Dan DiDio Co-President of DC Comics gives readers of his FaceBook page insight into the inner workings of DC Comics during the “One Year Later” jump in titles.
Okay, hotel room coffee, not the best of options, but it gets the job done. Now where were we…
In reviewing all the excitement, conversation and controversy of the last two days following our June announcements, it made me think back to all the noise we made when DC Comics did the One Year Later jump across the line during Infinite Crisis. To me, the similarities between the two are quite prevalent. In terms of expectations and challenges, the lessons learned in the One Year Later jump were applied to insure our June series (hopefully) don’t experience some of the same pitfalls (you can draw your own parallels after reading).
So here we are back in 2005, Infinite Crisis was approved and running, but still in its early stages. The Day of Vengeance mini-series was still The Wrath of Spectre one shot (all the prelude mini-series were one shots at this point), and the full story for Infinite Crisis had yet to fully form. Still, we had to plan for what followed, and the plans for new series and ongoing series directions had to be built simultaneously with the event. Tricky business, especially when you are trying to build story and continuity off the hoped for momentum of a book that had yet to be written. But stuff like that was what made my job fun.
I thought back to something I remembered from Secret Wars (the original Secret Wars), I liked the idea of showing a change before seeing how they change occurred. It had an air of mystery and excitement, and even if later reveal was a little weak, the journey and speculation was a lot of fun. Imagine if we did that across the entire DC line of books.Part of our initial Infinite Crisis pitch there was a section entitled 2006 FLIP NOTES (actual portion of memo is attached below). Based on how we were projecting the plans for Infinite Crisis, we started to make plans for the series that followed. Now this only really works if you stick to the original plans. Any deviation can undermine the series, and possibly the event, but I thought by jumping the line one year forward, we could have dramatic story changes take place, and whatever the cause of the change, if not included in the event series, could be explained in the missing year. Simple, right? So based on what we knew about Crisis and who we expected it to end, we started to prepare the directions for the One Year Later changes.
These were our original “flip notes” and plans for the series changes following Infinite Crisis (each of these changes came from key events planned in the event book):
2006 FLIP NOTES
SUPERMAN/ ACTION COMICS (EB)
The dissolution of Lois and Clark’s marriage; true alien nature of Superman
(Action Comics included; Adventures of Superman becomes rotating arcs)
BATMAN/ DETECTIVE COMICS (MI)
Bruce Wayne goes broke, too proud to ask for help, he is forced to rely more on wits and muscle than technology to fight crime. Commissioner Gordon returns to Gotham and Harvey Bullock rejoins the force (Detective Comics included; Gotham Knights and Legends Of Dark Knight cancelled, replaced by Young Bruce Wayne and DARK KNIGHT RISING.)
CATWOMAN
Takes Bruce in rekindles affair between two.
WONDER WOMAN
Is forced to merge with Diana Prince (separate person) as penance for killing and to regain her eyesight.
GREEN LANTERN
Reclaims his life in the newly rebuilt Coast City. Learns of cause and effect, His return heralds the return of a newer and deadlier Sinestro.
FLASH (JC)
Bart Allen replaces Wally West as Wally disappears into the great void. Play the generational story of
Iris Allen and grandson Bart. The heritage of the Flash with a kid trying to blaze his own path of glory.
GREEN ARROW (PT)
Elected mayor of Star City. How does he weigh his vigilante nature and sense of social responsibility in a truly political environment.
AQUAMAN (MI)
Hunted by Atlantis as an enemy of the state, stops trying to integrate Sub-Diego while Atlantis tries to control It.
HAWKGIRL
Hawkman is killed in the Crisis and Hawkgirl goes on a quest to find his reincarnated soul.
ATOM
The powers transfer from his costume to his body.
FIRESTORM (SW)
Firestorm returns from a one year absence in space to find his personal life shattered and his father in jail for murder.
GREEN LANERN CORPS (PT}
Now fully up and running in its new structure, the Guardians are revealed to be omnipotent beings, their blue forms are just a shell.
SUPERGIRL
Leaves Paradise Island to discover the world on her own.
SUPERBOY
Shaken by meeting a darker and deadlier version of himself, he decides that his fate is sealed and moves in with Luthor as his son.
NIGHTWING
Jason Todd picks up the mantle of Nightwing following the death of Dick Grayson and is rejected by the
Bat-group as a villain and imposter. He sets out to prove that he can be better than Batman by doing it his own way.
ROBIN
Tim sets himself on the path to become Bruce’s successor by retracing his steps in training.
BATGIRL
Cassandra sacrifices herself to bring Steph. Stephanie awakens from her coma to become the new Batgirl.
GOTHAM CENTRAL
Centers around Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Bullock. If not, probably cancelled in ’06.
BIRDS OF PREY-
Lady Shiva teams with Barbara.
CHECKMATE
Barabara Gordon becomes the head of Checkmate.
