Jim Lee & Dan DiDio Talk The New 52 And DC's Future

In a recent interview to IGN, DC Comics co-publishers, Jim Lee & Dan DiDio talked about the past of The New 52, and its future, the somewhat "confusing" five years leap into the future, Earth War, and much more.

IGN Comics: I wanted to start with a New 52 retrospective. It launched in 2011, so looking back, what are the biggest successes that have come out of it?

Jim Lee: There's a lot. It was four years ago, and in retrospect you get a real appreciation of how much work across the entire company went into that launch and really how much it's changed the business, from a financial standpoint. It brought a lot of new and lapsed readers in the business. It didn't raise just our numbers; it raised everyone's numbers. I consider the New 52 one of my career highlights, of all the cool things I've been involved in for the past 27 years.

Dan DiDio: For me personally it was an exciting moment. It's something we'd talked about in the years leading up to that, even before Jim and I took over. To be able to execute that -- we launched really well and really strong. I'm very proud of what came out of that. When we see the new interpretation of Aquaman take hold and repositioning Animal Man and Swamp Thing at the start of the line, which was very important to us. Now, seeing Harley Quinn break out as a brand new character -- and we're proud that we try to challenge ourselves and grow. I think that attitude is what's the most important. You can't take anything for granted. You can't just sit on your laurels and just rehash old stories -- so challenge yourself to tell new, bigger and better stories every month.

Lee: And I'm going to throw out one more, which is the new origin of Wonder Woman that Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang did from what existed before. It just opened up all these new kinds of storylines that had a different perspective on the character that I think served her extremely well and created a lot more buzz and interest for who she is. I think you're seeing success continue to play out as Margaret and David [Finch] take over.

Actually, her origin in general has never been quite as on-point as the others. And introducing Zeus as a father figure, I think it really creates this whole family dynamic that didn't exist before with the pantheon.

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IGN: One thing I find quite interesting is that the New 52 launched with a bunch of different families of titles: Young Justice, The Dark Justice League, Superman, Green Lantern, Batman, The Edge. Today, some have ballooned into huge families of titles, like Justice League, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, while others have shrunk down to almost nothing. What lesson have you gleaned from this? More to the point, what has this done to the diversification of your publishing line?

DiDio: You know what it is? Like I said, one of the things we did, when we launched the New 52, we broke those classifications up in a way that we were able to draw attention to all the characters. So we put them in groupings so we would be able to promote and help them draw attention in groups. It was never made to be a certain amount different stuff. We always want to have different styles of product.

But our goal has always been to go with the strongest titles, moving forward, and keep as much diversity in the line. What's important is that, with a lot of characters, we're careful. Things like Frankenstein and Grifter and Voodoo and things of that nature, which were really risky characters and risky chances for us to take, and we're very happy to do them. Even though they didn't work, we knew there was value in those characters. And that's why you see those characters in appear in Futures End. We think they brought a lot of value to the launch. They brought a lot of breadth and depth to the line of books, and a diversity to the line. We didn't want to put them out and then forget about them. It was very important to make sure that they were prominent in other series, and that's why we put them in Futures End, to say that these characters, that even though they had cancelled books, are still valuable to us and will be an integral part of the DC Universe for five years and for the future.

IGN: With the New 52 annual celebration month, you've had the zero issues, the villain issues, and now you're doing Futures End, which jumps five years in the future. What made you decide on this year's Futures End theme?

DiDio: In the first year we told the backstory. We told, not the origins, but the earlier days of the heroes. In the second year we told the villains'. In the third year we're going forward now. We looked at the past of the DCU and now we're looking into the future of the DCU to help give us a much wider base from where our stories are telling and where our characters might be able to move.

Lee: I think it also plants a flag, creatively. It's five years off -- this is where we may be or might be or will be. This sets that mystery up, and it's interesting as a reader to get that payoff early and then fill in the story in between. I think it's a bold way to tell a story. It's our of sequence, essentially. It reminds me of Pulp Fiction. Ultimately, what we find is that, when you do good stories, people gravitate towards that. Using Dark Knight Returns as an example, that's something that was set in the future, and you see how that influenced a whole generation of writers. They kind of work toward that future, even though they didn't have to, but because they just love that storyline.

