How do you rate Dan Didio's tenure at DC Comics?

[leo619]

Why do you assume that we are out of Rebirth? I don't remember any Crises that have definitely marked the end of the Rebirth continuity the way Rebirth definitely marked the end of New 52 continuity. The only storyline that might fit that bill would be Doomsday Clock, but that was always billed as the culmination of Rebirth.

And if we're looking at things from a creative standpoint at DC, then no, New 52 was definitely NOT successful. Creators ran for the hills during that era and it alienated a lot of people from working at DC. It was a hard time to be a DC fan indeed.

There are people believe that an era is only indicated when there's a logo slapped on a title. So there are some who believe the Rebirth Era is already over and that we're in a purgatory state until 5g appears. I do believe that we're still in the Rebirth Era, though it still would end by around this October when 5g appears.


And we'll have to agree to disagree from the creative stand point. Some execution of certain books were flawed for certain, but the New 52 also helped issue the much needed dose of diversity into the industry, though it was Marvel who truly capitalize on that effort that DC first started. So to clarify, new 52 was a hard time for many "classic fans" for certain. Because a lot of what they valued was not represented in new 52. But for me, it's was my favorite time for DC. I'm hoping that 5g initiate that spark that I lost when Rebirth came into place.

[Tzigone]

Why do you assume that we are out of Rebirth? I don't remember any Crises that have definitely marked the end of the Rebirth continuity the way Rebirth definitely marked the end of New 52 continuity. The only storyline that might fit that bill would be Doomsday Clock, but that was always billed as the culmination of Rebirth.

Mostly because of 5G, which is not not linewide. FTR, I think New 52 was botched terribly. I wasn't going to like it anyway, because I don't like the changes made (the de-aging of Dick and Barbara, the elimination of Lois and Clark's marriage, the removal of Lian, Irey, and Jai, the de-aging/heavy reworking of Roy, Wally, Tim and so many others). That was always going to be an uphill struggle with long-time readers who were attached to particular characters. But with continuity so undefined that even writers don't know what happened and what counts, it wasn't going to have longevity. Rebirth brought back some of what I liked, so some improvement there. But continuity has continued to be an absolute mess - it's really just gotten worse. Sometimes with different books having different stories. While DDC was ongoing I guess there was some possibility of universe-in-flux but the delays hurt things there that were already hurting IMO - a universe-in-flux can't move forward. There didn't seem to be any end-goal or particular way these changes were happening. The idea of what's meant-to-be reasserting itself was actually interesting, but it needed to be handled within 1 year at most from when Rebirth launched, so a firm what-things-are could be established. It drug out way too long and didn't seem planned or well-developed (nor did DC seem to stay on a planned track) so it just seems like a giant muddle.

So I don't think continual reboots are good, but I do agree they may be the future of the industry. Another reboot now seems absurd, but I'm not sure the universe if really sustainable they way it is. Maybe if they just pick a continuity and stick to it and sweep prior things that are being rewritten under the rug.

I know many have complained about half-assed reboots, and I do think that's going to an issue again with 5G (unless it ends up even less than that). I love the history. I want the history (though with different continuities, I pick and choose which ones I want). Until OMD, I read Marvel because they didn't reboot universes (though still plenty of retcons). But I do think maybe that they need to either take subsequent reboots off the table or do them more thoroughly (likely alienate fans like me, but may theoretically gain new ones, though there are definite structural/non-story problems in the industry that hinder achieving that). In any event, they need to plan better and know what's what. I would say they need to stay the course, but unfortunately, if they are losing old fans and not gaining new ones with their next change, staying the course could kill them off. It doesn't help that #1s and reboots seem to sell, dis-incentivizing long-term planning or stability.

[leo619]

New 52 brought in new people to LCS, had some good ideas and books, and was a huge commercial success for DC and the industry. New 52 was also a mismanaged reboot that alienated a lot of creators and fans and botched its potential. Those two can both be true. It has been consistently said by everyone from DC to shop owners that New 52 was a commercial success that managed to bring new people into comics like nothing else (which includes Rebirth) has done, yet it’s also true that DC lost a lot of top creatives and alienated portions of their fanbase which contributed to drop off and forced them to pivot to Rebirth.

Exactly, and that's why I specifically state that New 52 had it's successes as well as it's flaws. It's just that people like to put blanket statements over the era because of what it represents towards certain groups.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

There are people believe that an era is only indicated when there's a logo slapped on a title. So there are some who believe the Rebirth Era is already over and that we're in a purgatory state until 5g appears. I do believe that we're still in the Rebirth Era, though it still would end by around this October when 5g appears.

