DC Re-Assignment: Blackest Day? Brightest Night?
I was taking a moment at work this afternoon (a boring office job. You don't want to know.) to look at my RSS feed, and couldn't help but notice an open letter from Geoff Johns. And one from Didio and Lee. And yet another from Diane Nelson, Honcho of the film division at Warner Bros. which recently took on DC Comics and turned it into DC Entertainment.
Well, I lost more than the anticipated five minutes of "me" time, as I read the flood of letters from DC staff that I knew and a couple from folks whose names I don't believe I'd ever registered.
I quit managing my personal blog a few months ago, and I haven't posted here in 2010, but this seems like fairly big news.
And, of course like the good folks at Robot 6 and elsewhere, I've pondered the announcement and come to a few conclusions.
1) We have no real idea what these titles mean.
We may think we understand what Didio, Lee and others are going to do under the new titles, but I find the assertion that "they split Levitz's job into 6 jobs" to be a misread. It DOES seem possible that this is a true reorganization, but (a) Nelson has a job. She is not involved with DCE on a day-to-day basis. (b) I have a very hard time believing that Lee and Didio will actually last long as Co-Anything, and half wonder if this isn't an evaluation period of sorts by Nelson to see whether Lee or Didio wants it more.
But we don't really know. If you've worked anywhere but Zippy's burgers, you have to know that the shake-ups are never really what you're sold initially, especially as the boss's boss has to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of their new team. And with titles like "Chair of Creative Creation", I'd guess "Other Duties as Assigned" is going to come into play quite a bit.
2) DC is Getting Serious About It's Role as home of Licensed Product for WB
Your comics are not going away, but at least one of these guys seems to be around to make sure that DC finally has a strategy for a digital presence that isn't as self-defeating and short-sighted as "Zuda". That may mean "eComics". That might mean something entirely new and different.
And you guys get that the gatekeeper between DC properties, Hollywood and your $10 is going to be Geoff Johns, right? Whether you love or hate his writing, its going to be hard to argue that the guy doesn't know or understand his DC characters. he certainly seems to know how to make sense of them to a new audience.
That's a far cry from WB's prior stance of selling off the properties to the highest bidder, and far more in line with how Disney has managed some of their properties since 1928.
Let's be clear: with Geoff Johns at the helm, we're probably a lot less likely to get another "Catwoman". And even if "Smallville: Absolute Justice" needed a few tens of millions of dollars thrown at it to work, this is the guy who cared enough about the JSA to shoe-horn them onto Smallville in full costume.
In the ways that count, Johns is now more important to making sure the kids on the playground know who Superman is than anything Didio or Lee are likely to do at any time in their career.
3) Same Bat-Managers, Same Bat-Channel?
Yes and no. These are the same human beings, and so we can probably expect to see some of the same decisions. Only someone with the limited vision of Tom Brevoort would believe these are going to be meaningless changes.
(a) We don't know what these changes will mean, or if, honestly, Didio or Lee are being put in a position where they can do as little damage as possible, are really competing, etc... (b) Putting some development in DC's hands when it comes to its properties is, in fact, a serious change. (c) There's no real feel who will be managing the actual EiC role at DC if Didio is getting kicked upstairs.*
Brevoort can poo-poo, but the fact is, the Marvel changes were changes in title. DC seems to truly be on the edge of something a bit different.
Did Nelson screw up not bringing in fresh blood?
Maybe. Who knows, really? But I'm not convinced she's done or won't can Lee and/ or Didio if they don't meet her expectations.
DC has flown under the radar during its entire existence as a subsidiary of Time-Warner, and immune to the competitive environment of the entertainment industry. Nelson isn't as well entrenched at WB as Horne, and its hard to believe she won't be looking to make her ownership of DC a win at any cost. Didio and Lee had best figure out how to prove their worth, if you follow...
But... You know, comics bring in writers from other media. I am reminded of the Jodi Picoult experiment on Wonder Woman, and it was just painful. Jodi Picoult is one of the best-selling authors in America. Understanding how to sell Hogwarts to muggles (one rumor was that the WB exec who brought the Harry Potter franchise to America was up for Paul Levitz's gig) is not the same thing as getting your head around an industry as insulated and, frankly, irrational as the comic industry.
Bringing in "new blood" is a guarantee of absolutely nothing. But Didio, Lee and Johns are also not the only comic geeks on the block.
So In Conclusion:
We basically sort of know what's going on. Sort of.
But I think more than anything, this event is a reminder of how little we understand about what really goes on at comic companies. There certainly does seem to be a bit of a rorschach test applied to the shake up, titles, etc...
I, for one, will not be watching what Didio, Lee, etc... are saying on "The Source" or in press releases. I'll be looking at what is hitting the comic shop, appearing at the theater, available for downloads, and maybe what shows up as a toy or two on the shelf.
At the the end of the day, if what we're talking about in comics is a management-team shake-up (especially in a week), then I have to wonder if we shouldn't all hang it up.
I wish these guys (and the team at Marvel, who also all recently had promotions or some such) the best of luck. And congratulate Diane Nelson for making it through a few months of dealing with comics and not giving up in despair.
Now, if someone will just tell me (a) what's the deal with the Siegels these days, and (b) so is Nelson really going to get a Superman movie rolling by 2011?
*this is where I would expect Johns to wind up, but apparently not.
Questions? Comments? Hate mail?
Come on, I can take it.
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Ryan is an Op/Ed columnist for Comic Fodder. He keeps his comics and himself in Austin, Texas where he manages/d the long running blog League of Melbotis.
He likes Superman.
You can reach Ryan (aka: The League) at theleague.cf@gmail.com