So Futures End is all about saying, "Hey, where is the DC Universe going to be five years from now?" and "Are there some tentpole moments that people can gravitate or move towards, because there are some cool storylines." I think it just ups the stakes for the universe and shows that there's going to be some amazing things happening five years from now. Stay tuned. Ultimately, the way you get there may not even be the way you predict, and the outcome may be very different in that there may be fake reveals or things that you think to be true that aren't true. So there's a lot of great storytelling to be done doing something like this.

We actually did it back in the days of Wildstorm. We jumped ahead and we spent the next year and a half working towards that storyline. That's very difficult to do, but if you do it right it's just very creatively satisfying to both the creators and the readers.

IGN: I've actually seen some criticism online of people who are a little confused about the time jump nature of the event. They're saying that these stories don't count, because when we do actually get five years from now, this won't be the story. This is just sort of a "What If...?" story. How would you address those fans' concerns?

DiDio: What I'll say is -- it's very simple -- we're using Futures End, in a lot of these stories, as what we feel is the definitive direction of the DC Universe, of the future. And as the Futures End storyline unfolds, it'll take us to places that give us the breadth and scope of what the DC Universe really stands for and what it is. It will really set the tone and direction for the universe, as long as we're here.

Lee: Taken literally, it's five years in our time and five years in story time. So it's in the future, and again I think the thing that resonates with creators is what we can all rally around and say, "That's really cool. I'll go for that story. That's a cool character." So let's move toward that and lean into it. That doesn't mean it necessarily happens exactly like that, scene for scene, but as you approach it you start to see, "Hey, this is the direction of the DC Universe."

DiDio: When you're dealing with these time travel storylines, a lot of it is, you know the direction the world is heading, and that's what we're setting, but how we get there might be moved side-by-side and we change them, but the focus and the points we're going through are something that we feel will be integral for all our storylines moving forward.

IGN: What are some of your favorite titles from this month? What are ones fans should pay extra close attention to?

DiDio: Well, I'd have to go with a couple of them. The Green Arrow one's really important because it really ties in to the Futures End story. I love the Grayson storyline. What's fun about Grayson is that this is a brand new series, and yet we were able to tell his story five years in the future because the writers have thought it all the way through. The Superman story is a big storyline for us, which is exciting to see. Naturally, I've been pointing to the Booster Gold book as being probably one of the pivotal points in the DC Universe and being one of the biggest clues for what we have coming next year.

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IGN: In Futures End, all of the characters are referring to a great war that happened -- the Earth War -- but they're only giving us slight hints without any explicit details. Is this war something that we should look forward to in the present? Is there something with Darkseid that's coming?

DiDio: [Laughs] Well, you get a chance to see the final battle between Earth 2 and Apokolips. The events of that appear to be the ones determining the future for Futures End. So there's a lot of story to be played out in the next few months. But that's something I don't want to give away just yet. Think epic trilogy -- can I say that?

Lee: Sure!

IGN: One last question, what do you guys want to say to people to get them excited for DC's Futures End event?

Lee: I think if you love cosmic, epic storylines with some interesting time travel twists and turns, this is the story, and it really sets the stage for an epic storyline that runs through a trilogy of stories that culminate in 2015.

DiDio: What I'll also say is that what's great about Worlds End and Futures End is that it brings out the true soul of the DC Universe and the Multiverse and the different interpretations of the characters and all the different worlds out there that we see in diversity. It's all one great history and one great continuity that could ultimately lead to one great story.

Lee: Every fan will have cause to rejoice and celebrate next year.

DiDio: The goal is that -- we actually think about DC having a long rich history with a long rich fanbase with so many different generations of fans, each with legendary interpretations of heroes over the years. Our goal is to make sure that they all feel satisfied and enjoy what we put out in DC Comics.

Excited about what's coming?

Source - IGN

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