Well, assuming that's the case, that would mean Rebirth has lasted for about 4.5 years, not 3 as you previously stated.

And we'll have to agree to disagree from the creative stand point. Some execution of certain books were flawed for certain, but the New 52 also helped issue the much needed dose of diversity into the industry, though it was Marvel who truly capitalize on that effort that DC first started. So to clarify, new 52 was a hard time for many "classic fans" for certain. Because a lot of what they valued was not represented in new 52. But for me, it's was my favorite time for DC. I'm hoping that 5g initiate that spark that I lost when Rebirth came into place.

Uh, not really. LOL. Are we talking about diversity in terms of the characters? Because, if so, the New 52 definitely did not help in that regard. When you consider the fact that:

(a) a lot of the person-of-color characters introduced during the New 52 were portrayed as blatant stereotypes (i.e. Bunker and NuWally) and

(b) the New 52 actually erased a lot of the POC characters that existed in the DC Universe up until that point, like Dr. Light (Hoshi), Cassandra Cain, Lorena Marquez, Jennifer & Anissa Pierce, Bloodwynd, Bumblebee, Mal Duncan, Pantha, Koryak, etc. etc. etc.

...then no, I don't think we can say that the New 52 really helped in terms of representation or diversity. It even was a downgrade for the representation of differenly-abled characters because both Barbara Gordon and Niles Caulder were taken out of their wheelchairs. If anything, the New 52 was a step backward in terms of diversity.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

New 52 brought in new people to LCS, had some good ideas and books, and was a huge commercial success for DC and the industry. New 52 was also a mismanaged reboot that alienated a lot of creators and fans and botched its potential. Those two can both be true. It has been consistently said by everyone from DC to shop owners that New 52 was a commercial success that managed to bring new people into comics like nothing else (which includes Rebirth) has done, yet it’s also true that DC lost a lot of top creatives and alienated portions of their fanbase which contributed to drop off and forced them to pivot to Rebirth.

Exactly, and that's why I specifically state that New 52 had it's successes as well as it's flaws. It's just that people like to put blanket statements over the era because of what it represents towards certain groups.

Actually, as someone previously stated in another post, the New 52 gets a lot of unearned credit for boosting sales when a lot of that boost occurred because of the fact that same-day digital releases launched at the same time.

[Vordan]

Actually, as someone previously stated in another post, the New 52 gets a lot of unearned credit for boosting sales when a lot of that boost occurred because of the fact that same-day digital releases launched at the same time.

If you listen to the Comics Conspiracy Podcast, Ryan Higgins, an actual store owner, has talked about how the New 52 helped him buy a house because of how well it sold. I get you hate New 52 but this weird obsession you have with claiming it wasn’t a success at first is just dumb. It totally was, it sold well, DC beat Marvel in sales for the first time in ages. DC botched it in the long run through incompetence but sales were great at the start.

I’m not a fan of Identity Crisis or Injustice but I’m not going to pretend either were a commercial failure, or try to find some loophole that will disqualify them from being a success because they were.

[leo619]

Well, assuming that's the case, that would mean Rebirth has lasted for about 4.5 years, not 3 as you previously stated.



Uh, not really. LOL. Are we talking about diversity in terms of the characters? Because, if so, the New 52 definitely did not help in that regard. When you consider the fact that:

(a) a lot of the person-of-color characters introduced during the New 52 were portrayed as blatant stereotypes (i.e. Bunker and NuWally) and

(b) the New 52 actually erased a lot of the POC characters that existed in the DC Universe up until that point, like Dr. Light (Hoshi), Cassandra Cain, Lorena Marquez, Jennifer & Anissa Pierce, Bloodwynd, Bumblebee, Mal Duncan, Pantha, Koryak, etc. etc. etc.

...then no, I don't think we can say that the New 52 really helped in terms of representation or diversity. It even was a downgrade for the representation of differenly-abled characters because both Barbara Gordon and Niles Caulder were taken out of their wheelchairs. If anything, the New 52 was a step backward in terms of diversity.

Um yes, seeing as before New 52 happened, DC did not have a single solo POC minority book issued. SDCC revealed that the DC readership was over 87% white males over the age of 28, the big 7 was all white and a alien, hell Dwayne McDuffie had a slew of videos on youtube talking about the issues of diversity with DC comics pre-52. I can go on and on regarding the issues of Pre-52 diversity problems, but that was one of the key reasons they stated New 52 was going to addressed, the clearly lack of diversity that was represented.

