5G and what was to have been

[Avi]

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dan-...apter-sixteen/

In the original 5G plans, 2025 would have been the moment where DC Comics and Warner Bros would have judged whether or not 5G had been a success and what response to the new line was. If it was seen as a success, it would continue, But if not, there was a planned Big Red Reset Button in the plot, around the final death of Batman and Superman, which could have wiped out 5G in its entirety

So it would have basically been a dragged-out event going for about three years... but they would have very likely scrambled to pull to plug earlier.


A 52 weekly series would have probably still worked quite well for Infinite Frontier to introduce the 5G characters better and explore their relationship to the already established characters.

[Digifiend]

We definitely dodged a bullet here, that's for sure.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I would've been fine with a new generation. But this feels too excessive where a simple 5 year time skip or something like Future's end would've been better.

This just feels like they are trying to over correct from the new 52.

[Myskin]

Already posted in the Superman forum:
After reading the entirety of the 5G pitches, I'll say this:
personally speaking, I wouldn't have been necessarily against it in principle: I see the idea of creating a 5-year-long storyline followed a new reboot, and maybe another 5-year-storyline, and later another one, as a relatively new way of conceiving corporate comics (but New52 was already part of it, basically) but not necessarily unsuccessful in terms of sales - not among new generations of readers and not even among old fans, because if there is one detail I have understood about old fans is that no matter how much old fans hate the direction DC is currently taking, they'll never stop buying the books, if nothing else to verbally destroy them on CBR forum (and verbally destroying Didio on forums has always counted zero, basically).

That said, some ideas are fine, others are utterly bizarre or downright silly (in particular Superman more or less inciting the entire JLA to renounce their secret identities), but the fatal flaw - unfortunately - is exactly the main point of the entire storyline, that is this unhealthy obsession with the legacy characters replacing the mentors, which in all honesty doesn't seem entirely like Didio's idea, because it sounds suspiciously as WB's Nth attempt to preserve the characters' copyrights before they fall into the public domain.

As far as I know, in the whole history of DC comics there is ONE successful attempt of a legacy character of some relevance replacing his mentor, and that's Wally West as the Flash. That's it. I don't count Barry Allen as the second Flash and Hal Jordan as the second GL, because they were basically new characters with just some relatively vague ties to their predecessors, and an infinitely better and richer mythology. Not even Kyle Rayner replacing Hal Jordan falls into the same category (provided that Hal Jordan counts as a mentor), because after his "fall" Jordan was the focus of at least 2/3 separate summer crossovers, Kyle Rayner-based storylines and even a series, so basically it was as if he had never left the books. West was the only exception because Allen's demise happened in very specific circumstances, and because Wally West stories introduced a whole new speed force-based mythology which has become the norm for every speedster-related storyline from that moment on. That said, not even Wally West could survive the return of Barry Allen, and I see no reason why way lesser known character, introduced in a moment in which comic books have become just an extremely elitist hobby for few and generally old people could have been successful long-term (unless, as mentioned above, the main concept revolved around rebooting the entire DCU as soon as the legacy characters had become the new face of it).

No matter what they do with them, all of these "heirs" - Luke Fox, Yara Flor, and even Jon Kent - are all more or less redundant. They don't show any remarkable quality which differentiates them from their mentors and taking their place and their name cannot but remind how stronger the mythology of the original characters is. I mean, let's face it - does any current DC reader seriously think that in 5-6 years Yara Flor will still be around? Isn't it more likely that she will be dead, forgotten, in comic book limbo or just present in the stories but basically useless, similarly to what Cassie Sandsmark or even Donna Troy are now? If history has proven anything, it is that legacy characters are incredibly easy to be replaced by OTHER legacy characters. How many Kid Flashes/Robins/Supergirls/Superboys have we had so far?

I am not saying that superheroes will be around forever - quite the contrary, I think that in terms of comics they are becoming more and more dated as time goes by - but as far as I see, IF someone is still reading DC heroes in the future it will be for the original characters, not for some easily replaceable, watered-down copy.

[Felipe Silveira]

Oh look, Civil War

[Thor-Ul]

Nope to all that.

