The Didio thing...

[Buried Alien]

I do.

And they all have gotten stale.

I say create a new character and retire all of them!

ALL OF THEM!

Yeah, but if your plan succeeds, you'll be even more hated than Didio.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[married guy]

I feel like Didio consistently misses the boat on what readers are looking for and love in DC books.

Legacy!

Teen Titans, Titans, and younger favorites that were our gateway into starting the comic habit in the first place.

Relatable characters who DO in fact have personal lives. (Otherwise they are just nameless, faceless costumes...at which point why do I care?)

Didio seems to be overly focused on "protecting the brand", but I have to ask "for whom?" As someone who has learned this lesson over and over in corporate retail,
if you alienate your customer base in favor of some "reach" customer you perceive as better, what you end up with is no customers. Build on your base, but don't piss them off and disdain them. Well, unless you just want to close your doors.

Certainly, some reasonability should be considered regarding the number of characters running around with the same name. Give Wally a new code name, Dick already had one, and they need to just hurry up and name Donna "Fury" (given that Troia is pretty universally hated). But don't shunt all the legacy favorites into obscurity because they compromise the brand. They ARE the brand IMO. Same with Legion and JSA...they give the DC it's history.

This!!
Thank You for articulating what I couldn't!

[Vakanai]

I do.

And they all have gotten stale.

I say create a new character and retire all of them!

ALL OF THEM!

You monster!

[Vordan]

Yeah, but if your plan succeeds, you'll be even more hated than Didio.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Now that would be something to see.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I think what it basically comes down to with Didio is that he is good to genuinely great with the business and marketing side of DC but he is just way too myopic in his tastes to have any business being in charge of DC's creative side.

[Doctor Kent Nelson]

So...

what was Dan Didio doing before he became head honcho of DC and second, how did Jim Lee get so much power there???

[Godlike13]

In Didio’s defense he positions himself as a lighting rod even though he’s probably not responsible for every bad creative decision or mishap. Take Ric for example. I’m not sure that’s on him more so the the current Bat office and the books actual current editors, but he seems to get most of the blame nevertheless.

[Denirac]

In Didio’s defense he positions himself as a lighting rod even though he’s probably not responsible for every bad creative decision or mishap. Take Ric for example. I’m not sure that’s on him more so the the current Bat office and the books actual current editors, but he seems to get most of the blame nevertheless.

Ric is Him, He's actively been campaigning to destroy or Kill Nightwing for Years, Infinite Crisis and Forever Evil had Johns here to stop him, Trading Conner Kent, a Favourite of His for Grayson in Infinite Crisis and launching the whole Secret Agent thing in the New 52 from Forever Evil: The Minute Johns leaves he kills off Roy Harper and potentially does worse to Wally and Ric happens despite Tom King having a different idea with Tim filling in while Dick recovers and Percy planning a Fear of Heights angle

[The Darknight Detective]

He loves the versions of characters he was introduced to when he was younger.

If that's the case, then he's no different than the vast majority of people on this site.

[Restingvoice]

During the New 52, Didio shared a photo of his notes of what he wants when he first became an editor. The list includes
- Kill unused Titans member.
- Kill Dick Grayson (or make him evil) and make Jason Todd Nightwing
- Pair Superman with Wonder Woman (I forgot if he wanted Lois to die or become evil)
That's not all of them, but those are what I remember. I saved the picture but it's been a while so I forgot which folder I saved it in.

The list stood out to me since I started reading the New 52 at the time and most of the things that he wrote came true during the New 52. Superman and Wonder Woman became a pair, the Titans are nonexistent, Nightwing avoided the chopping block, again, but Jason became Batman's go-to-guy in crossovers during the time Dick is a secret agent, a role usually filled by Nightwing.

Silver Age seems to be what he likes. He personally wrote Forever People and brought back Silver Age titles during New 52 that I never heard before like The Green Team, while ignoring or outright banning characters who already have fans like Cassandra Cain the 90s Batgirl or Stephanie Brown the 2000s Batgirl. Snyder asked to use Cassandra Cain in his hit The Court of Owls but was refused, so he created Harper Row. It's to the point where even a homage to them drawn by Dustin Nguyen in out of continuity comic Li'l Gotham, drawing of cosplayers cosplaying Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain were ordered to be recolored so they don't look like them. I don't know what changed his mind and allow them to return during the Eternal series, but there was a move to change DC stories to be happier at the time. It was during the time Batgirl of Burnside and Harley Quinn began.

He created a mandate of no marriage during New 52 and said that the Bat Family shouldn't be happy or something like that.

Johns had to fight him to make Nightwing's costume blue again. His was red during the New 52 which, because all of the Robins are red, I think they made it so the Robins are uniform.

Speaking of uniform Robins, the New 52 made a clear hierarchy where all Justice League members except Cyborg and Wonder Woman heads a family title, and all the other family members of that character work under the head and have to follow the head.

