CBR: Dan Didio Digs Into "Brightest Day's" Finale

[CBR News]

The final issue of DC's year-long event hits stores today, and Co-Publisher Dan Didio stops by for a spoiler-filled interview on how the final issue of "Brightest Day" flips the DC Universe in a key way from here on out.


Full article here.

[randomengine]

I just read the preview at the source blog. It appears they will certainly honor the Moore plot.

spoilers:

It appears that Alec Holland was never Swamp Thing and that as it imprinted Alec's personality, the Dark Avater is a Nekron-imprinted Swamp Thing.

end of spoilers

[MatthewDiCarlo]

You know what would be REALLY great since this won't harm potentially cool Vertigo books?

A Vertigo Swamp Thing mini by acclaimed and imaginative author China Miéville.

.... oh wait.

[grphxkindaguy]

Awesome, can they bring Jesse (Preacher) Custer and Yorrick (YTLM) Brown in the DCU also?

[Roquefort Raider]

I hope they put the "split" (so to speak) at around the time the Vertigo imprint started. That would give us a Swamp Thing who's still with Abby and their young daughter Téfé, and who's still patterned after Alec Holland (without all the baggage that accumulated in later years).

For Constantine, it doesn't change much. I don't think much reference should be made to his supporting cast in the DC universe; I'd focus on his relation with characters like Zatanna.

[Mikey Brown]

Yet another editor writing a DC book? If its good its good, & I know theyre all following Johns ideas, its just odd. Editorial controlled books have had a track record for being crappy comics. Theres a lot of up and comers thatd kill for these assignments but they instead let the editors write? (In addition to Vankin writing the Brightest Day sequel, Im also talking about the Flashpoint books written by DC editors)

[randomengine]

Yet another editor writing a DC book? If its good its good, & I know theyre all following Johns ideas, its just odd. Editorial controlled books have had a track record for being crappy comics. Theres a lot of up and comers thatd kill for these assignments but they instead let the editors write? (In addition to Vankin writing the Brightest Day sequel, Im also talking about the Flashpoint books written by DC editors)

I think if anything it has to do with the fact that Marvel is trying to strangle DC by exclusivizing all the talent they can get their hands on. Which leaves DC with not enough talent to cover all their books. They have to get creative, which means bringing in editors and artists as writers.

[randomengine]

To be honest, I prefer editorially-written comics as long as the editor isn't Joe Quesada and as long as the writers on each one is capable. You can think of the Green Lantern books, the ones Johns isn't writing, are more or less editorially driven by him. They are enjoyable reads because the writers are decent and the story is cohesive.

Over at Marvel they more or less give their big name cretors carte blanche and then have to scramble to make sense of the story as a cohesive narrative and most often the suspension of disbelief is too much. Most of it doesn't make sense together.

I prefer a cohesive well written narrative, then prima donna creators doing whatever they want and then us, the readers, having to make sense of the whole mess because they can't be bothered to make it all work together.

[alemander]

Wow, hate Marvel much?

[Jackson Edge]

is everyone going to get all hurt again when Alan Moore says they are mining his ideas from 20 years ago... again? Morrison's Watchmen due this year too? They should have timed these up where they could appear simultaneously. Could the power of print kill Moore? Is that Morrison's plan where he could have a better possibility of moving up CBR's top 100 writers list next year?

[Kiryu]

A year long event to bring back Swamp Thing, to be written by some editor at DC. And an Aquaman comic.

So glad I didn't buy this series.

[Johnny Triangles]

I think if anything it has to do with the fact that Marvel is trying to strangle DC by exclusivizing all the talent they can get their hands on. Which leaves DC with not enough talent to cover all their books. They have to get creative, which means bringing in editors and artists as writers.

Well, DC over the years has gotten a ton of exclusive talent as well. They just mismanage them, editorially interfere to make them write the crappiest books of their lives, and then those writers end up losing all buzz. They were well on their way to mishandling Nick Spencer with that Supergirl fiasco. The only two writers who seem to have free reign are Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison.

So even if DC DID manage to "exclusivize" the talent that Marvel got, it wouldn't matter because those same writers would probably produce worse books for DC than they would for Marvel, thanks to editorial interference. I guess DC realized, since the editors write the books (badly) anyway, why bother paying an exclusive contract for a writer to be the middle man? Why not just eliminate the middle man and let the editor write directly?

I think Bob Harras will take DC further in this direction. Bob Harras's reign at Marvel consisted of books either written by editorial fiat, hot superstar artists or a combination of both. People who were actual writers by craft got squeezed out. I think the same will happen at DC. The only writers that will be given free reign to write ate Johns and Morrison and maybe Simone because she's off doing her own thing on the side with Secret Six. The rest will be directly or indirectly written by editorial or by a newly minted writer-artist like Tony Daniel or David Finch. Except DC's current writer-artists are less the 80s Jim Shooter type (Miller, Byrne, Simonson) and more the 90s Marvel type (Liefeld, Lee, Valentino)

[Schnitzy Pretzelpants]

Wow, when the interviewer said...

Geoff Johns obviously has a heavy hand in how this works itself out creatively

I think he may have been saying more than he realized with his choice of phrasing.

I can't decide whether my tastes have changed, or whether Johns writing has shifted, but his writing does seems awfully heavy-handed to me these days.

[randomengine]

I just finished reading Brightest Day #24 and I LOVED it!

[marvelprince]

A year long event to bring back Swamp Thing, to be written by some editor at DC. And an Aquaman comic.

So glad I didn't buy this series.

Then you're missing out. Arthur Curry FTW!!!