NEWS - Dan Didio Out as DC's Co-Publisher

[lordultimus]

source: hollywoodreporter.com


Dan DiDio is no longer with DC, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

DiDio had served as publisher of DC alongside Jim Lee since 2010, following a six-year stint as VP executive editor, and, prior to that, VP editorial.

As publisher, DiDio was one of the main figures behind DC’s 2011 line-wide relaunch “The New 52,” which saw the company provide a contemporary make-over to its entire superhero back catalog. It was initially a sales success, but both sales and buzz faded to the point where 2016’s subsequent line-wide relaunch, under the banner “DC Universe Rebirth,” restored many elements dropped in the reboot.

DiDio’s departure comes ahead of an announced further relaunch of the DC comic book universe that would restore even more elements removed as part of the 2011 reboot, as was teased at New York Comic Con last year. While that project has not been officially announced, certain stories that reportedly tie in have been, including DC’s Free Comic Book Day release Generation Zero: Gods Among Us. It’s unclear at this point if plans for this relaunch will be delayed or cancelled in the wake of this news.

Throughout his tenure at DC, DiDio has worked as a writer on multiple properties, including The Phantom Stranger, The Outsiders and Sideways. At time of writing, his Metal Men mini-series with artist Shane Davis is midway through a projected 12-issue run.

Comments

[lucean]

That is a really interesting development, especially since Didio left DC in the middle of a run he was writing.

It will be fascinating to see who takes over now and what is the direction. I've always, and I'd argue that there are public data to support this, that Didio was the initial push for the Silver Age nostalgia that in many ways become to define DC at a certain point, with Geoff Johns really pushing it further along. So now I guess we see if DC doubles down on that vision or starts to really look for something different.

[arilou_skiff]

I honestly don't think there's *that* much Silver Age Nostalgia going on, there's *some* like in the Jimmy Olsen series, but not all that much.

[kurenai_tenka]

What I assumed OP meant (and they confirmed below) is the push for characters such as Barry, Hal, Barbara etc, at the expense of character such as Wally, Kyle, Steph, etc.

[bravest_spinja]

The silver age pushback goes back to at least the mid-nineties, with MARVELS, KINGDOM COME, Waid's run on THE FLASH, and of course, Grant Morrison turning JLA back to something resembling its Original Seven. There was were flying saucers and monkeys and Superman having weird transformations. The cartoons also had people feeling pretty nostalgic as well. However, this was fairly harmonious with the "legacy" stuff, so you had newer versions of Flash, GL, etc, and it was seen as the natural progression.

But Johns and Didio weren't really satisfied, they wanted HAL and BARRY back. I actually think this kind of falls on Kevin Smith, who really wanted to bring back the Olliver Queen Green Arrow, which set the precedent.

[lucean]

I don't the mid-nineties pushback was that bad, or it was more complicated perhaps. Kingdom Come was ultimately an Elseworlds story where even the originally proposed consequences would have been to introduce the new legacy characters to the canon. Waid's Flash run actually heavily focused on elevating Wally and while Morrison focused on the big Seven, two of those characters were the new legacy characters. Seriously, Morrison did a ton to really push Kyle as the new main Lantern and in the aftermath allowed Stewart to step in to that JL Lantern role.

What Didio and Johns did was very different in that they reverted almost everything back to what it was before, with the first actually being bringing back Kara as Supergirl and which then continued as the main point was about who was the first one and how that iteration was always the greatest, hence the Silver Age nostalgia. One of the reasons it got so bad with Barry and Hal was that they were clearly Johns's darlings and he just could not stop making them the most important people in DC after Superman.

[bravest_spinja]

Like I said, more harmonious. I'm just saying though, the wave (which to be fair, was largely in response to the excesses of the 90's) definitely started earlier, and a lot of the "stars" of the era would avoid depicting more modern characters. (For instance Alex Ross would refuse to draw Kyle Rayner or even Firestorm.

[lucean]

Yeah, but I think that is where the difference in the editorial comes in. With previous editorial, it didn't matter how much Ross pined for the old days, the main iterations of the characters would remain those legacy characters. Johns needed Didio to do what he did and, to be honest, while it brought them short-term success, that price is still something the product as a whole is struggling with.

[laughing_tree]

Well, that's a surprise.

My concern is that, with so many eyes on these character now thanks to multimedia success, the plan is replace him with some empty suit whose job is to make sure everything is brand-friendly. The sort of person who'd never approve Watchmen but would greenlight Before Watchmen in a heartbeat. *shudder*

Also, I wonder what this means for the whole 5G thing?