Example, Nightwing who used to have his own logo now have to use Batman logo under his title. All the other sidekick title from Red Hood to Superboy to all the other Lantern titles have to follow the story set by Batman or Superman or Green Lantern. This still happens even with Rebirth.

Oh and I notice the whole follow the family head stories started with Didio's reign starting Infinite Crisis, because as far as I remember, while there are crossovers like No Man's Land, titles like Nightwing were free to have their own stories without much interference, as in, the fate of his story doesn't rely on what happened in Batman. Until they nuked his city during Infinite Crisis. That's when sidekick title started to really be interrupted by the head titles.

The promotion for New 52 is reintroducing iconic characters to new readers, such as bringing back Barbara as Batgirl, but it's pretty clear there's bias in the line because The Flash nonreaders were familiar with is Wally West and he's nowhere to be found. Johns brought him back in Rebirth, but as soon as Johns decided to relinquish his role to fully be a writer again, Wally is killed off. So I know the Wally problem isn't Johns but Didio.

Oh, I forgot, in one interview or free digital DC promotional issue or something like that, Didio mentioned that Dick became Batman under his reign, and while he did want to kill Nightwing, he learned his lesson and understood his importance and don't have it in for Dick Grayson anymore.

He still likes to troll people though, at one point during Forever Evil, he tweeted his answer why he killed Dick in that event is because people protest that there's too many Robins. (the protest was that in the 5 years timeline of New 52 it doesn't make sense to have all the Robins already existing)

[Dred]

It's so hard to compare Barry-Flash to Wally-Flash because all Barry-Flash stories were written before Crisis. In the Silver Age and Bronze Age (until they killed Iris and tried to make Barry's comic more soap operaish), Barry was the classic DC one-dimensional good guy.

But, you know what? Pre-Crisis, so was Wally.

It's not always fair for Wally lovers to say that Barry was boring, because before Crisis, all DC characters except maybe Green Arrow and the newer ones like Firestorm and Black Lightning were basically written the same way.

Getting into the characters' heads and having them be conflicted was a Marvel thing. SOME of that feeling was brought over to DC by the Marvel writers who came in the early 80s like Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas, but even Wolfman's Wally was still basically a Midwest good guy.

So, it's understandable to me why there are people who prefer Wally. Not only because they grew up with him, but because Wally had the benefit of Post-Crisis writing that Barry never had. Even when Waid took over and made Wally likable again, he still made Wally fleshed out and three-dimensional.

I'm more of a Barry fan than Wally, so I was glad to see Barry be brought back and be given the benefit of being written by today's writers. Now, maybe the results haven't been to everyone's liking, but I don't think it's fair to say that Barry is being written "like Wally" any more than it was fair for DiDio to say that Wally was written "like Barry."

It's just that they are now both being written simultaneously in today's writing style whereas before all people knew of Barry was the Silver-Bronze Age writing style, which of course would make Barry seem corny compared to Wally, but as I said Silver Age Wally was a goody-goody cornball also.

Beyond that, I would also say that while I don't agree with DiDio that Wally, Roy, Dick, Donna, and Garth are redundant and useless, I do feel that they should have their OWN identities, and except for Wally they DO.

I think since Wally discovered the Speed Force, that should always be his "thing." In other words, he's the expert on that. Barry is the expert on understanding vibrations and how to travel to different parallel universes that vibrate at different frequencies. Barry was the first to do that.

Each speedster should be given his own area of expertise and unique way of using speed to make them fun and different. Also, Wally should definitely be given his own name. I'm not a fan of the mantle thing.

We don't need 15 Robins, 10 Wonder Girls, 5 Flashes, etc. It pleases no one and really does create redundancies.

This is nonsense. There were fleshed out characters before Crisis. NTT is synonymous with pushing the character driven story and it came out years before. Wally never even had his own comic book -- he was literally Barry's sidekick and took all his queues from Barry. Saying Wally was "just like Barry" beforehand is because Barry was the way he was. He stopped being like Barry when he left The Flash for NTT and his own comic. The second Wally was given his chance they distanced him from Barry in an innumerable list of ways. They even redid the origin of his powers so as not to be the little Barry clone he was imagined as.

When Barry came back they did the opposite. They took and stripped every single little thing they could get away with from Wally's era and then attributed it to Barry. And they never even pretended to pay respect, unlike Wally's run which is saturated with respect for Barry. To compare the two like it's the same thing is preposterous and disingenuous. Barry's run did everything it could to erase the idea or memory of Wally from the minds of anyone reading it -- it was literally an editorial edict that no mention or allusion to Wally could ever be made (Manapul said as much). Wally's run was just short of deifying Barry, giving him as much credit as humanly possible.

