Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers has a long interview with Didio and Lee where she asks them some tough questions. The interview provides more insight into Lee and Didio’s thinking than you probably ever wanted. (Just don’t expect the details of the compressed timeline to make any more sense after reading their answers.)
Newsarama: LEE, DIDIO: Rebuilding DC To Counteract ‘Shrinking Market’
Jim Lee said something that contradicted a comment by Dan Didio that was reported at one of the DC retailer roadshows:
Dan Didio said “They had an unofficial curve chart no one would see in the offices where the higher the sales the less is changed.” This is why the Batman & Green Lantern titles will re-launch relatively unchanged story wise.
But in the Newsarama interview, Lee sticks to the “creativity” party line:
Jim Lee: I would say it was all creatively decided, but obviously if you have really strong content and really great creative direction, it’s going to affect sales.
On an editorial level, we instinctively knew what was working and what wasn’t working.
That’s scary. Lee and Didio are among the least astute at “instinctively” knowing what’s working creatively, if Didio’s 9 year track record and Lee’s artistic choices in the DCU and DCUO indicate anything. What an incredibly arrogant thing for anyone to say.
There are a lot of things wrong in this and other interviews – like Dan Didio implying that Oracle isn’t as interesting as Batgirl because the internet is less relevant today. But what stands out in every interview is how out of touch and arrogant Didio and Lee sound. And how they can’t keep their answers straight on anything.
This post was edited on July 20, at 17:08 CST.
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The same goes with Stephanie Brown and Cass Cain. Those two haven’t been seen at all in this new revamp-heck, they only have even been mentioned as being “benched”. Who “benches” great characters that appeared at length in various Batman or Robin-related titles and crossovers?!!? Those guys. :-/
As for Babs becoming Batgirl again… I’m on the fence about it because TKJ was a part of my childhood. Yeah, I got to see her as Batgirl, as Oracle, and as the second Commissioner Gordon in B:TAS, The Birds Of Prey TV series, The Batman episode “Artifacts” and in various Batman Beyond episodes and movies-most notably “Batman Beyond: The Return of The Joker” but all of these versions of her has made her great but as Oracle she was greater.
I really don’t like the fact that 1.) Lee and Didio are ignoring us older fans and that they’re gearing it towards the younger generation. Yes Lee is a fantastic artist don’t get me wrong here but I’d rather have Didio kicked out and Lee replaced with Igle-Landry-even-or someone who actually cares about us older fans and not part or a statistic that they “know what and how to do things in the DCU the right way”. 2.) The whole revamp is geared to the male population. And 3.) Just by changing these iconic characters and costumes AND origins isn’t going to make them any “cooler”. Yeah, they think that they’ll be “cool, fresh, new, and hip” but that isn’t really the case here; what made them awesome characters, in the first place, was the fact that-at least, to me- their personalities were unique and that they were RELATABLE to us in such a way that we cared for them and they impacted us in a way that made us remember and cherish their moments-good or bad.
That’s my rant. Take care!
I don’t think they’re ignoring older fans and gearing it towards a younger generation at all, not when Barbara is Batgirl, Hal and Barry are taking prominence over Kyle and Wally (does Wally even exist in this timeline?), and many characters created in the 90s have disappeared (Cass, Steph, Connor, Mia) or been warped beyond recognition (Bart, Kon, Cassie). Look at the Justice League! That is seriously Silver/Bronze Age. Not to mention their complete lack of interest in marketing towards children and teenagers, or even making their comics something parents would buy for their kids.
All they’re doing is alienating their existing audience with weird, inconsistent changes, and failing to target the youth audience that could save them.
“…All they’re doing is alienating their existing audience with weird, inconsistent changes, and failing to target the youth audience that could save them.”
Very true! Sorry about all of that rambling. :(
Ok hope kinda fading but finally they have mentioned this reboot not relaunch like the other nonsense I read about is coming as a result of Flashpoint… An event.
Sounding more and more like Crisis, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis & Final Crisis where everything is “cleaned up” with a shiny new continuity except where other older junk bleeds in because it was too good to ignore or the editors were too lazy/weak willed to ensure to map out a consistent continuity and keep the writers on track.
So with issue 2′s just solicited they are already getting fill in artists????
Still buying but I will be very harsh on poor quality books and will immediately cancel any book that breaks their 5 years of Superhero history rule.
I’ve been thinking of this as a second Crisis on Infinite Earths for quite some time, but it’s refreshing to see them finally admit it. After trying to convince us for weeks that it’s not that big a deal, arguing that it’s “not a reboot”, and criticizing the fans for getting the wrong impression, the first proper interviews with Didio and Lee openly talk about trying to replicate COIE.
And yet they’re disappointed in fans for reacting badly. Nobody wanted another COIE! There were some really awful things that came out of COIE, not just the good they’re mentioning, and it took years to fix the continuity mess.
Considering all the rumors that this sea change was mandated by the upper brass at Warner Brothers telling DC to get their act together or WB would bring in their own people to fix things, I’m starting to wish that the latter had actually happened. I’m sure WB as a whole has actual policies about diversity and discrimination, a marketing team that actually knows how to do its job, vested interested in women, kids, and minorities as an audience, and no particular attachment to the late Silver Age/early Bronze Age. Normally I’d want DC to retain editorial control, since they’re supposed to be stewards of these characters, but considering how badly they fucked up Superman, I don’t think I trust them to know better than WB anymore. And at least if it was WB fucking it up and not DC there wouldn’t be this feeling of shocked betrayal.
I don’t hold the WB marketing team in high regard because:
A. They rejected plans for an animated “Batgirl: Year One” movie.
and
B. They only allowed Kara to appear on the DVD cover to “Superman/Batman: Apocalypse” only if she was wearing Darkseid’s slave girl outfit.
When I first heard rumors of the relaunch I thought it would be similar to what Marvel is going to do with Captain America after Fear Itself, start over with #1, but keep everything in continuity. That would have been nice except I was hoping to see a Supergirl #100 in my lifetime.
As of right now I find very little to like about the relaunch. I did read the Newsarama interview with the writers of the DCnU Supergirl, and honestly I would have liked it better had it been an Elseworlds or Ultimate Universe like title instead of replacing the Supergirl we have now.
Same here. :(
I keep wondering how different this relaunch might look if WB had appointed an outsider to supervise who saw their target market as much more varied and mainstream. Someone with actual business savvy (so obviously not anybody in WB marketing), who would walk in and start asking why they weren’t aggressively building their youth line, hiring someone outside the old boys’ club, keeping the costumes more in line with the media representations, cross-marketing between animation and comics, and slapping down silly “costumes” like Harley Quinn and Starfire.
I still might not have liked it, but it would have been better than giving the reins to the same people responsible for DC’s many misfires.