CBR: Catching Up With DC's Co-Publishers

[CBR News]

Dan Didio & Jim Lee spoke with CBR about the current state of the entire DC line, including the death of Ryan Choi, Vertigo characters that are and could be, WildStorm's licensing ambitions and share exclusive art.


Full article here.

[JohnnyHorror92182]

Can't wait for the BATWOMAN series to get here.

To bad about THE GREAT TEN getting shorted an issue, but what the heck you gonna do? No ones buying it, even though its got an A+ creative team on it. But I'm sure it won't be the last time we will see the Great Ten.

[Apathy Lad]

My favourite part is that he talks about how diverse the DCU is without actually addressing the problem, and then has the gall to suggest McDuffie's Justice League and the use of the Milestone characters was a success in DC's push for diversity, given that his group have all been killed or scattered in order to make a practically all-white team and the Milestone characters aren't being used bar Static.

If we can name a non-white character that's actually prominent in the DCU, then we can start acknowledging the problem that we had to think so hard about it.

[4PointOh]

With all due respect to Mr. DiDio, Ryan Choi isn't the only example. And it's specious to make that comment and then argue from that flawed point. I wish the interviewer would have been better prepared for that dodge:

• There's Hawkgirl, who went from Kendra dark to Shiera light.
• There's Firestorm, who went from Jason black to Ronnie white.
• There's the Justice League that removed Black Lightning, Vixen, John Stewart/Green Lantern and Jason/Firestorm, (but kept Dr. Light and added Cyborg).
• There's the fact that, according to Dwayne McDuffie, DC is choosing not to use any Milestone characters other than Static.
• There's the fact that James Robinson killed off two gay characters (including Tasmanian Devil) and a black character (Freedom Beast, whom he re-replaced with the white, mired-in-offensiveness character, B'wana Beast) in the god-awful: Justice League: Cry for Justice.
• There's the fact that DC's reigning villian team is comprised of mostly minority characters (Cheshire, Tattooed Man, Osiris).
• There's the fact that all the DCU spotlighted women are white women (most of whom are blond): Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Supergirl, Power Girl, Birds of Prey.

That's just off the top of my head. Aqualad, Blue Beetle, Mister Terrific, and Tyroc don't make up for that.

[bfrank]

My favourite part is that he talks about how diverse the DCU is without actually addressing the problem, and then has the gall to suggest McDuffie's Justice League and the use of the Milestone characters was a success in DC's push for diversity, given that his group have all been killed or scattered in order to make a practically all-white team and the Milestone characters aren't being used bar Static.

If we can name a non-white character that's actually prominent in the DCU, then we can start acknowledging the problem that we had to think so hard about it.

I wonder how many people whining about ryan choi were reading the great ten......

[ArthurPDragon]

With all due respect to Mr. DiDio, Ryan Choi isn't the only example. And it's specious to make that comment and then argue from that flawed point. I wish the interviewer would have been better prepared for that dodge:

• There's Hawkgirl, who went from Kendra dark to Shiera light.
• There's Firestorm, who went from Jason black to Ronnie white.
• There's the Justice League that removed Black Lightning, Vixen, John Stewart/Green Lantern and Jason/Firestorm, (but kept Dr. Light and added Cyborg).
• There's the fact that, according to Dwayne McDuffie, DC is choosing not to use any Milestone characters other than Static.
• There's the fact that James Robinson killed off two gay characters (including Tasmanian Devil) and a black character (Freedom Beast, whom he re-replaced with the white, mired-in-offensiveness character, B'wana Beast) in the god-awful: Justice League: Cry for Justice.
• There's the fact that DC's reigning villian team is comprised of mostly minority characters (Cheshire, Tattooed Man, Osiris).
• There's the fact that all the DCU spotlighted women are white women (most of whom are blond): Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Supergirl, Power Girl, Birds of Prey.

That's just off the top of my head. Aqualad, Blue Beetle, Mister Terrific, and Tyroc don't make up for that.

Orpheus was killed in War Games like Stephanie, but only Stephanie got to come back and hasn't The Great Ten been cancelled?

I realize that CBR can't bite the hand that feeds it, but not to call out DiDio on that or have the ASIAN AMERICAN GUY NEXT TO HIM SPEAK ON IT was total b.s.

[Apathy Lad]

I wonder how many people whining about ryan choi were reading the great ten......

What exactly are you trying to suggest? That we should buy Great Ten because it's about Chinese superheroes?

[Karl O'Neill]

The Great Ten was originally a 10 (ten) issue maxi series. They cut it down to 9 issues because the sales were abysmally low.

But it's a fine series and well written.

@4pointoh. The firestorm story beat is only getting started in Brightest Day. Wouldn't it be fair to see how the story pans out before we decide if FS is going to be Black, White or both?

[Apathy Lad]

The Great Ten was originally a 10 (ten) issue maxi series. They cut it down to 9 issues because the sales were abysmally low.

But it's a fine series and well written.

@4pointoh. The firestorm story beat is only getting started in Brightest Day. Wouldn't it be fair to see how the story pans out before we decide if FS is going to be Black, White or both?