The 5G plan was already set when I met Dan Didio. Aside from the battery being destroyed, nothing I wrote was influenced by it or changed after the fact. Didio was out within three weeks of buying my initial pitch and I wasn't asked to do FUTURE STATE until weeks after that.

There was no vestigial work that I repurposed because I was never part of the original 5G initiative and it was dead before they gave me control of the GL series.

Thanks for the correction then. Is good to know that. Anther point clarified.

[Frontier]

Already posted in the Superman forum:
After reading the entirety of the 5G pitches, I'll say this:
personally speaking, I wouldn't have been necessarily against it in principle: I see the idea of creating a 5-year-long storyline followed a new reboot, and maybe another 5-year-storyline, and later another one, as a relatively new way of conceiving corporate comics (but New52 was already part of it, basically) but not necessarily unsuccessful in terms of sales - not among new generations of readers and not even among old fans, because if there is one detail I have understood about old fans is that no matter how much old fans hate the direction DC is currently taking, they'll never stop buying the books, if nothing else to verbally destroy them on CBR forum (and verbally destroying Didio on forums has always counted zero, basically).

That said, some ideas are fine, others are utterly bizarre or downright silly (in particular Superman more or less inciting the entire JLA to renounce their secret identities), but the fatal flaw - unfortunately - is exactly the main point of the entire storyline, that is this unhealthy obsession with the legacy characters replacing the mentors, which in all honesty doesn't seem entirely like Didio's idea, because it sounds suspiciously as WB's Nth attempt to preserve the characters' copyrights before they fall into the public domain.

As far as I know, in the whole history of DC comics there is ONE successful attempt of a legacy character of some relevance replacing his mentor, and that's Wally West as the Flash. That's it. I don't count Barry Allen as the second Flash and Hal Jordan as the second GL, because they were basically new characters with just some relatively vague ties to their predecessors, and an infinitely better and richer mythology. Not even Kyle Rayner replacing Hal Jordan falls into the same category (provided that Hal Jordan counts as a mentor), because after his "fall" Jordan was the focus of at least 2/3 separate summer crossovers, Kyle Rayner-based storylines and even a series, so basically it was as if he had never left the books. West was the only exception because Allen's demise happened in very specific circumstances, and because Wally West stories introduced a whole new speed force-based mythology which has become the norm for every speedster-related storyline from that moment on. That said, not even Wally West could survive the return of Barry Allen, and I see no reason why way lesser known character, introduced in a moment in which comic books have become just an extremely elitist hobby for few and generally old people could have been successful long-term (unless, as mentioned above, the main concept revolved around rebooting the entire DCU as soon as the legacy characters had become the new face of it).

No matter what they do with them, all of these "heirs" - Luke Fox, Yara Flor, and even Jon Kent - are all more or less redundant. They don't show any remarkable quality which differentiates them from their mentors and taking their place and their name cannot but remind how stronger the mythology of the original characters is. I mean, let's face it - does any current DC reader seriously think that in 5-6 years Yara Flor will still be around? Isn't it more likely that she will be dead, forgotten, in comic book limbo or just present in the stories but basically useless, similarly to what Cassie Sandsmark or even Donna Troy are now? If history has proven anything, it is that legacy characters are incredibly easy to be replaced by OTHER legacy characters. How many Kid Flashes/Robins/Supergirls/Superboys have we had so far?

I am not saying that superheroes will be around forever - quite the contrary, I think that in terms of comics they are becoming more and more dated as time goes by - but as far as I see, IF someone is still reading DC heroes in the future it will be for the original characters, not for some easily replaceable, watered-down copy.

Maybe it would've been different if they'd actually done that Yara Flor Wonder Girl show.

[Lal]

No matter what they do with them, all of these "heirs" - Luke Fox, Yara Flor, and even Jon Kent - are all more or less redundant. They don't show any remarkable quality which differentiates them from their mentors and taking their place and their name cannot but remind how stronger the mythology of the original characters is. I mean, let's face it - does any current DC reader seriously think that in 5-6 years Yara Flor will still be around? Isn't it more likely that she will be dead, forgotten, in comic book limbo or just present in the stories but basically useless, similarly to what Cassie Sandsmark or even Donna Troy are now? If history has proven anything, it is that legacy characters are incredibly easy to be replaced by OTHER legacy characters. How many Kid Flashes/Robins/Supergirls/Superboys have we had so far?

