After ten years, Dan DiDio has stepped down from his post as co-publisher of DC Comics. He assumed the position in 2010 and oversaw the 2011 reboot of the entire comics line as The New 52. (That will always be significant to me, as that was the reason I was hired to write for this website.) Prior to The New 52, DC published the time-warping miniseries ‘Flashpoint’. The New 52 reboot was meant to refresh the brand for a new generation and was a major influence on the subsequent movies based on DC’s characters, and ‘Flashpoint’ will be a major influence on the upcoming ‘The Flash’ movie.
It was also under his tenure that The CW created the Arrowverse of hit shows, and DC even launched its own streaming service, DC Universe. It also spawned the live-action movies which have been hit or miss in terms of audience reaction. While ‘Aquaman’ became the highest-grossing DC movie ever, the most recent release, ‘Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey’ has been an underperformer at the box office.
DiDio shared his position as editor with Jim Lee. Before that, DiDio spent six years as DC’s VP executive editor. He started with the company in 2004, as the writer of ‘Superboy’. It was not announced who — if anyone — will replace him. It was also not announced what DiDio is going to do now. He was recently announced as co-hosting a panel at next weekend’s C2E2 con, with Jim Lee. It’s not known just yet if he will still appear. Newsarama states that as of Friday morning, DiDio was still posting to a retailer-only Facebook forum on behalf of DC.
While The New 52 was an immediate hit, the fact that it dumped all of DC’s history prior to that wound up causing a lot of continuity issues (there was never a Teen Titans?!). This led to DC having to do another massive reboot in 2016, DC Rebirth. Yet another reboot was announced last year, and was expected to kick off with the upcoming Free Comic Book day release of ‘Generation Zero: Gods Among Us’.
Also last year, DC laid off 240 people from its publishing division.
Considering that DiDio’s departure has just become known, it remains to be seen in what direction the company will head. Lee may remain as publisher solo or someone else may be selected to replace DiDio.
His tenure at DC has been a mixed bag. While The New 52 ignited new interest in the comic line, DC has not managed to match the success of Marvel. That is also true when it comes to movies. However, DC has excelled in television.
What would you like to see DC do to move forward?
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
