DC Comics Co-publisher Dan Didio
promises there will never be a reboot of the DC Universe again. And that Post
Convergence DC will be the DC Universe.
If you believe this, I have a bridge
I want to sell you.
Yeah, there’s gonna be another reboot
of the DC Universe. I guarantee it.
When the Co-publisher can’t even
explain how his new Universe works after multiple articles and a Universe map
there’s something clearly wrong with the product.
A Comic book universe is something
that explains itself. It’s something a four-year-old child can figure out in
seconds. People see characters or a trade dress on books and know what to buy.
The day Dan Didio is FIRED the newly
hired Editor-in-chief will authorize a hard reboot to purge all of his changes
from the DC Universe. Because any smart businessman won’t want to be bogged
down with the baggage of Didio’s decade and a half of dysfunction or the
negative energy it brings.
The reputation of DC Comics is
tarnished in comic book world and even among the general public. All one has to
do is mention DC Comics and it will unleash a torrent of negative posts. Most
people see DC Merchandise announced at cons and go to message boards like The
Fwoosh to talk about what they’re NOT going to buy. Movies like Batman V.
Superman Dawn of Justice have people getting annoyed, not excited about seeing
them.
No new executive worth their salt
wants those storm clouds hovering above them. No, a new boss is going to order
in a fleet of garbage trucks and a couple of garbage barges to take out Didio’s
trash. Then they’re going to go and make the efforts to try to give comic fans
an olive branch. Because they understand that rebuilding the DC Comics brand
will be HARD WORK.
Readers won’t have to worry about the
mess that the DC Universe has become. Because it’ll all be wiped out and
replaced. At this stage in the game DC’s continuity is so FUBAR that no team of
editors, writers or artists can
fix it. The story structures have become so damaged over the last fifteen years
that the entire thing has to be completely wiped out.
Sad, because even as early as 2008 I
thought the old DC Universe could have been salvaged. But all of Didio’s
mismanagement has done irreparable harm to DC’s continuity. From a creative
standpoint DC Comics isn’t just a WRECK, it’s a TOTAL LOSS.
Too many characters have been
damaged. Too many stories have holes in them. Who’s dead? Who’s alive? Where’s
the entry point for the new reader to pick up on an old character’s adventures?
How can a new reader even access the character’s back issues? How does the new
reader make anything fit? Pre-Crisis? Post Crisis? New 52? Post Convergence?
It gave me a headache just typing
that sentence. Imagine how a new reader will feel at the comic shop or on
Amazon.
Didio says Convergence was supposed
to solve all the continuity problems. But all he did was make them WORSE. Clearly,
he has no understanding of how stories work in a universe model. And no smart
publisher is going to want to deal with the baggage from his fifteen years of
failure while they try to make DC successful again.
Didio’s mismanagement has turned the
DC Universe into a HEADACHE for veteran comic fans who know these characters,
and it would be IMPOSSIBLE for a new reader to access.
That means any New DC Universe in a
post-Didio era will have to start fresh with a Golden Age Justice Society, Superman
in red trunks, Batman with Dick Grayson as Robin, Barry Allen as the Flash, Diana
Prince as Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter on the Justice League. A DC
Universe familiar to old readers and new ones.
There will definitely be a reboot of
the DC Universe the day Dan Didio and his gang of four are terminated by Warner
Brothers executives. This will be a Hard reboot, the kind that Mac users
experienced when Apple went from Power PC G4 to the Intel Processors. Yeah,
there will be a lot of upset DC fans like the Apple crowd were in the mid 2000s,
but most DC fans will understand if DC’s new Editor in Chief gives them a new
DC Universe that resembles something like the Pre-Didio era DC and runs as
smoothly as an Intel Mac.
Marvel went through a similar faze in the mid to late seventies mostly due to bad management. Their comics weren't selling, or selling in low number, and there was no real direction in the company. The only thing keeping them a float were the Star Wars comics. Then Jim Shooter become EIC and basically ushered in a Golden Age of Marvel. The difference though between Shooter and Didio is that Shooter rose through the ranks: starting off as a writer, and then worked his way up to the top spot. Over the years, people have accused Jim Shooter of being a tyrant, but the thing was he wouldn't let people hack it, and demanded the best from everyone thus setting a standard for how Marvel comics should be. He also made crazy demands like: artwork and scripts be in on time; that every character is introduced in the story; and that if someone picks up a comic book, they should be able understand what was going even if the story was the middle or concluding chapter. DC desperately needs a Jim Shooter-- someone who's not going to put up with a lot of crap from "superstar" artists or writers (Grant Morrison and Jim Lee I'm looking at you), but at the same time get out of their way and let them do their job. Sadly, I think Shooter has as negative a public image as Didio, but in Shooter's case a lot of that is undeserved.
ReplyDeleteShooter knew the business. And he ran it like one. He brought in licensing, new talent and ran it like a publishing house with standards. That's why Marvel was able to turn around.
ReplyDeleteShooter does not deserve all the heat he gets. He basically was a strong manager who put the product first and insisted on quality. At any other company he'd be respected for his leadership. Didio on the other hand runs DC like a boss with no clue to the product or the business.