Dan Didio era

[Nite-Wing]

There was a lot of bad but some good too
It's amazing how people don't blame jim lee for anything but scapegoat didio for everything bad that's happened

I mean its not coincidence that wildstorm characters just keep popping up in the DCU in high profile books instead of getting the milestone treatment

Well now that the boogeyman is gone the internet doesn't have an obvious punching bag to attack anymore when inevitably something happens that they don't like.

[Bruce Wayne]

Capitalizing on their talent sounds good to me.

That's a no-brainer given Morrison had done runs of JLA and also X-Men with Marvel. Johns had JSA and Avengers. And Snyder had done Detective Comics and had been picked up by Johns to do Swamp Thing. Of course that also kind of ignores all the problematic writers that he gave jobs to such as: Rob Liefeld, Scott Lobdell or Christy Marx who was given jobs purely because she and Didio had worked together at Mainframe and resulted in more experienced writers like Zub getting axed by DC.

[Agent Z]

There was a lot of bad but some good too
It's amazing how people don't blame jim lee for anything but scapegoat didio for everything bad that's happened

I mean its not coincidence that wildstorm characters just keep popping up in the DCU in high profile books instead of getting the milestone treatment

People have called out Lee for his screw ups as well.

[Nite-Wing]

People have called out Lee for his screw ups as well.

The white whale in the situation was always didio
The major things that Jim Lee influenced like the new 52 costumes and the majority of the plots for that two year run of stories never got stuck to him.

[EmeraldGladiator]

he deployed Geoff Johns his hottest writer for a good bit of this era effectively. His work on Green Lantern and the JSA was probably some of the best runs in either of those franchises. He also had a good run on Flash (loved Blitz and Zoom), and the Titans, and even made Hawkman semi-understandable and let Geoff do the best job since Byrne happened to resurrect the Legion of Super Heroes with the retroboot in Superman/Action and with the Legion of three worlds. So after tying this out my general view of Didio has changed quite a bit.

[Dioman-san]

Well, like every era. Nothing it's perfect.

[Sacred Knight]

There was plenty good. He had his biases, especially against the Dick Grayson generation, but there were plenty of hits. I don't think his era was nearly as good as what came before, but there were good things. Then he ran out of ideas, clearly. At the very least he genuinely cared about comics, which is more than can be said for what the publication division is turning into now.

[SiegePerilous02]

There's a lot of good mixed in with the bad. Some of my favorite runs and stories happened in his era: All-Star Superman and New 52 Action comics, Morrison's Batman run, Johns on Green Lantern, 52, New Frontier, some of the experimental titles in the New 52, Kate Kane Batwoman, etc.

But they were mixed in with a lot of ****, especially the targets on the backs of the likes of Dick Grayson, Wally West and Cass Cain. Ideally, we'd get someone who in the same position who'd be able to produce the same amount of highs without all the extreme lows.

I have to give it to him though, the best stuff during his reign got me way more excited than most of the stuff coming down the pipe. I'm tentatively interested in Wonder Woman and Nightwing and really don't care about anything else.

[Gaius]

I really want to know if someone who really liked Wally West was mean to him as a child.

Good stuff: Hal Jordan's return and the subsequent Johns and Morrison runs, New Frontier, Jaimie Reyes Blue Beetle series, 52 Weekly series (even if he hated it),

Mixed: Mis-management of the Superman and Wonder Woman brands despite occasional moments of some great stuff (Superman: All-Star Superman, Morrison New 52, Wonder Woman: Gail Simone's run and Greg Rucka's second run). New 52 was also ultimately probably a good idea but in the end obviously poorly run

Bad: Too many events and seems a poorly run work environment (though this probably pre-dates him). Whatever his vendetta against the Titans was

[byrd156]

His personal creative ideas and a lot of editorial mandates were trash, in spite of him, there were good stories at the time. (Listed in previous posts) Though I don't know if he deserves credit since most of these probably would've happened with any one else in charge any way. From the outside looking in he seemed to get in the way of a lot ideas and would push his own ideas onto stories, he famously hated 52 and did Countdown as a response to it. So many bad crossovers and so on. The New 52. His personal character bias is something that bothers me more than anything.

As a Titans fan, it was rough to put it mildly. There was an air of overall cynicism that while a symptom of the 90s I think really flourished under his time. It kept growing and has killed my interest in comics several times. I don't hate the guy, I just can't stand him as a creative. His idea of DC is very different than mine. I'll leave it at that.

[transformers03]

...scapegoat didio for everything bad that's happened.

Something that goes underappreciated with Didio is that he turned himself into a heel. He purposely allowed himself to come off as the villain so that readers would blame everything on him. He took all the burden so that the other writers and editors wouldn't get the brunt of the online criticism. I remember reading from a post on these forums a while back, and how offended they felt about Didio's heel personality, but I strongly disagree with that notion. It was showmanship, he knew how to play into the crowd, and knew how to keep readers invested or interested in a line. He also protected a lot of writers and editors from scorn because he essentially became the scapegoat for all things that went bad in DC. People seem to forget that there are management teams, company owners, and many others who make all these decisions. Don't forget that normal writers and editors are also capable of bad ideas.

Also, the fact that so many people feel like all the good comic runs that came out during his tenure only came out in spite of Didio's involvement is so demeaning to everything Didio has done well for DC. He's been around for two decades, and DC wasn't burned to the ground; he was obviously doing something right during that time period. I get that fans hated the bad things he did so much that they are not willing to give him the credit for anything good that did happen, but I believe he does deserve some credit for comics like Johns' Green Lantern and Grant Morisson's Batman, as well any other good books.