And let me set this straight, Barry wouldn't have gotten just the same kind of comics if he survived Crisis and lived through the 90s. Wally is who he is, fundamentally, because of Mark Waid. And we saw Mark Waid write Barry Allen -- pretty darn well, too, in JLA Year One, Brave and The Bold, and The Life Story of The Flash -- and he was a significantly differently written and handled character. Mark Waid, despite writing the aforementioned love letter "The Life Story of The Flash" about Barry Allen, talked about how he couldn't write the stories he wrote with Wally, with Barry, for obvious reasons. Waid put himself into Wally, something he could not do with Barry -- a fully developed, matured character from the outset. As opposed to Wally, who needed to and did grow over the course of years. To pretend that the only difference between Wally and Barry is when they were being written is also disingenuous, because Barry was being written into the 90s as well. They had different character premises. You weren't getting the best Flash story ever, The Return of Barry Allen, in a world where Barry lives and Wally spends his days calling himself Mr. Zip. Or just never becoming a hero because Barry's death is what brought him back from giving up the hero life.

If you want Wally to "Get his own name" then you better think up one for Barry. Because Barry took his name from someone else, too.

Saying one character gets The Flash name over the other is intrinsically saying one character is better and more deserving than the other. Because no name you will ever come up with will be as popular or ingrained in the mind of the public as The Flash. You are dooming the other to obscurity in favor of the other one getting to be a bit more special and unique. And whenever you say Barry should be The Flash and Wally should be something else you are saying nuts to Wally, he can die in obscurity so long as Barry is special and unique. "It pleases no one " -- what is this? Who are you speaking for besides Barry fans? Because the list of people who want Wally to get a new name is also the list of people who do not care about Wally.

[Godlike13]

Ric is Him, He's actively been campaigning to destroy or Kill Nightwing for Years, Infinite Crisis and Forever Evil had Johns here to stop him, Trading Conner Kent, a Favourite of His for Grayson in Infinite Crisis and launching the whole Secret Agent thing in the New 52 from Forever Evil: The Minute Johns leaves he kills off Roy Harper and potentially does worse to Wally and Ric happens despite Tom King having a different idea with Tim filling in while Dick recovers and Percy planning a Fear of Heights angle

I know his issues with Nightwing, and now we have a Ric and 4 Nightwings. Does that really seem like the brain child of someone who thought Nightwing was redundant and had to go.

[paulojrmam]

I'm not much of a reader of Flash, but I'm also against two characters having the exact same super persona. Now the ideal would be if at the time Barry had remained dead, but since Barry was ressurrected, one of them will have to be Flash and the other don't. And it's only fitting that the one that was replacing should be the one to be something else. And yes, at first the new persona won't be as popular as the Flash identity, but with good writers and editorial effort, it can become its own thing. Like Nightwing became its own thing, for example.

I know his issues with Nightwing, and now we have a Ric and 4 Nightwings. Does that really seem like the brain child of someone who doesn’t like Nightwing or finds Nightwing redundant.

4 Nightwings?! I'm not reading NW, but wow, that does seem like something by someone that doesn't like Nightwing, because if there can be four, then it's meaningless, anyone can be Nightwing.

[Dred]

No it can't. We are long past the age where you can make a new identity and make it work. Look at how well basically any of the Teen Titans besides Nightwing (who has the absurd popularity of the Batman franchise backing him) have done with their "unique" names. Wally made his name and history based on being The Flash. You throw that away by forcing him to change his name.

Not to mention the best Flash comic run had both Wally and Jay calling themselves The Flash and NO ONE MINDED. It was literally not an issue until Barry came back and, suddenly, everyone is coming out of the woodwork saying Wally should change his name. It's not "only fitting" that Wally changes his name. You wanna know what Wally says to that?

"I'm The Flash. Stay used to it."



Wally wouldn't change his name. Period. He earned it as much as a character ever could. We've done this song and dance before.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

What he seems to not like:
Justice League International
New Teen Titans

I wonder if that’s why there’s been such an effort in recent years to characterize Deathstroke as a Batman villain when up until the last few years, he’s been mostly, well...a Titans villain and is still probably best known for that.

No it can't. We are long past the age where you can make a new identity and make it work. Look at how well basically any of the Teen Titans besides Nightwing (who has the absurd popularity of the Batman franchise backing him) have done with their "unique" names. Wally made his name and history based on being The Flash. You throw that away by forcing him to change his name.

Not to mention the best Flash comic run had both Wally and Jay calling themselves The Flash and NO ONE MINDED. It was literally not an issue until Barry came back and, suddenly, everyone is coming out of the woodwork saying Wally should change his name. It's not "only fitting" that Wally changes his name. You wanna know what Wally says to that?

"I'm The Flash. Stay used to it."



Wally wouldn't change his name. Period. He earned it as much as a character ever could. We've done this song and dance before.

Seconded. I don’t see why they can’t share the mantle.