June
23 DC Didio ouster rumors prove false, expose fan discontent

The just-wrapped Heroes Con in Charlotte, N.C., was dominated by rumors and speculation about a big shakeup at DC Comics. Most of the focus was on exec VP Dan Didio, who is the point man for all things superhero and has born the brunt of criticism regarding the failures, both perceived and real, of the line.

But while fans were primed for some kind of major shakeup, the resulting news that John Nee had resigned as DC's senior VP of business development was not what fans were expecting. Add in that Nee was well-liked, parent company Warner Bros. was pleased with his performance and that his decision to leave was completely his own, and the whole thing could have been written off as yet another overblown Internet rumor were it not for the vehemence with which fans voiced their discontent with DC in general and Didio in particular.

With Didio reported to have signed a significant contract extension, it's clear that Warner Bros. doesn't share these fans' dismay. And the reasons for that may not do much for comicbook readers' self-esteem. First, DC is a small part of the WB that, unlike its main rival Marvel, is pretty much exclusively concerned with publishing comicbooks. And that's definitely small potatoes: ICV2.com estimated the graphic novel and comicbook market at retail in 2007 at just over $700 million — a drop in the bucket compared to the $2.8 billion in revenues that Warner Bros. Filmed Entertainment reported in just the first quarter of 2008. DC's value is in its vast catalog of intellectual properties and its ability to generate and incubate new ones.

That said, media interest in comics is massively disproportionate to the number of people that read them, and the one thing that may prompt WB execs to scrutinize DC's efforts is bad press. Fan discontent, while vocal, can quickly turn around with a couple of hits. And DC arguably has a few of those, such as the popularity of Geoff John's run on Green Lantern and Morrison's Batman R.I.P. crossover, though it could use a few more. The pendulum of fan favor has long swung back and forth between DC and Marvel, and while it's right now mostly on Marvel's side, it will swing back at some point. Of course, coming up with a new hit series is increasingly difficult — witness the constant recycling and reviving of old characters, and the struggles new series starring even such well-known characters as Flash and Wonder Woman have had in recent years.

But even a few hits are unlikely to satisfy DC and Didio's critics any time soon. Even if the company decided big changes were in order, it would take months for them to show up in the books. Even if DC were to replace Didio, the number of candidates qualified to appease fanboys, run a publishing operation and imbue the company's characters with the kind of new energy they need to attract new readers is astoundingly short.

For DC to gain ground on Marvel will require both creativity and consistency. Raiding talent alone will help, but not as much as finding new writers and artists and letting them loose on the DCU. It also apparently requires some internal editorial issues — editors and creators working on superheroes have to do better job of coordinating their storylines and characters if the idea of the DCU as a cohesive world is going to work.

And lastly, WB could help out immensely by getting more DC-based movies made. It's a lot harder for DC than for Marvel to get movies made: WB only makes so many movies a year and DC movies have to compete for those slots with everything from Clint Eastwood's latest to Harry Potter; Marvel, as a stand-alone company, in many ways needs to make movies to survive. And it's not fair to throw the comics operation in with the movie operation in DC's case anyway, as everyone I've ever talked to at DC Comics says no one at the publishing operation has much of anything to do with movie or TV projects.

Fair or not, fans always will see comics as a Marvel vs. DC thing, and movie success plays a huge part in that. It'd be hard to argue DC was falling behind if they had a Green Lantern movie to answer the box office success of Iron Man or The Incredible Hulk. And while it seems unlikely now that major changes are imminent at DC, the company also has to address that a lot of folks who read comics are unhappy with what they're seeing at DC.