Don't get me wrong, I do think Didio did a lot of wrongs. I don't take anything personally when it comes to characters I like being mistreated, like Wally West and Dick Grayson, so I was never angry with Didio specifically when it came to what happened to those characters. But based on interviews I read, Didio really, really did not understand the appeal of legacy characters or sidekicks. This is the most evident Didio influence within the comic pages, ranging from replacing Wally West with Barry Allen to "Ric" Grayson, along with many other legacy characters getting the short end of the stick. In behind the scenes sense, he also protected a lot of problematic workers, including that scummy editor whose name I forgot and I don't want to bother looking it up. Not only that, eighteen years to be editor-in-chief is too long for anyone, good or bad.

But my rant is more towards the fact that others don't want to give him the credit he deserves, just because they felt wronged by him of decisions they believed he was the sole proprietor of. However, in my opinion, if you liked any comic run between 2002 to 2020, he deserves some credit for that, and not "in spite of his influence".

[LifeIsILL]

Whether or not those books were good should be what is most important. And if you weren't a character Didio liked, you weren't getting a book.

To say nothing of the crappy work environment which made several writers and artists quit.

The solo ongoings were good for the most part.

It's the team books that were underwhelming. Justice League, Titans, Trinity, Countdown, which took down the entire DC brand.

[Dred]

There was a lot of bad but some good too
It's amazing how people don't blame jim lee for anything but scapegoat didio for everything bad that's happened

I mean its not coincidence that wildstorm characters just keep popping up in the DCU in high profile books instead of getting the milestone treatment

Well now that the boogeyman is gone the internet doesn't have an obvious punching bag to attack anymore when inevitably something happens that they don't like.

When former creatives talk about the stranglehold and misery of working under DC's editorial, it always comes back to Didio rather than Lee. Didio was the one exercising his vetoing and creative control.

[I'm a Fish]

Something that goes underappreciated with Didio is that he turned himself into a heel. He purposely allowed himself to come off as the villain so that readers would blame everything on him. He took all the burden so that the other writers and editors wouldn't get the brunt of the online criticism. I remember reading from a post on these forums a while back, and how offended they felt about Didio's heel personality, but I strongly disagree with that notion. It was showmanship, he knew how to play into the crowd, and knew how to keep readers invested or interested in a line. He also protected a lot of writers and editors from scorn because he essentially became the scapegoat for all things that went bad in DC. People seem to forget that there are management teams, company owners, and many others who make all these decisions. Don't forget that normal writers and editors are also capable of bad ideas.

Hmm, I'm not to sure about that. I've heard stories of him mistreating his writers, I don't think that justifies whatever "burden" he took so readers wouldn't pick on writers, it sounds like he was doing that to the writers himself. He was also notoriously suborn in his belief that "heroes are boring if they are happy", which was very constricting for many writers. It sounds like he promoted a constricting work environment in an industry that's build on the notion that anything can happen, which also sounds very frustrating and potentially toxic for any writer since it puts you in a creative bind. He was passionate about the world and characters, but it sounds like he was only passionate about his version of the world and characters.

I'm not saying that all stories that he was involved in are bad, but I'm not buying that he purposely made himself a "villain" to take the edge of of writers. I think he earned his criticism due to mismanagement and not a public persona he put on to protect his writers.

Also, if you take credit for everything, than you take credit for what goes right as well. No one can be sure that wasn't his angle and it just backfired.

Also, the fact that so many people feel like all the good comic runs that came out during his tenure only came out in spite of Didio's involvement is so demeaning to everything Didio has done well for DC. He's been around for two decades, and DC wasn't burned to the ground; he was obviously doing something right during that time period. I get that fans hated the bad things he did so much that they are not willing to give him the credit for anything good that did happen, but I believe he does deserve some credit for comics like Johns' Green Lantern and Grant Morisson's Batman, as well any other good books.

Don't get me wrong, I do think Didio did a lot of wrongs. I don't take anything personally when it comes to characters I like being mistreated, like Wally West and Dick Grayson, so I was never angry with Didio specifically when it came to what happened to those characters. But based on interviews I read, Didio really, really did not understand the appeal of legacy characters or sidekicks. This is the most evident Didio influence within the comic pages, ranging from replacing Wally West with Barry Allen to "Ric" Grayson, along with many other legacy characters getting the short end of the stick. In behind the scenes sense, he also protected a lot of problematic workers, including that scummy editor whose name I forgot and I don't want to bother looking it up. Not only that, eighteen years to be editor-in-chief is too long for anyone, good or bad.

But my rant is more towards the fact that others don't want to give him the credit he deserves, just because they felt wronged by him of decisions they believed he was the sole proprietor of. However, in my opinion, if you liked any comic run between 2002 to 2020, he deserves some credit for that, and not "in spite of his influence".

Wasn't he not really involved in the first 2 years of Rebirth? Rebirth was Johns idea, and initially more successful than New 52 if I remember correctly. Not that I'm called New 52 unsuccessful, but Rebirth basically started by burning some of the biggest complains people had about New 52 to the ground.

[kingaliencracker]

I don't think it is fair to list them since both initiative had great books. But hey, I guess he didn't have anything to do with the good parts of those initiatives and is responsible only for the bad ****.

Both initiatives failed by his own admission. So that's definitely on him.