New 52 came forth and presented a slew of changes that made waves in the industry. Bringing Cyborg as finally a POC to represent the big 7, having 4 POC solo books being released at launch, different genre's of books, and so on. Both Wally West and Bunker became better over time to where Wally is a fully realized character today. The readership changed to where a survey revealed during the middle of New 52 indicated that less than 70% of the readers were white males. It doesn't matter what characters you have in your stable, it matters what you're doing with those characters, and New 52 creative ideas were doing a lot more with their diverse characters than before pre-52, but the most important thing was the push that New 52 help drive. Now that doesn't change the fact that the execution of these ideas were subpar in many cases, and that's why I said Marvel capitalize on DC's initial drive. New 52 had great ideas, but poor execution on certain books cause their initial pushes to drop. Marvel saw these flaws, and came out with ANAD which helped push Marvel into the successful state it is today (to where Ms.Marvel is now having a tv show as well as a main character in the avengers game) But overall, DC New 52 was the much needed push that helped drive the industry in the right direction.

[leo619]

Actually, as someone previously stated in another post, the New 52 gets a lot of unearned credit for boosting sales when a lot of that boost occurred because of the fact that same-day digital releases launched at the same time.

Um, another one of the new 52's initial push was the drive to same day digital releases. The new 52 represented certain core ideas, and the push to digital releases was one of them. So New 52 clearly deserves the credit of getting comics to same day digital releases, as that was one of the core values New 52 wanted to focus on.

Secondly, the same day releases did not perform massive changes to the in store books. In anything, comic book stores were concern that same day digital releases were going to harm comic book stores sales initially. But the opposite occurred, new demographics were coming into comic book stores to pick up books, as many comic book stores saw new customers appear to pick up books because they finally had characters they were interested in.

[Vordan]

Wallace was bad until they let an actual black writer use him (which is what they should’ve done with the New 52 in the first place but Lee and Harras gave jobs to their old buddies from Marvel, Image, and Wildstorm in the most blatant example of cronyism I’ve seen), but I thought Bunker was cool. What was wrong with him?

Of the characters you listed only Cass could be considered above C-List, I mean Bloodwynd? Seriously? No one gives a **** about Bloodwynd lmao. And Cass was thoroughly ruined Pre-Flashpoint by all the crap Didio did to her, (remember she was evil in the most blatant example of character assassination they had to hand wave away with drugs which was even stupider) so it’s not like Pre-Flashpoint treated the DC PoC well. New 52 dropped the ball a lot in that regard, I didn’t like what they did with Mr. Terrific, but the intent was to make the DCU less lily white and that’s not a bad thing.

[manwhohaseverything]

Um yes, seeing as before New 52 happened, DC did not have a single solo POC minority book issued. SDCC revealed that the DC readership was over 87% white males over the age of 28, the big 7 was all white and a alien, hell Dwayne McDuffie had a slew of videos on youtube talking about the issues of diversity with DC comics pre-52. I can go on and on regarding the issues of Pre-52 diversity problems, but that was one of the key reasons they stated New 52 was going to addressed, the clearly lack of diversity that was represented.

New 52 came forth and presented a slew of changes that made waves in the industry. Bringing Cyborg as finally a POC to represent the big 7, having 4 POC solo books being released at launch, different genre's of books, and so on. Both Wally West and Bunker became better over time to where Wally is a fully realized character today. The readership changed to where a survey revealed during the middle of New 52 indicated that less than 70% of the readers were white males. It doesn't matter what characters you have in your stable, it matters what you're doing with those characters, and New 52 creative ideas were doing a lot more with their diverse characters than before pre-52, but the most important thing was the push that New 52 help drive. Now that doesn't change the fact that the execution of these ideas were subpar in many cases, and that's why I said Marvel capitalize on DC's initial drive. New 52 had great ideas, but poor execution on certain books cause their initial pushes to drop. Marvel saw these flaws, and came out with ANAD which helped push Marvel into the successful state it is today (to where Ms.Marvel is now having a tv show as well as a main character in the avengers game) But overall, DC New 52 was the much needed push that helped drive the industry in the right direction.

I don't think preflashpoint did much for diversity. The idea that new52 heaven of diversity is nonsense. Cyborg got no mileage by becoming the so called big seven. He still is the same.But Now, he is devoid of his titans history and relationships. Not much of a great improvement. As for wally, he became changes only got good after the original came back and when someone competent wrote him . Otherwise the new52 characterisation was ****, atleast for me. Even now he gets on nerves sometimes. He is basically forgettable otherwise. Both those great changes you mentioned was nonsensical.

