Anyone else feels like 2011-2020 was Dan DiDio's insane fanfic and now...

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Oh, you're were saying that the 90's version would not exist in Didios universe, got it.

Yep. LOL. 10char

[witchboy]

Yeah its a little hard to argue against that when we have all-new Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman (Yara), Green Lantern (Jo), Aquaman (Jackson/Kaldur), and I guess Wally West (look I know he's a classic and people should read Mark Waid's run, but he pretty much just took up the mantle after 10 years of Barry who some see as the original now).

I have felt like the 5G plans, while toned down and paced out, are still going on. It feels like things are going on autopilot to me.
I'm kind of salty over confusing talk of "everything counts" while the contradictory things are ignored so I feel like I don't know what's going on.
Superman is off in space instead of dealing with the fallout of revealing his secret identity. Yet again neglecting his son, while Jon, who's been introduced and aged to adulthood in about 5 or 6 years, is taking over the mantle of Superman.
But I do still feel relieved that Didio is gone after so many years of him deliberately trying to alienate the fans.

[John Venus]

My image of the DCU is coloured by stuff like 90's Bat books, Perez's WW, O'Neill's Question, Ostrander's Spectre, Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans, Timm/Dini/McDuffie's DCAU cartoons, Morrison/Waid/Kelly's JLA, Gaiman's Books of Magic as well as his Sandman run, Morrison's Animal Man run, Goyer/Johns JSA; books that pushed the boundaries of imagination and possibilities of superheroes and where it felt like the creators had a story to tell and a strong sense of purpose and direction. You were invested in what the characters were going through as much as you did the concepts they were trying to push.

This is not to say there weren't gems in his era, I enjoyed All Star Superman, Rucka's Wonder Woman, Busiek's Secret Identity, Superman Birthright and a few other books but it also felt like there was no real direction, a car constantly swerving left and right, unable to decide which direction it was headed in or whenever a new creative possibility starts to sprout from the ground, it gets nipped along with the bud and if writer/editors were playing favorites and screwing over other people's characters to generate outrage which they thought would translate into sales, then what hope is there that your favourite will survive? And if new characters just disappear into the ether, then how are you expecting newer readers to get invested in them? It didn't feel like they were trying to build something, it felt more like they just wanted to tear things down and force everything to fit into a narrow viewpoint of what they felt the universe should be like and at the same time generate sales by doing big gimmicky sales stunts. Plus I think DC itself has gotten too self reflective and meta in their stories lately.

Just look at how weak all the team books were by the time Didio left. Teen Titans, Legion, Doom Patrol, Outsiders, Birds of Prey, they were all once DC's strongest books. Yes, some of their problems (like the Legion), stemmed from the original COIE but by they had three decades and multiple reboots to fix that and they still haven't.

[Lee Stone]

Just look at how weak all the team books were by the time Didio left. Teen Titans, Legion, Doom Patrol, Outsiders, Birds of Prey, they were all once DC's strongest books. Yes, some of their problems (like the Legion), stemmed from the original COIE but by they had three decades and multiple reboots to fix that and they still haven't.

I agree.
Even if you don't count the classic '80s runs for several of them, you still have the Johns Teen Titans, the DnA Legion, the Winick Outsiders, the Simone Birds of Prey, the Johns JSA...

[married guy]

The excitement for the New 52 petered out pretty quickly for me and once that happened I was left with a DCU that didn't know if it was Arthur or Martha.
Whole characters were simply removed from the DCU, but other histories were completely intact.
Favourites were lost, and I simply stopped buying almost everything DC.

Right now? I'm buying more DC books than I have since the early 90's and have more interest in what's coming than I have in over a decade.

[HsssH]

Now of course there were some really bad decisions like keeping Batman & Green Lantern's continuity and not allowing Morrison to finish his run but over all it was a very exciting time to simply read superhero comics without the baggage of continuity.

Morrison finished it during New 52. Asides of some minor changes like Dick being back as Nightwing it didn't look like Morrison had to change much.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Well, the thing is that there are kind of 2 Dan Didio eras:

- Up until 2008, more or less, Dan Didio seemed to be actually trying to make the DCU work, even if with varied attempts to morph him into what his vision was like.

- From that point onward, he was just hellbent on bringing forth his DCU. From them on, yeah, it got pretty fanfic-y.

Had the New52 been better planned, on not so keen on erasing stuff, just streamlining and updating (kinda like Ultimate Marvel), it could have worked and endured just like the post-Crisis period did.

Right now things are good, though, in my book. No character is being mistreated and no fanbase antagonized - some characters are benched, yes, but these are ones that had all the things for the last 15 years. At this point, some extra attention is being given to characters who were on Dan's hit list for too long. That's a good thing. Won't last forever. The relationship among creators and editorial seems to be better than ever from the outside. Also good.