It's Geoff Johns writing it. The man hasn't exactly set a good track record, so it's pretty safe to say what's going to happen. That being, Ronnie gets to be Firestorm a Jason is a floating head who's gotten over Gehenna's death.

[Jbenn]

With all due respect to Mr. DiDio, Ryan Choi isn't the only example. And it's specious to make that comment and then argue from that flawed point. I wish the interviewer would have been better prepared for that dodge:

• There's Hawkgirl, who went from Kendra dark to Shiera light.
• There's Firestorm, who went from Jason black to Ronnie white.
• There's the Justice League that removed Black Lightning, Vixen, John Stewart/Green Lantern and Jason/Firestorm, (but kept Dr. Light and added Cyborg).
• There's the fact that, according to Dwayne McDuffie, DC is choosing not to use any Milestone characters other than Static.
• There's the fact that James Robinson killed off two gay characters (including Tasmanian Devil) and a black character (Freedom Beast, whom he re-replaced with the white, mired-in-offensiveness character, B'wana Beast) in the god-awful: Justice League: Cry for Justice.
• There's the fact that DC's reigning villian team is comprised of mostly minority characters (Cheshire, Tattooed Man, Osiris).
• There's the fact that all the DCU spotlighted women are white women (most of whom are blond): Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Supergirl, Power Girl, Birds of Prey.

That's just off the top of my head. Aqualad, Blue Beetle, Mister Terrific, and Tyroc don't make up for that.

Not to mention the fact they very publicly - with a big "Who is Batgirl?" marketing campaign - dismissed (in one page!) the bi-racial Batgirl to make way for yet ANOTHER white blonde. Or the fact that that Lian Harper and Gehenna Watson, both of Asian descent and both younger than 20, have been killed off horrifically since the whole "Death means something now" meme Didio has been pushing. I don't get it - are they (Didio, Sattler, presumably Lee) that obtuse in the very real way DC is seen by some as treating its minorities badly or is that they hope by keeping avoiding the question or talking in generalities it'll make it go away?

[ArthurPDragon]

I wonder how many people whining about ryan choi were reading the great ten......

I wonder how many people know the difference between Asians in Asia and Asians in the US...

[KET]

I wonder how many people whining about ryan choi were reading the great ten......

I wonder how many more readers would have come on board if the concept's creator, Grant Morrison, had actually followed through and wrote the series. Putting third-stringer writers and artists consigned this book to the ghetto from the get-go.

And DiDio is mostly obfuscating when he talks about Ryan Choi's assassination, because he already knows that this incident is merely symptomatic of DC's editorial policies as a whole.

[brett tolino]

For the record...

Hawkgirl was 'created' as Sheira light (over 70 years ago) -- then went to Kendra, then back to Sheira.

Firestorm was 'created' as Ronnie 'white' (over 30 years ago) -- then went to Jason 'black' then back to Ronnie 'white' (and I hear, Jason is still part of the equation).

Why is it that when people discuss 'ethnic diversity', its suddenly become okay to radically alter the color/racial identity of a character, along with an already established public perception of that character , -- but only if the character is white.

Because 99% of the time, they are successful only by offending an audience and scarring the appeal. And the new readers they bring in is never, ever enough to support the recolored version.

There's clearly a double standard going on because if anyone ever dared to change the ethnicity of an already established character of color, the backlash would be devestating. Companies not only confuse their audience but they insult them; turn them off and away when they recolor already established caucasian characters.

Companies that are seeking to diversify their line need to start looking to create new and original characters if they want to fill a quota or create a richer pallet. And for people to say, new characters don't sell as well as the established ones? Well, established characters don't sell either if handled by an incapable creator. Likewise, any newly created character is only going to be as good as their creative team... but don't expect to get rich when the company hires amateurs to 'draw' the gold.

For the record, DC once did have an entire line of new and original characters called Milestone. DC hired tremendous talent to handle the line such as Denys Cowan, Dwane McDuffie and tons of others. The problem was, at the time, DC had much higher standards (the line sold but not as well as the best sellers) than they do now.

As evidenced by the totality of their line, DC doesn't have any standards today. Most of what they publish is unreadable; some less than 10k so the Milestone characters would probably shine and do very well today. Then again, under the current regime of management, probably not. Maybe its better to keep them on hold until the next, inevitable changing of the guard.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

With all due respect to Mr. DiDio, Ryan Choi isn't the only example. And it's specious to make that comment and then argue from that flawed point. I wish the interviewer would have been better prepared for that dodge:

• There's Hawkgirl, who went from Kendra dark to Shiera light.

• Its essentially the same body. Its just that Shiera has taken over now as Kendra passed on. They retconned the whole Shiera soul leaving Kendra's body from Hawkgirl. And just had it where Shiera emerges . Plus honestly it made the Blackest Night bearable. The reunion of the Hawks .
  
  

• There's Firestorm, who went from Jason black to Ronnie white.

[Bugaboo-X]

Pointing to the Great Ten as an example of positive diversity is inappropriate argument because those characters are not part of the American culture. Choi was. The Justice League of AMERICA is a wholly different product.