Sun Wukong
Kicker's, Inc. Superfan
Offline
I thought the comic division of DC had their shirt together? Like you said GA, this had to have come from higher up. But I still don't get it. They promoted this as being for "mature" readers. Were people expecting they'd get some cursing and blood or something?
There has been a lot of destabilization at the upper echelons of DC the past few months. Geoff Johns left his role (or was forced out, depending on whose stories you believe) as Chief Creative Officer. However you feel about him as a creator, it was widely believed he served as a mitigating force on Publisher Dan Didio's worse instincts. Which was a good thing because Dan Didio is basically one part carny, one part loud mouth idiot. The leaking, for no reason at all, of the big Batman/Catwoman wedding spoiler to the press is believed to have been a Didio move, the kind he hadn't been making recently as he tried to be on his best big boy behavior. So with Johns out of the picture there's probably no bulwark against Didio's dumber instincts and decision making, which isn't great. Jim Lee certainly has never shown to be one, and Bob Harras (editor in chief) has no real power and serves mostly an administrative role over day to day operations as opposed to being a big creative force. Which depending on how you feel about his EiC run at Marvel in the 90's may be a good thing.
Diane Nelson also left as their Warner Bros. corporate overseer and was just recently replaced by a lady named Pam Lifford, who is heading up some weird new hodgepodge division that has lumped themed entertainment, franchising operations, DC comics, and several other things into one department. She has no real background in publishing or creative, mostly marketing and brand awareness (which is pretty much what all the non DC elements under her purview are). So who knows how that turns out. It supposedly puts DC in a more high profile corporate position, whereas in the past it was sort of tucked away and free to operate with relative freedom, only drawing Warner's attentions as an IP farm. That could be good or bad.
I don't think any of this is apocalyptic or anything, but it's certainly been a shakeup after a few solid years of stability. Whatever the case, they'll still be more coherent and logical than Marvel, which has turned into the late-stage WCW of comic book publishers minus the financial ruin.
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