TEEN TITANS- Bart, Starfire and Cyborg leave team, Ravager, Terra joins? OUTSIDERS
Starfire joins
For those keen of eye, you’ve probably noticed a number of things, well, didn’t happen. As I said, this was an evolving process, and final sign off couldn’t come until we had a final story. So work on the One Year Later storylines had to be delayed until that sign off came, and after much conversation, negotiation and concession, changes were made. By now Geoff was knee deep in Crisis and temporarily living in NY so he could be constant contact with the editors and other writers to coordinate the tie ins, and the story, for the most part was fully locked. Final changes to the ending were being made, including the “now famous” switch of Superboy for Nightwing in the pivotal scene of sacrifice, and shared to all vested parties as quickly as possible so that everyone working had the latest information.
Naturally, these late changes forced us to revise some of our thinking, as seen in Flip Notes, take two.
RE-LAUNCHED
WONDER WOMAN (last issue 226)
Wonder Woman takes on the secret identity of Diana Prince in a lesson to better understand mankind.
JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERiCA (last issuel25)
A brand new team is formed from the ashes of the last team . Brad Meltzer reaps what he sowed in
IDENTITY CRISIS.
FLASH (last issue 230)
Bart Allen replaces Wally West as Wally disappears into the great void. Play the generational story of Jay Garrick and Bart, comparing the heritage of the Flash with a kid trying to blaze his own path of glory. What is it like being the ultimate procrastinator and the fastest man alive?
ONE YEAR LATER SUPERMAN/ ACTION COMICS (MI)
Superman forsakes his Clark Kent identity as he takes a more proactive stand in the universe. When he takes on Clark’s identity again, he must rebuild his career and relationship with Lois.
BATMAN/ DETECTIVE COMICS (PT)
Bruce Wayne gives up his fortune and forces himself to rely more on wits and muscle than technology to fight crime. Commissioner Gordon returns to Gotham and Harvey Bullock rejoins the force
CATWOMAN
Selina Kyle is in labor and gives birth to Helena (named after the nurse in the delivery room). She never reveals the father and must deal with raising a child and reconciling this new role with her past life.
ROBIN
Tim sets himself on the path to become Bruce’s successor by retracing Bruce’s steps in training.
GREEN LANTERN (PT}
Reclaims his life in the newly rebuilt Coast City.
GREEN LANTERN CORPS (PT)
Now fully up and running in its new structure, the Guardians are revealed to be omnipotent beings, their blue forms are just a shell.
GREEN ARROW (PT)
Mr. Queen goes to Washington. Ollie is elected Congressman and takes his fight to the hill. How does he weigh his vigilante nature and sense of social responsibiiity in a truly political environment.
AQUAMAN (MI)
Aquaman settles comfortably into his role of king when he assumes leadership on a land based country. Following Atlantis’ destruction, he must also reconcile the assimilation of the people of Atlantis and Sub Diego.
HAWKMAN
Hawkman stays on Thanagar and we follow Hawkgirl’s adventures on Earth as she establishes her own destiny. She will join Justice League. Book would be renamed HAWKGIRL #50.
FIRESTORM (SW)
Firestorm returns from a one year absence in space now attached to Prof. Stein to find his personal life shattered and his father in jail for his murder.
SUPERGIRL
Leaves Paradise Island to discover the world on her own.
NIGHTWING
Jason Todd picks up the mantle ofNightwing in New York and Dick goes after him to clear his name and winds up staying in the city that never sleeps.
BATGIRL
Cassandra in conflict with her mother Lady Shiva and Oracle.
BIRDS OF PREY-
Lady Shiva replaces Black Canary on the team
TEEN TITANS
Cyborg wakes up after being off line for a year to discover Robin is leading the new group.
OUTSIDERS
Nightwing take the team global as a pre-emptive strike force with a reassembled team.
JSA
The older generation recruit the “problem heroes” in attempt to accept their legacy.
This second pass was closer to what was actually published but still not exact. Changes continued to be made up to the moment the books were solicited, but thoughts of getting ahead on the line where lost because of some creators being left on hold waiting on their character’s disposition. We also had another unique problem. As we tried to shift the line one year ahead we were working from the same talent pool. Before and after the OYL jump, a number of creators were focused on wrapping up stories than starting new ones. But the time spent closing out stories took time and energy away from the new starts (and while we didn’t reboot the entire line, we did get to put big number 1’s on every book with the 1 Year Later logo), this lead to an unevenness in the line as some of the stories for OYL felt rushed while others thought out. This would come back to haunt us. Still, Infinite Crisis had some mighty momentum and with OYL, DC experienced a 15% sales jump across the line, and 2006 became one of our greatest year’s on record. Everything was going right, and everything seemed to be working. But now, looking back, you can see where we started to plant the seeds of our own undoing.
To be continued (but not one year later)….
Source: Dan DiDio