Technically, all the Robins are still doing pretty well. Dick is becoming the big leader of DC and his series is one of DC's top sellers, Damian is the center of a big magic event, Tim is in the main batman book and has his own ongoing, and Jason had Task Force Z, has a planned mini, and in between appears in the Joker's book. They are all still around and all still relevant.

[Johnrevenge]

We definitely dodged a bullet here, that's for sure.

Only a bullet? I would say we dodged multiple bullets. I'm not a fan of neither Batman nor Superman and those ideas seemed very terrible. I'm scared to know what would have been the 5G plans for other characters outside the Batman and Superman's families.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Maybe it would've been different if they'd actually done that Yara Flor Wonder Girl show.

They'd have a reason to keep her comic ongoing but the show would've been it's own thing. I don't see them shooting in Brazil so it probably would be set in the states.

[Konja7]

Technically, all the Robins are still doing pretty well. Dick is becoming the big leader of DC and his series is one of DC's top sellers, Damian is the center of a big magic event, Tim is in the main batman book and has his own ongoing, and Jason had Task Force Z, has a planned mini, and in between appears in the Joker's book. They are all still around and all still relevant.

I wouldn't say the current situation of Tim is good.

Tim is a supporting character in the Batman book, but we don't know how much that will last. Also, Tim's solo doesn't seem to have a good reception.

[Thor-Ul]

From the YouTube interviews with DiDio, it would seem that WW, Supes, and Bruce were to all be taken off the board to fix what he viewed as the primary cause of continuity issues requiring a Crisis to solve. That problem was that the Trinity would never age while those around them did ultimately requiring periodic reboots to fix. The logic is weird though given he brought back Hal, Barry, and Supergirl but okay.

That was because DiDio also liked the media synergy. If you were going to have series or movies with Green Lantern, Flash or Supergirl, you have to had the same characters in the media and in the comics.

[bat39]

Read all the '5G Files'. It sounds like yet another one of those 'dark future' stories, albeit this would be set in the 'main' continuity and dragged out for 3-4 years. There are some interesting ideas here, and maybe it deserved to have its own little universe ala Frank Miller's Dark Knight Universe or Kingdom Universe (and I guess it kinda got that with Future State). But it's definitely not something that should have been the status quo.

I still don't understand the mechanics of Superman and Batman being 'aged up'. So apparently Death Metal would have ended with the 5G timeline in place in which Bruce and Clark are now pushing 60? Okay, but the set-up for some of the 5G narratives (for instance, Bruce getting Joker to kill Bane) would happen before this Death Metal reboot. So how would that work? Is there now retroactively a 20-plus year time-skip? Are Bruce and Clark literally aged up in-universe? Or is it just a totally rebooted timeline, and in this totally rebooted timeline, its a 60 year old Bruce who gets Joker to kill Bane instead of a 40 year old Bruce? In which case, what's the point of doing the story with the 40 year old Bruce making that decision?

Already posted in the Superman forum:
After reading the entirety of the 5G pitches, I'll say this:
personally speaking, I wouldn't have been necessarily against it in principle: I see the idea of creating a 5-year-long storyline followed a new reboot, and maybe another 5-year-storyline, and later another one, as a relatively new way of conceiving corporate comics (but New52 was already part of it, basically) but not necessarily unsuccessful in terms of sales - not among new generations of readers and not even among old fans, because if there is one detail I have understood about old fans is that no matter how much old fans hate the direction DC is currently taking, they'll never stop buying the books, if nothing else to verbally destroy them on CBR forum (and verbally destroying Didio on forums has always counted zero, basically).

That said, some ideas are fine, others are utterly bizarre or downright silly (in particular Superman more or less inciting the entire JLA to renounce their secret identities), but the fatal flaw - unfortunately - is exactly the main point of the entire storyline, that is this unhealthy obsession with the legacy characters replacing the mentors, which in all honesty doesn't seem entirely like Didio's idea, because it sounds suspiciously as WB's Nth attempt to preserve the characters' copyrights before they fall into the public domain.