[laughing_tree]

Well, this is potentially worrying...

https://twitter.com/GailSimone/status/1230982294896140288

[locuatico]

Yep. this also comes to light alongside Harley & Ivy's book suddenly giving them an ugly break-up and seemingly DC's social media reffering to them as "friends".
While I would be lying saying I wasn't looking forward for him to get replaced, I worry what will come.

[janegray]

For what it's worth, the EP of the Harley Quinn cartoon confirmed that Harley and Ivy will be a couple in S2. So, synergy will probably ensure they'll be back together in the comics.

[xammax]

Man, I'm torn. I mean yay it is about time Harley/Ivy is acknowledged but I have been kind of loving Kite-Man in that show.

[janegray]

Same. I was very unhappy with the Reddit AMA with producer Patrick Schumacker.

https://twitter.com/HarlivyTweets/status/1228081881771651079

I appreciate what they are going for, but I hate how they come across.

I do like that Ivy dates somebody else before getting with Harley, because if Harley were the ONLY person Ivy could ever get with, it would just be the gay version of the old Nice GuyTM mess. It would paint Ivy as some kind of incel, and her kindness and support of Harley as an automatic ticket to sex. So yeah, showing that Ivy has her own partner at first and is truly just trying to be a good friend to Harley, is a good thing.

But their describing Kiteman, a genuinely well-meaning and hard-trying person who always listens to Ivy and adapts to her needs (like when he brings her a rose in a vase because he gets that it would be inappropriate to bring Ivy cut flowers), as "worthless" is really mean-spirited. As is the implication that, while they are portraying him as legitimately good and caring, they never meant for you to give a shit about him, and you are meant to look forward to the moment when he gets discarded like a bad habit.

The whole thing seems gross to me. Just too mean-spirited.

[mastermahan]

What is it with Poison Ivy and Schumachers?

[deh_tommy]

While he was moving way too quickly (which was more induced by their imminent deaths more than anything), he unironically proposed to her by asking if he could be Mr. Poison Ivy instead of asking her to be Mrs. Kite Man.

The creators would probably get torn apart by Tumblr/Twitter if they keep the Kite Man/Ivy pairing (heck, just look at the reaction that’s caused there already), but GAH they’re so cute together and I love them!

Who knows? Harley and Ivy were in a polyamorous relationship in the Connor/Palmiotti run. Maybe Ivy ends up with both Harley and Kite Man (presuming they don’t kill any of them off before then)?

[shadowseeking]

I'm kind of skeptical about that. Just based on how DC hasn't been doing very well with LGBT stuff in general for ages.

[janegray]

The soulless thing would obviously be bad, but I'd welcome somebody who can actually pay attention to the company's publishing as a whole, and push for editors who can actually keep track of who is doing what where.

As it is, DiDio's tenure was characterized by chaos. Characters were dead in one book, kicking and good/evil in another, undergoing a FaceHeel/HeelFace turn in yet another. The writers themselves couldn't tell which stories were in continuity and which stories were not. Backstories, motivations and current events changed from one book to the next.

The whole thing was absolutely ridiculous. They need an "architect" who won't set the building on fire (thrice in ten years) while trying to decide what they are going for.

[lucean]

I'd argue the biggest example is the Bat-books as they have become utterly messy during his reign compared to a really tightly run shift before it. The exception is the Snyder era, but even there it feels like it was more about Snyder going out of his way to work with the other writers and he himself taking that burden.

I'm still grappling with Didio leaving, but looking back what I think makes his reign so weird is that he started by actively undoing a lot of stuff that had been established before-hand and then just tried to spuerglue this weird vision that never worked. And they just kept trying and trying and trying.

[janegray]

I hesitate to celebrate because whoever replaces Dan DiDio might be even worse. But I sure as hell was not a fan of his decisions. I was especially frustrated by the obvious grudge against Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown.

[junipepper]

Exactly.

[laughing_tree]

Say, what if they don't replace him with anyone and just have Jim Lee as the sole publisher? How would we all feel about that?

My impression (possibly completely wrong) is that he's the hands-off sort in regards to creative direction, and he'd just leave that stuff to DC's editor-in-chief.

[lucean]

My impression is really different in that I've understood Didio was a major force in pushing DC direction and determining crossovers. I mean, Bob Harras has been the editor-in-chief for a decade now andI honestly know very little of his vies compared to Didio. That is just how public the latter has been.

Although it is interesting to point out that the Chief Creative Officer over at DC was actually Geoff Johns, whose departure was supposedly less than wamr.

[laughing_tree]

I was talking about Jim Lee, not DiDio.