[Frontier]

Wallace was bad until they let an actual black writer use him (which is what they should’ve done with the New 52 in the first place but Lee and Harras gave jobs to their old buddies from Marvel, Image, and Wildstorm in the most blatant example of cronyism I’ve seen), but I thought Bunker was cool. What was wrong with him?

I don't think Venditti and Van Jensen were from Marvel or Image, but I get your point. Although Joshua Williamson is white and I think he was the first person to start the rehabilitation process on Wallace in my opinion, even if people really liked what Priest did with him.

Of the characters you listed only Cass could be considered above C-List, I mean Bloodwynd? Seriously? No one gives a **** about Bloodwynd lmao. And Cass was thoroughly ruined Pre-Flashpoint by all the crap Didio did to her, (remember she was evil in the most blatant example of character assassination they had to hand wave away with drugs which was even stupider) so it’s not like Pre-Flashpoint treated the DC PoC well. New 52 dropped the ball a lot in that regard, I didn’t like what they did with Mr. Terrific, but the intent was to make the DCU less lily white and that’s not a bad thing.

I still maintain Post-Crisis was more diverse then the New 52 or Rebirth with all the different PoC and diverse heroes existing...maybe not all of them were prominent, but they were definitely gone after the reboot hit.

[Vordan]

I don't think Venditti and Van Jensen were from Marvel or Image, but I get your point. Although Joshua Williamson is white and I think he was the first person to start the rehabilitation process on Wallace in my opinion, even if people really liked what Priest did with him.

I still maintain Post-Crisis was more diverse then the New 52 or Rebirth with all the different PoC and diverse heroes existing...maybe not all of them were prominent, but they were definitely gone after the reboot hit.

I was thinking more of guys like Liefeld and Lobdell writing so many books, all of which were pretty awful imo. It’s a fair point that maybe the overall number of nonwhite heroes went down after the reboot, but if those heroes rarely even got any focus aside from being used as fodder for events, is that really much of a loss? I’d rather have less diverse heroes numberwise if it meant the ones we got were featured more prominently than the reverse but I acknowledge that’s a matter of opinion.

[leo619]

I don't think preflashpoint did much for diversity. The idea that new52 heaven of diversity is nonsense. Cyborg got no mileage by becoming the so called big seven. He still is the same.But Now, he is devoid of his titans history and relationships. Not much of a great improvement. As for wally, he became changes only got good after the original came back and when someone competent wrote him . Otherwise the new52 characterisation was ****, atleast for me. Even now he gets on nerves sometimes. He is basically forgettable otherwise. Both those great changes you mentioned was nonsensical.

You clearly aren't reading my post, as no where did I indicate that new 52 was heaven for diversity. Here's a clear quote of my original statement.

It doesn't matter what characters you have in your stable, it matters what you're doing with those characters, and New 52 creative ideas were doing a lot more with their diverse characters than before pre-52, but the most important thing was the push that New 52 help drive. Now that doesn't change the fact that the execution of these ideas were subpar in many cases, and that's why I said Marvel capitalize on DC's initial drive.

Secondly, Cyborg's "titan's history and relationships" is not a diverse characteristic, that's a classic fan viewpoint. Cyborg's titan history and relationship has absolutely nothing to do with the type push and treatment he could have receive as a founding member of a big 7, (which for many of those that valued diversity, saw this change as a big plus originally) You go the cyborg appreciation thread, and you'll see those that valued his change to the big 7 were looking for key dynamics that was sadly not executed in new 52 (stop with the man vs machine stories, treat him like a valued member of the big 7 versus getting ripped up every 5 issues, explore different dynamics of Cyborg, etc) So Cyborg's execution was definitely lacking outside of a few select writers doing him justice, but that has nothing to do history.


Secondly, Wally changes happen WAY before the original came back. DC heard the backlash of writing him stereotypically and we started seeing progression from around issue 50, a good time before he became Kid Flash and WAY before the original came up. If you found him forgettable, that's your dynamic, but you don't get to speak for those that actually enjoy the characters or enjoy the potential changes New 52 brought.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Um yes, seeing as before New 52 happened, DC did not have a single solo POC minority book issued. SDCC revealed that the DC readership was over 87% white males over the age of 28, the big 7 was all white and a alien, hell Dwayne McDuffie had a slew of videos on youtube talking about the issues of diversity with DC comics pre-52. I can go on and on regarding the issues of Pre-52 diversity problems, but that was one of the key reasons they stated New 52 was going to addressed, the clearly lack of diversity that was represented.