As far as I know, in the whole history of DC comics there is ONE successful attempt of a legacy character of some relevance replacing his mentor, and that's Wally West as the Flash. That's it. I don't count Barry Allen as the second Flash and Hal Jordan as the second GL, because they were basically new characters with just some relatively vague ties to their predecessors, and an infinitely better and richer mythology. Not even Kyle Rayner replacing Hal Jordan falls into the same category (provided that Hal Jordan counts as a mentor), because after his "fall" Jordan was the focus of at least 2/3 separate summer crossovers, Kyle Rayner-based storylines and even a series, so basically it was as if he had never left the books. West was the only exception because Allen's demise happened in very specific circumstances, and because Wally West stories introduced a whole new speed force-based mythology which has become the norm for every speedster-related storyline from that moment on. That said, not even Wally West could survive the return of Barry Allen, and I see no reason why way lesser known character, introduced in a moment in which comic books have become just an extremely elitist hobby for few and generally old people could have been successful long-term (unless, as mentioned above, the main concept revolved around rebooting the entire DCU as soon as the legacy characters had become the new face of it).

No matter what they do with them, all of these "heirs" - Luke Fox, Yara Flor, and even Jon Kent - are all more or less redundant. They don't show any remarkable quality which differentiates them from their mentors and taking their place and their name cannot but remind how stronger the mythology of the original characters is. I mean, let's face it - does any current DC reader seriously think that in 5-6 years Yara Flor will still be around? Isn't it more likely that she will be dead, forgotten, in comic book limbo or just present in the stories but basically useless, similarly to what Cassie Sandsmark or even Donna Troy are now? If history has proven anything, it is that legacy characters are incredibly easy to be replaced by OTHER legacy characters. How many Kid Flashes/Robins/Supergirls/Superboys have we had so far?

I am not saying that superheroes will be around forever - quite the contrary, I think that in terms of comics they are becoming more and more dated as time goes by - but as far as I see, IF someone is still reading DC heroes in the future it will be for the original characters, not for some easily replaceable, watered-down copy.

I agree. At the end of the day, Bruce Wayne is Batman and Clark Kent is Superman. Period. You can tell a lot of interesting stories with different characters bearing those mantles, but fundamentally that's how it is. And you're right that Wally is probably the only legacy character who was able to supplant the original (and even that couldn't survive the actual return of the original).

[Captain Nostalgia]

Already posted in the Superman forum:
After reading the entirety of the 5G pitches, I'll say this:
personally speaking, I wouldn't have been necessarily against it in principle: I see the idea of creating a 5-year-long storyline followed a new reboot, and maybe another 5-year-storyline, and later another one, as a relatively new way of conceiving corporate comics (but New52 was already part of it, basically) but not necessarily unsuccessful in terms of sales - not among new generations of readers and not even among old fans, because if there is one detail I have understood about old fans is that no matter how much old fans hate the direction DC is currently taking, they'll never stop buying the books, if nothing else to verbally destroy them on CBR forum (and verbally destroying Didio on forums has always counted zero, basically).

That said, some ideas are fine, others are utterly bizarre or downright silly (in particular Superman more or less inciting the entire JLA to renounce their secret identities), but the fatal flaw - unfortunately - is exactly the main point of the entire storyline, that is this unhealthy obsession with the legacy characters replacing the mentors, which in all honesty doesn't seem entirely like Didio's idea, because it sounds suspiciously as WB's Nth attempt to preserve the characters' copyrights before they fall into the public domain.

As far as I know, in the whole history of DC comics there is ONE successful attempt of a legacy character of some relevance replacing his mentor, and that's Wally West as the Flash. That's it. I don't count Barry Allen as the second Flash and Hal Jordan as the second GL, because they were basically new characters with just some relatively vague ties to their predecessors, and an infinitely better and richer mythology. Not even Kyle Rayner replacing Hal Jordan falls into the same category (provided that Hal Jordan counts as a mentor), because after his "fall" Jordan was the focus of at least 2/3 separate summer crossovers, Kyle Rayner-based storylines and even a series, so basically it was as if he had never left the books. West was the only exception because Allen's demise happened in very specific circumstances, and because Wally West stories introduced a whole new speed force-based mythology which has become the norm for every speedster-related storyline from that moment on. That said, not even Wally West could survive the return of Barry Allen, and I see no reason why way lesser known character, introduced in a moment in which comic books have become just an extremely elitist hobby for few and generally old people could have been successful long-term (unless, as mentioned above, the main concept revolved around rebooting the entire DCU as soon as the legacy characters had become the new face of it).