Sure, a reboot/fixing of the timeline is bound to come (I'd bet in 25 or 26, may come sooner), but right now doing it would not be sustainable: we've just had about 3 to 4 years of the messiest state DC continuity has ever been - and that's mostly Dan fault for clinging too tight to his vision when it clearly didn't work.

[Nite-Wing]

DC fans love to embelish how bad Didio was for DC
imo he was just a face to all the bad decisions and now we have no face to whine about when the same things happen again

Ideally Didio used his hatedom perfectly and took on a lot of the tantrums that should have been directed at Geoff Johns or Jim Lee for many years.
Nowadays people like Snyder and King are absolutely getting destroyed online primarily because there is no Didio to take the blame for their writing

I imagine sooner or later Williamson will run afoul of the internet and become a target

In many ways this online hatedom reminds me of the old DC boards on DCcomics website. Now with social media its a lot easier to reach a writer/editor/creator and express yourself good or bad

[bat39]

Well, the thing is that there are kind of 2 Dan Didio eras:

- Up until 2008, more or less, Dan Didio seemed to be actually trying to make the DCU work, even if with varied attempts to morph him into what his vision was like.

- From that point onward, he was just hellbent on bringing forth his DCU. From them on, yeah, it got pretty fanfic-y.

Had the New52 been better planned, on not so keen on erasing stuff, just streamlining and updating (kinda like Ultimate Marvel), it could have worked and endured just like the post-Crisis period did.

Right now things are good, though, in my book. No character is being mistreated and no fanbase antagonized - some characters are benched, yes, but these are ones that had all the things for the last 15 years. At this point, some extra attention is being given to characters who were on Dan's hit list for too long. That's a good thing. Won't last forever. The relationship among creators and editorial seems to be better than ever from the outside. Also good.

Sure, a reboot/fixing of the timeline is bound to come (I'd bet in 25 or 26, may come sooner), but right now doing it would not be sustainable: we've just had about 3 to 4 years of the messiest state DC continuity has ever been - and that's mostly Dan fault for clinging too tight to his vision when it clearly didn't work.

I agree there were two Dan Didio 'eras' (at least). Not sure if I'd pick 2008 as the cut-off point though.

I think the period from the end of IC in 2006 up till the New 52 reboot in 2011 (what I guess we often refer to as the Pre-Flashpoint era) was probably the era that laid the heaviest emphasis on respect for the past, for legacy, and for building an all-encompassing DCU. It retained the framework of the Post-Crisis DCU, while bringing back a lot of the Pre-Crisis DCU. It was all about creating a sandbox which had all the toys and not just the ones that were 'allowed' after COIE.

The New 52 was the end of that.

I feel the current era is trying to recapture the spirit of that era, by incorporating continuity and concepts from both sides of the Flashpoint divide and making the sandbox bigger than ever. But of course, it has to deal with even bigger continuity nightmares and an arguably more divided fanbase and tougher business environment (not to mention a rather swift internal reorganization).

[The Cool Thatguy]

Infinite Crisis and OYL to me, seemed to be when Dan D started attempting to reshape the DCU into that of his childhood

[Robanker]

The "real DCU" doesn't exist as a quantifiable thing because it's different for everyone and consists of the 3-9 month period where they thought "damn these books have me hooked" and it's been downhill ever since with glimmers of a return to form. Is it the gold/silver/bronze age? Is it the early 80s? Late 80s? Extreme 90s? Pre-Infinite Crisis? Post? Final Crisis era? New 52? DC YOU? Rebirth? Post-Rebirth? This new post-metal "everything matters because I'm tired of continuity shackling my stories hey wait that just shackles us differently awwww fuu--" era?

There are certainly some sweeping changes and shifts in tone, but until I see superheroes get their civilian IDs and supporting casts back as well as a shift away from constantly crossing over with other IP instead of telling stories with the characters organic to that universe (so no more having Clark call Bruce as his resident smart friend when John Henry Irons is also on speed dial) then the real DCU isn't back. The destruction and further homogenizing of each specific slice of the DCU has made the entire thing far more shallow as a result.

And if that doesn't sound like the real DCU to you, well, that proves my first point.

This question is so subjective it cannot possibly have a proper answer other than "ayo boys, my DC is back" while subsequently rubbing salt in the wound of those who feel their DC slipped away (you know, fans of Jon Kent as a little boy).

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Well, the thing is that there are kind of 2 Dan Didio eras:

- Up until 2008, more or less, Dan Didio seemed to be actually trying to make the DCU work, even if with varied attempts to morph him into what his vision was like.

Agreed. I think Didio was much more "unleashed" once Paul Levitz retired and Didio didn't have to worry about him shooting down some of his terrible ideas. I mean, didn't Didio want to reboot the DCU after Final Crisis but was vetoed by Levitz?