[lucean]

Okay, now I got it and apologies on the misunderstanding. It also clarifies it a lot for me as my initial reaction was baffled on who had ever claimed that Didio was very hands-off.

[bradygirl_12]

Didio has been notorious for me ever since we learned years ago that he planned to kill off Dick Grayson but higher-ups overruled him. Of course, some might say he succeeded with the Ric Grayson storyline.

[icon_uk]

The thing is, I do feel he had a bit of a point about Nightwing at that time. He was in something of a years-long rut storywise, being treated as a lone wolf hero operating in a corrupt city. He was basically Batman without a cape, and they already had Batman. He needed a unique selling point and they weren't prepared to give him one because of his ursefulness in Bat-crossovers.

Also, AFAIK, Ric Grayson wasn't Didio's idea. The original plan was for Dick to get chronic vertigo following a fight with the Scarecrow, so he wouldn't have access to his casual gymnastic skills, so we'd have seen him operate without them. It was Lobdell coming in who wanted the "complete amnesia" Ric Grayson thing.

[blueprintstyles]

I've had mixed feelings about Didip for a while, fingers crossed things will get better from here

[tcampbell1000]

Well, we'll all know more soon enough. As dismissals go, it sounds like this one was pretty abrupt. Didio's overall direction for DC Comics was um not my favorite, but I still gotta have some sympathy for anybody who thought he was securely employed at noon and was out on the street by five. (I guess there could be a golden parachute waiting for him, but I suspect even high-level DC staffers don't get much in severance.)

[werehawk]

I wonder what happened. Something that abrupt smacks of unethical/illegal or a temper flare-up kind of thing. I can't imagine what else it could be.

[tcampbell1000]

At the most corporate job I ever worked, I saw a largely incompetent boss get canned without notice in a similar fashion on a Friday afternoon. I learned that's a pretty standard policy, because it minimizes drama: no one's going to get too exercised about anything to do with work on the weekend. Of course, that doesn't apply quite as much to Nerd Twitter, but even that follows a weekday-weekend cycle to some degree.

Which doesn't negate your theory, necessarily, but the Friday-afternoon timing does suggest at least a little forethought and planning on the higher-ups' part.

[werehawk]

Sounds plausible. I exist in insulated tenurey academia so what do I know.

[zachbeacon]

Mixed feelings.

Even before DC he was the guy who nearly killed Transformers with Beast Machines. Once he was at DC he was at least partiality responsible for some of the worst stories the company has ever published and sidelined a lot of popular legacy characters for truly stupid reasons.

But he's also given us some amazing creative teams and he contributed to more types of readers seeing themselves reflected on the page.

[mazway_75]

And Ethan Van Sciver going "AT&T is ready to sell it off, comics are dying."

Really not helping matters....

[mastermahan]

Nothing is ever improved by Ethan Van Sciver.

[tcampbell1000]

Thankfully, he stopped being worth listening to years ago.

[lucean]

I went to check his Twitter feed out of curiosity and Jesus Christ.

[spider_man6]

Dunno how to feel. He made a lot of creative decisions and events that aren't really good (looking at Dick and Cass), but during his time we also got a ton of great runs. So...yeah.

Who should replace him at this point? Geoff Johns?

And really hoping this isn't the straw that ends DC, if EVS is to be believed.

[zylly]

Not a fan overall of some of his management/editorial choices, but I’ve enjoyed some of the things he’s co-written, like OMAC and the Metal Men.

[shadowseeking]

Honestly I am glad he's gone. Whatever fleeting bits of good he did were always outweighed by phenomenally bad moves. And his petty vendettas against the Young Justice generation, Cass Cain, Steph Brown, Dick Grayson, and others were nothing but harmful to fans and the books as a whole.

One bad element of DC out...six left before the company can really start climbing out of the dust.

[kurenai_tenka]

Some of these comments are concerning, but I can't lie, I've had a big smile on my face since I saw this.

For everything someone here said that gave me pause, there was another that reminded me why I was celebrating.

There's the risk of someone worse in his place, but I'll worry about that when it happens.

[bruinsfan]

Well, I for one am glad to see him gone. He and Johns were the guiding forces of the era that culminated in me boycotting DC for more than a decade, and I've heard of few decisions he was involved in since that struck me as good ones.

[pyynk]

As someone who reads mostly non superhero books these days, I got nine years of top tier creators on a Western comic thanks to Dan DiDio. I know some folks are happy he's gone, but I think this was handled very poorly on corporate's part.

[junipepper]

Ok, well, I hate that guy, but I suppose they could, and very well may, do worse.