Posted in: Comics, Current News, DC Comics | Tagged: 5g, 5g remains, dc comics, infinite frontier, james tynion iv, Josh Williamson, scott snyder, The 5G Files

Josh Williamson Was Set To Leave DC Comics Over 5G

Josh Williamson was on John Siuntres' Word Balloon podcast last week and he talked about a whole lot of his upcoming plans at DC Comics – but originally it wasn't going to be that way at all. Williamson now joins a very small coterie of DC Comics creators who admit that 5G existed, it was a real thing – but also that he was going to leave because of it.

5G, as originally scooped by Bleeding Cool, was DC Comics publisher Dan DiDio's big plan to show the next generation of DC Comics heroes and then show the journey towards that, bringing in new creators. This would have included John Ridley writing Jace Fox as Batman, Brian Bendis writing Jonathan Kent as Superman, and all manner of the next versions of classic DC Comics characters, as well as a rewriting of DC Comics continuity as one long timeline stretching from the nineteen-thirties. And for Josh Williamson, that was enough. He tells Siuntres,

"I wasn't on a 5G [comic], I was leaving, that's the truth like I was leaving. I was looking at the writing on the wall and where things were going and I didn't feel like it was for me. Things weren't clicking and so my plan was to leave after Flash, that was really the goal, to wrap up Flash, do what I could on Death Metal working with Scott [Snyder] and James [Tynion IV], wrap up the story that we were planning on telling and then I was getting out of town. I didn't really tell anybody at the time but my contract was winding up and I knew what i was doing but then things changed."

The things changing was Dan DiDio, publisher of DC Comics being fired, and 5G being retrofitted into Future State and some of what became Infinite Frontier, the project that Josh Williamson is now running.

"Things changed, I renewed my deal and then I was like, all right, let's go and I started talking about different books. We started talking about Robin, we started talking about kinds of stuff last summer and then that led to talking about Infinite Frontier and all the plans we had. Then it was like, oh it's on now, it's game time, so here's a bunch of ideas, there's much we can do and I started pushing it. But yeah, 5g man, I mean man talk about getting a drink at a con."

Josh, I do note that both Scott and James are coming to Thought Bubble in Harrogate this November. Failing that I'll be at San Diego the week before. It is notable that Scott Snyder left DC Comics for a sabbatical after Death Metal to work on creator-owned book and James Tynion has also talked about only going to be doing Batman until #100, when 5G would have taken over originally…

"I don't mean any disrespect, people were working on that stuff, there was definitely really talented people putting some stuff together, but for me it wasn't for me. I definitely felt like I was ready to go with Flash, I was ready to hit the road but you know here we are and there's a lot of really awesome books coming. I'm always hearing about new stuff, I was having meetings today with a couple of the editors and we were just talking about stuff again. Things I'm not working on, in the next couple of weeks I'll start jamming out with a couple of other writers that are in DC and talking about their books with them and talking about what we're you know what they're working on, what I'm working on throwing ideas around,  there's so much cool stuff coming and i think it's part of because everyone is just really enthusiastic and energized uh with what we're doing right now."

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