Top Ten Disatrous Debacles Done During Dan DiDio's....Leadership

There's been a lot of criticism leveled at Dan DiDio recently, what with Chuck Dixon getting fired, Grant Morrison's complaints about DC editors, and the fact that Final Crisis got thumped by Secret Invasion in terms of sales.

But, in fairness, it's not like these are the first problems that have come up since he's been in charge. Let's look back.

10. The Life and Death of Spoiler

He approved Spoiler getting tortured to death, and then allowed that to be retconned into her dying because long-time Batman ally Dr. Tompkins letting her die to prove a point. There's really no way where that isn't awful, and making all of it some sort of complicated deception which Batman appeared to be complicit (explained by his refusal to erect any sort of memorial in the Bat-Cave) doesn't exactly improve matters, though I guess it's nice she's alive.

9. Super-Delays

First of all, I really don't think there needs to be another Zod, because it's not like there's anything good or interesting about the character beyond his proclivity to demand opponents kneel before him. Second, if you're going to introduce a character that's only going to be around for one arc, you'd best make sure everyone else working on Superman books know that fact too.

8. Bad Cancellations

Any book that dies so Judd Winick's Titans may live is a martyr of the highest caliber.

7. Justice League of America

Emo-Tornado! The mind-shatteringly unintersting of Vixen's powers! The big three sitting around in a clubhouse deciding who's good enough to hang with them! And crossover after crossover after crossover! Probably not the best way to run your flagship team, but what do I know?

6. Wonder Woman Relaunch

Well, first they put Allan Heinberg on the book but he took over a year to produce five issues of decent, but hardly groundbreaking stories, well, story. Then Jodi Picoult came in, but was saddled with the ungodly (get it? GET IT?) mess that was Amazons Attack!. Not a good relaunch for a marquee character, but it could have been worse...

5. Flash: The Fastest Man Alive

In making Bart Allen the Flash, DC showed just how quickly a franchise can be practically wiped out by bad decisions. In a shocking twist of fate, stripping Bart Allen of all recognizable features and putting him the care of the writers from not-terribly successful Flash TV series of fifteen year prior didn't work too well. So, the decision was made to kill him, and bring back Wally West, and given the lead time involved in creating comics, this happened within a few months.

4. Superboy Prime

He's a shitty character, but I suppose he's good at gruesomely annihilating bad characters from the '90s.

3. Death! Death! Death!

Life insurance premiums for members of the JLI or Titans have never been higher.

2. DC Countdown

It's probably a good idea to, you know, actually be consistent with the series you're counting down to.

Also, if I were a Monitor, I don't think I'd be particularly scared that Kyle Rayner was watching me. What's he going to do? Angst me to death?

1. One Year Later

Well, let's see, it fucked up Aquaman, put the final nail in the coffin for Hawkman, and generally did more harm than good to pretty much every book in the line. But other than that it worked out great.