New 52 came forth and presented a slew of changes that made waves in the industry. Bringing Cyborg as finally a POC to represent the big 7, having 4 POC solo books being released at launch, different genre's of books, and so on. Both Wally West and Bunker became better over time to where Wally is a fully realized character today. The readership changed to where a survey revealed during the middle of New 52 indicated that less than 70% of the readers were white males. It doesn't matter what characters you have in your stable, it matters what you're doing with those characters, and New 52 creative ideas were doing a lot more with their diverse characters than before pre-52, but the most important thing was the push that New 52 help drive. Now that doesn't change the fact that the execution of these ideas were subpar in many cases, and that's why I said Marvel capitalize on DC's initial drive. New 52 had great ideas, but poor execution on certain books cause their initial pushes to drop. Marvel saw these flaws, and came out with ANAD which helped push Marvel into the successful state it is today (to where Ms.Marvel is now having a tv show as well as a main character in the avengers game) But overall, DC New 52 was the much needed push that helped drive the industry in the right direction.

Dude, you do know the criticisms for the lack of diversity continued well into the New 52, right? Your point might mean something if any of the POC character titles lasted long, but they didn't. Also, a lot of them were just bad and/or horribly mismanaged. Blue Beetle? Canceled. Mister Terrific? Awful and canceled. Voodoo? Canceled and quickly forgotten.

Also, I don't know where you are getting your numbers, but the studies conducted actually showed that the New 52 didn't do much at all to attract new readers. And on top of that, there was a decided lack of tone when it came to the actual books. This article summed up a lot of the issues with the New 52:

A month ago DC Comics came out with a big announcement: they are ditching the New 52.

That is, they're ditching the branding and editorial focus that's been the standard at the company since late 2011, that manifested in an infamous hard reboot of DC Comics continuity. The New 52 has been criticized for its lack of diversity both on the page and behind it, plagued by creator changes as numerous writers and artists quit, citing far-too-regular clashes with restrictive editorial oversight. The first Nielsen poll of DC's comic-buying audience showed that the rebranding had mostly increased sales from folks already reading DC books rather than grabbing new readers, and in the intervening years companies like Marvel and Image climbed the sales rankings with unexpected hits decidedly outside of the New 52's standard superhero mold.

Also, in what world can we qualify what they did to Cyborg as a good thing? For a significant amount of time in the New 52, Cyborg was irrelevant because he didn't receive any character development in the Justice League title let alone outside of it. It even became an ongoing joke that he just sat in the Watchtower all the time while everyone else would go out and have lives. Not to mention that he served almost no purpose on the team aside from being a glorified taxi to transport them places via boom tube. Plus, even when they did try to give him his own solo title, it suffered from a lack of meaningful direction because the character no longer had a lore that grounded him in the DC Universe. The sales of said titles reflected that. At least when he was a Titan, he had important relationships and backstory and development and was actually one of the characters considered essential to the team.

We can also argue that the media adaptations of Cyborg as a Titan did 10X more for his popularity than any of the ones showing him as a member of the League. What is the most liked version that you see people celebrating? That would probably be the one from TTGo and/or the original TT animated series. That's...pretty sad when you consider that he was in an actual ******action movie as a member of the League.

Yeah, so, was it really a good thing to take Cyborg from being a core character in the Titans lore and one of the team's leaders to being irrelevant on the Justice League?? I don't think so.

Even if the intentions were well-meaning, the New 52 failed because a lot of the ideas were either wrongheaded or flat-out bad and failed to grasp the aspects of these characters that have made them endure for so long.

Also, ironically, Wallace's development from stereotype to actually well-flushed out character is something that really only took place in Rebirth when he joined the cast of Priest's Deathstroke title. So, it's ironic that you cite that as an example but say that you aren't a fan of Rebirth.

[leo619]

I was thinking more of guys like Liefeld and Lobdell writing so many books, all of which were pretty awful imo. It’s a fair point that maybe the overall number of nonwhite heroes went down after the reboot, but if those heroes rarely even got any focus aside from being used as fodder for events, is that really much of a loss? I’d rather have less diverse heroes numberwise if it meant the ones we got were featured more prominently than the reverse but I acknowledge that’s a matter of opinion.

Exactly, as a POC, I don't care if you have 5 trillion poc characters that's almost never in use or just remaining background characters. I care about if you're using those characters, and the priority you're giving those POC characters. I'd take 5 solo POC books attempts over being on the bench or getting 2 panels in a team book any day of the week.