Posted in: Comics | Tagged: dan didio, dc, diversity, marvel, new age of dc heroes

Shots Fired at Marvel as Dan Didio Discusses DC Diversity?

Published Tue, 13 Feb 2018 18:34:30 -0600

DC Co-Publisher Dan Didio addressed his views on the diversity of DC's characters in an interview, and it's difficult not to view some of his comments as a direct shot at rival Marvel Comics, who temporarily replaced some of their most well-known characters like Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America with legacy versions in over the past few years. Speaking with Newsarama's Vaneta Rogers, Didio explained his take on the concept behind the publishing initiative New Age of DC Heroes, and in the course of that, he talked about his views on "diversifying" DC's stable of characters.

"We want to diversify in a way that feels natural and organic, rather than forcing change upon characters that people fully understand in a certain manner already," he explained. "So we love the New Age of DC Heroes – I really feel like we're pushing ourselves. The hope was to create characters that were filling gaps in our line-up without ultimately replacing other characters. I think that's what was key."

"What I'm saying is that we have a series of characters that people understand and recognize their interpretation and react to," Didio elaborated when pressed. "For us, we need to grow and to expand. And we haven't had a real influx of new characters in quite awhile. And this feels like the right moment to really push that out.

"We went back with Rebirth and we re-established our core in a way that the fan base reacted very positively to," he said. "So we couldn't go in there and start changing things automatically after re-establishing who they were. So this gave us the perfect chance to create new characters to help fill out that world now and fill in those blanks in the types of stories we weren't telling in that moment."

Didio said he wanted the new characters to become "fully integrated" into the DC Universe, and brought up Firestorm as an example of the path a character could take to becoming a DC mainstay.

"Our goal is to create characters and find ways to make them work, because we add value to the DCU and fill places in the DC Universe that helps make it a more diverse and expansive place," Didio concluded.

Read the full interview at Newsarama.