[king81992]

My image of the DCU is coloured by stuff like 90's Bat books, Perez's WW, O'Neill's Question, Ostrander's Spectre, Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans, Timm/Dini/McDuffie's DCAU cartoons, Morrison/Waid/Kelly's JLA, Gaiman's Books of Magic as well as his Sandman run, Morrison's Animal Man run, Goyer/Johns JSA; books that pushed the boundaries of imagination and possibilities of superheroes and where it felt like the creators had a story to tell and a strong sense of purpose and direction. You were invested in what the characters were going through as much as you did the concepts they were trying to push.

This is not to say there weren't gems in his era, I enjoyed All Star Superman, Rucka's Wonder Woman, Busiek's Secret Identity, Superman Birthright and a few other books but it also felt like there was no real direction, a car constantly swerving left and right, unable to decide which direction it was headed in or whenever a new creative possibility starts to sprout from the ground, it gets nipped along with the bud and if writer/editors were playing favorites and screwing over other people's characters to generate outrage which they thought would translate into sales, then what hope is there that your favourite will survive? And if new characters just disappear into the ether, then how are you expecting newer readers to get invested in them? It didn't feel like they were trying to build something, it felt more like they just wanted to tear things down and force everything to fit into a narrow viewpoint of what they felt the universe should be like and at the same time generate sales by doing big gimmicky sales stunts. Plus I think DC itself has gotten too self reflective and meta in their stories lately.

Just look at how weak all the team books were by the time Didio left. Teen Titans, Legion, Doom Patrol, Outsiders, Birds of Prey, they were all once DC's strongest books. Yes, some of their problems (like the Legion), stemmed from the original COIE but by they had three decades and multiple reboots to fix that and they still haven't.

I'd argue that the team books are weaker now, the weakness under Didio was due to incompetence and the current weakness is causes by the lack of notable team booksor incompetence, depending on your POV. You have SS which isn't good, JL which isn't interesting and TTA where the team is shafted to promote Red X/ new characters who so far haven't intrigued me. Infinite Frontier seems to be building up to a team being formed, but its more of a vehicle to shill the next event.

[FFJamie94]

Here's my thoughts, but take it with a pinch of salt as I don't follow DC nearly as much as I follow Marvel.
But I feel the problems with both are nearly identical in nature, and that is simply that editors and publishers stay in the job for a little too long.

I remember when the New52 was... well new. It seemed like a breath of fresh air for everyone, so much that Marvel found themselves going through a similar publishing phrase known as "Marvel Now".
I want to state that the only books I read around this time from DC where Batman (and this was coming at the end of Snyder's run) and Batman and Robin Eternal.
But from what I can gather, New52 started off good, it just suffered from a lack of communication and planning which is the two most important things when running any comic book company.

From what I can tell, Dan Didio's role seemed very similar to that of Joe Quesda or Axel Alonso, at least as being the face of the company. And much like those two, I feel Dan should have parted ways with DC after New52.

That's not to say everything he did afterwards was wrong, I remember Rebirth being an exciting new breath of life in DC, and at that point Marvel were losing any goodwill they gained from Marvel Now (which I think in retrospect, we can safely say was a more successful initiative than New52).
Didio's ideas seemed more to refresh DC every few years rather than just let things play out, it seems like a more obsessive version of Marvel's constant reboots.

I wouldn't say 2011-2020 was a lost decade, much like other comic publishers, good things and bad things come out at the same time. We had Snyder's Batman, Morrison's Green Lantern and a host of other successful books.
It saw the launch of Black Label and even through they are now not looked upon greatly, New52 and Rebirth were released to a much larger fanfare than Marvel Now and All New, All Different Marvel.

As easy as it is to break things down in smaller chunks, good pieces of work still came out this decade for DC, it won't be seen to be as bad the 90's. IF seems like a good place to restart, it's a new direction for the Company and hopefully things start to improve. I on;y want good comics that People enjoy to be released.

Anyway, like I said, take it with a pinch of salt, I haven't really been following DC for most of the decade, only picking up pieces here and there, I'm not even really interested in any of the events that they've produced during the last few years, only really sticking with the few titles that I really enjoy. But I hope this helps gives some insight to a sort of outsider.

[HsssH]

There are certainly some sweeping changes and shifts in tone, but until I see superheroes get their civilian IDs and supporting casts back as well as a shift away from constantly crossing over with other IP instead of telling stories with the characters organic to that universe (so no more having Clark call Bruce as his resident smart friend when John Henry Irons is also on speed dial) then the real DCU isn't back. The destruction and further homogenizing of each specific slice of the DCU has made the entire thing far more shallow as a result.

Amen to that.