and I've forgotten to give my 2 cents.

Dan DiDio did a lot of Bad Things for DC in his time. This is after all, the *Genius* who thought Countdown was "52 done right." I'm not going to defend his stance on Legacy Characters or Marriage either, I despised most of the New 52. And he killed Vertigo which I'm still bitter about. However, Dan did also do a lot of good things including allowing a more diverse line, he gave lesser known characters a chance to helm books, and regardless of the "Will they, wont they" with Harley and Ivy or the cancellation of Batwoman to stop her getting married, Dan was very good at allowing LGBT representation in comics, I mean we got books like Midnighter and Apollo on his watch.

Overall Dan's Tenure at DC was mixed and while I'm glad to see him go to an extent, allowing most of my favourite DC character like Nightwing or Wally a chance again, I'm also very concerned with what his replacement will bring to the table.

[Patrick Gerard]

I never met him, but he always seemed like a happy, nice guy. I would've liked to have had a beer with him one day, I think he'd have good stories to tell. And I get his bias is against "Nightwing" as opposed to "Dick Grayson" (same with Cass and Wally, etc) but that doesn't really excuse things. Sure, in business you've got to use your intuition to inform some of your decisions because accounting and business theory will never paint the whole picture, but there's a big difference between that and purposefully damaging and/or minimizing a product that shows signs of have more revenue potential just because you don't like it. And unless there's data we don't have access to that shows otherwise (which there easily could be) it looks to me like Didio all but sabotaged the characters he has a bias against, even when (perhaps especially when) they looked like they could make a lot more money for DC than they are.

Right but... This is a bit complicated.

Dan didn't "hate" Nightwing.

Nightwing gave him a headache because it created a conflict between making everything as absolutely simple and continuity free as possible (his goal from his bosses WB) and leveraging beloved characters (which he needed not to lose money).

So it starts off as "Nightwing frustrates me because I have two jobs and I can't do both with a character like that."

And it comes out as "I hate Nightwing! He makes my job hell!"

Which made people scared he was going to mess with Nightwing. Or Conner Kent. Or whoever.

And here's the secret:

He wasn't trying to destroy those characters. He never was.

You know those old covers. "Buy this comic or I shoot a puppy"?

It was always like that. He killed those characters off because he thought it would piss you off enough to make you buy a resurrection storyline with bigger numbers.

The idea was always that he would play act -- with a wink -- that he hated certain characters to try and get you worry more about them and buy more of their comics. He was playing the bad guy. He wanted you to feel like you were sticking it to the man by being a Nightwing fan because he thought it would sell more Nightwing books.

And maybe in all the deaths and reboots, he could stumble on a version of Nightwing that his bosses at WB would develop as a movie.

[Denirac]

Right but... This is a bit complicated.

Dan didn't "hate" Nightwing.

Nightwing gave him a headache because it created a conflict between making everything as absolutely simple and continuity free as possible (his goal from his bosses WB) and leveraging beloved characters (which he needed not to lose money).

So it starts off as "Nightwing frustrates me because I have two jobs and I can't do both with a character like that."

And it comes out as "I hate Nightwing! He makes my job hell!"

Which made people scared he was going to mess with Nightwing. Or Conner Kent. Or whoever.

And here's the secret:

He wasn't trying to destroy those characters. He never was.

You know those old covers. "Buy this comic or I shoot a puppy"?

It was always like that. He killed those characters off because he thought it would piss you off enough to make you buy a resurrection storyline with bigger numbers.

The idea was always that he would play act -- with a wink -- that he hated certain characters to try and get you worry more about them and buy more of their comics. He was playing the bad guy. He wanted you to feel like you were sticking it to the man by being a Nightwing fan because he thought it would sell more Nightwing books.

And maybe in all the deaths and reboots, he could stumble on a version of Nightwing that his bosses at WB would develop as a movie.

Thats not what he did with certain characters. Wally West he just wanted gone in general