Will.S
10-19-2009, 09:58 PM
I thought his answers to these questions regarding DC's legacy characters were interesting and would be of interest to fans of those particular characters:
9) Fat Asteroid wrote:
How does DC view characters like Kyle, Wally and Connor now that you've returned their previous roles to "iconic" status?
DiDio: Well, Kyle’s still going to be very prominent in Green Lantern Corps. Wally, we’ve already announced the fact that he’ll have a second feature in The Flash. It shows us that he’ll be very active in the DCU still. And Connor, again, in the post-Blackest Night DCU, I’m sure he’ll have a place.
Nrama: I'm going to follow this up with a last question that is somewhat related...
10) Dietel wrote:
What is your opinion on characters growing up in the DCU? Dick Grayson has grown from a young Robin to Batman, Tim Drake has moved up to Red Robin, the former Teen Titans became Titans and are now in James Robinson's Justice League. How do you let characters grow and age without overshadowing or replacing main characters? Will we eventually see characters like Tim, Conner, Bart, and Cassandra growing into their own heroes? How do you approach this?
DiDio: Well, in the new year, we’re going to be addressing the topic of legacies in a story because there are two problems that we are faced with, in the DCU, I think. One is that you’ve got a situation where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman really didn’t age as a lot of characters aged around them. So we had to keep on revising continuity in order for those guys to fit in properly, based upon how well other characters were growing older around them. We’re hopefully resolving that situation right now and into the new year by being able to be much clearer of where everybody was introduced and more importantly, how each character relates to each other in regards to agewise and who they basically grew up with.
The second thing is that we also entered in to a period of time into the, I would say middle of the ‘90s up until a few years ago, where a lot of characters were aging very rapidly. A lot of characters were being replaced. Their replacements were coming in as younger versions, then younger versions were added in on top of that. So we added many layers on to our characters in that particular period of time.
And right now, we’re just trying to straighten that out a little bit more so there’s a much clearer sense of what a legacy character is, what the relationship with the legacy character was, and more importantly, just a sense of how long each character was active, so we have a better sense of what they’re all about. Naturally, time compresses because you’re taking 70 years’ worth of continuity and trying to [inaudible] it into a person whose life is 30 years old. So that gets a little difficult.
But we’re trying to unravel that and give a clearer sensibility to what everybody’s time line is, and then more importantly, maintaining very cleanly going ahead, so that way, we don’t have that same sense of characters aging faster than others. OK?
Nrama: Yeah. You said "in the new year" that you’ll be "addressing legacies in a story." So is this just something that's taking place in one or more current ongoing series featuring legacy characters?
DiDio: That’s a really good question, Vaneta.
Nrama: When I heard you say "story," I start assuming there's going to be a special, separate story that specifically addresses legacies and features some of these characters you've mentioned. Would that be a more accurate assumption?
DiDio: Two very good questions, Vaneta. Great. I love it. It’s a shame none of the fans asked them, because then I would be able to answer them. But since you asked them, unfortunately, I have to move on to the next question.http://www.newsarama.com/comics/091019-Didio-10-Questions.html
I'm not sure that relegating them to back ups, team books, and saying that he's "sure he'll have a place" is exactly the right answer I want to hear with these characters but if there is a planned book for them that addresses the whole legacy aspect and how that's been going these days then I'd be interested in reading it.
9) Fat Asteroid wrote:
How does DC view characters like Kyle, Wally and Connor now that you've returned their previous roles to "iconic" status?
DiDio: Well, Kyle’s still going to be very prominent in Green Lantern Corps. Wally, we’ve already announced the fact that he’ll have a second feature in The Flash. It shows us that he’ll be very active in the DCU still. And Connor, again, in the post-Blackest Night DCU, I’m sure he’ll have a place.
Nrama: I'm going to follow this up with a last question that is somewhat related...
10) Dietel wrote:
What is your opinion on characters growing up in the DCU? Dick Grayson has grown from a young Robin to Batman, Tim Drake has moved up to Red Robin, the former Teen Titans became Titans and are now in James Robinson's Justice League. How do you let characters grow and age without overshadowing or replacing main characters? Will we eventually see characters like Tim, Conner, Bart, and Cassandra growing into their own heroes? How do you approach this?
DiDio: Well, in the new year, we’re going to be addressing the topic of legacies in a story because there are two problems that we are faced with, in the DCU, I think. One is that you’ve got a situation where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman really didn’t age as a lot of characters aged around them. So we had to keep on revising continuity in order for those guys to fit in properly, based upon how well other characters were growing older around them. We’re hopefully resolving that situation right now and into the new year by being able to be much clearer of where everybody was introduced and more importantly, how each character relates to each other in regards to agewise and who they basically grew up with.
The second thing is that we also entered in to a period of time into the, I would say middle of the ‘90s up until a few years ago, where a lot of characters were aging very rapidly. A lot of characters were being replaced. Their replacements were coming in as younger versions, then younger versions were added in on top of that. So we added many layers on to our characters in that particular period of time.
And right now, we’re just trying to straighten that out a little bit more so there’s a much clearer sense of what a legacy character is, what the relationship with the legacy character was, and more importantly, just a sense of how long each character was active, so we have a better sense of what they’re all about. Naturally, time compresses because you’re taking 70 years’ worth of continuity and trying to [inaudible] it into a person whose life is 30 years old. So that gets a little difficult.
But we’re trying to unravel that and give a clearer sensibility to what everybody’s time line is, and then more importantly, maintaining very cleanly going ahead, so that way, we don’t have that same sense of characters aging faster than others. OK?
Nrama: Yeah. You said "in the new year" that you’ll be "addressing legacies in a story." So is this just something that's taking place in one or more current ongoing series featuring legacy characters?
DiDio: That’s a really good question, Vaneta.
Nrama: When I heard you say "story," I start assuming there's going to be a special, separate story that specifically addresses legacies and features some of these characters you've mentioned. Would that be a more accurate assumption?
DiDio: Two very good questions, Vaneta. Great. I love it. It’s a shame none of the fans asked them, because then I would be able to answer them. But since you asked them, unfortunately, I have to move on to the next question.http://www.newsarama.com/comics/091019-Didio-10-Questions.html
I'm not sure that relegating them to back ups, team books, and saying that he's "sure he'll have a place" is exactly the right answer I want to hear with these characters but if there is a planned book for them that addresses the whole legacy aspect and how that's been going these days then I'd be interested in reading it.