No matter what they do with them, all of these "heirs" - Luke Fox, Yara Flor, and even Jon Kent - are all more or less redundant. They don't show any remarkable quality which differentiates them from their mentors and taking their place and their name cannot but remind how stronger the mythology of the original characters is. I mean, let's face it - does any current DC reader seriously think that in 5-6 years Yara Flor will still be around? Isn't it more likely that she will be dead, forgotten, in comic book limbo or just present in the stories but basically useless, similarly to what Cassie Sandsmark or even Donna Troy are now? If history has proven anything, it is that legacy characters are incredibly easy to be replaced by OTHER legacy characters. How many Kid Flashes/Robins/Supergirls/Superboys have we had so far?

I am not saying that superheroes will be around forever - quite the contrary, I think that in terms of comics they are becoming more and more dated as time goes by - but as far as I see, IF someone is still reading DC heroes in the future it will be for the original characters, not for some easily replaceable, watered-down copy.

I would argue that even the success of Wally West is now in question..... with sales of the Flash out of the top 100 since at least October.

(One could argue that they do have a good writer, and they did next to nothing in promoting the return of Wally West on the title....but nevertheless from my perspective.... DC's cut the Flash fanbase down the middle, with a whole new generation of Barry Allen fans from the tv show and comic, who just want to read Barry Allen, and not the other guy.

( I confess I lean to Barry now, and as a result, despite the good writing....I just lost interest in the Flash)

The most successful legacy character of them all is, Nightwing. Why?

He's not running around as Batman number 2. He has his own identity and costume, and no other Nightwing competitors to disrupt his fanbase. Not surprisingly, he sells better than Superman these days.

[godisawesome]

I think another wrinkle that sort of undermined 5G as a story was Didio’s desire to be a control freak micro-managing and influencing most of the story based off his own biases ideas, and concepts yet again, rather than just be an editor - or at least, to be the chief of a set of control-freak editors doing likewise. Didio and co. were not ruled by poor, shallow, “marketing”-derived creative thinking, but also simply making too much work for themselves and depriving their writing rosters fo serious talent because of how they wanted to control the stories for the franchises.

The reason the Wally West transformation worked (enough that I’d argue he redefined the IP far more than Barry Allen, resulting in a modern Barry Allen who’s more a restrained, less interesting version of Wally) was because those editors knew their jobs - to be a stern-but-encouraging, far-sighted and constructively-critical judge and audience member who has the power to reject a script or story, or contribute to a writer’s brainstorming session, but not to dictate the story. Messner-Loebs and Waid did most of the work on making Wally West work and then exceed Barry Allen, and the editors got to run quality control on them and occasionally provide positive collaboration.

If Didio were the type to simply tell all the book editors “Hey, tell your best writers I’m giving them freedom to evolve the casts and settings into a new generation, and that their goal now is to create a feeling of time progressing. And we don’t control that story - the writers do. So we’re giving Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder, Geoff Johns, Bendis and any other great writer we know permission to go a little nuts for each individual franchise, and we’re on the lookout for new talent to help them.”

Didio and his dudes needed to stop thinking of themselves as Napoleon, looking to achieve their own strategic objectives by giving orders to subordinates they deliberately wanted to lack autonomy and initiative, if they wanted to do 5G. For one, Napoleon eventually, inevitably, made critical strategic errors that doomed his war plans, and his marshals were too limited to carry the banner themselves… and for another, Didio and co. sure as heck ain’t any “Napoleons of comic storytelling.”

They needed to be Eisenhowers - managing personalities and subordinates into doing their best possible work, encouraging positive traits and preventing anyone from succumbing to flaws, and being willing to take strategic objectives from other people above them (political leaders in Eisnehower’s case, the audience in Didio’s case.)

Instead, Didio basically played the part of any of Napoleon III.