An Open Letter To Dan Didio

Growing up one of my earliest memories was the way my room was decorated. The curtains, bedding and wallpaper were all DC heroes. Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel all looked down at me each day as I grew up. This was probably the subliminal beginnings of me being a life long fan of DC characters.

Being from a small town there was no access to a large selection of what to read, but with luck a convenience store in town carried Batman monthly. Not knowing how the publication cycle worked, I would go down every couple of weeks and look for the latest Batman issue. It wasn't until 1993 that I moved to a large city for university, complete with comic book stores. I immediately started a file, collecting anything that involved Batman or his cast of characters. During this time the writing was fantastic, from Knightfall through Legacy, Contagion and beyond. I discovered great writers like Peter David (Aquaman), Grant Morrison (JLA) and Chuck Dixon (Nightwing) to just mention the strongest memories.

I took a brief hiatus from comic collecting, only to find a girlfriend who enjoyed the culture as much as I do. Upon returning I asked what I missed that was worth going back and getting in trade form. The first words I heard were Brian Michael Bendis. Being a life long DC fan, I took it slow and picked up his Daredevil series. I also picked up a personal high amount of DC titles to dive right back in where I left off. Jeff Loeb amazed me with his Hush and Superman/Batman stories and it was nice to see Chuck Dixon return for the occasional story arc.

I found Nightwing floundering as a title and more importantly, as a character. Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan led a parade of formerly dead characters who were featured in titles again. Around the time of Loeb's departure I found solace in very few DC titles, and yet hung on to some for far too long out of sentimental reasons. I am not giving him all of the credit, his Marvel titles are not very good either but that seems to be around the time that things really got bad at DC. I cannot recall a well written DC story, save for Identity Crisis, off the top of my head for the last 5 years. A third straight weekly series with poor writing made me bitter that I had even started such an endeavor, and the "big three" were at an all time low for me. I dropped Action Comics, Superman, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Teen Titans, Titans, Outsiders and many, many others due to poor writing and absolutely no continuity between titles.

The final straw for me was the horrible combination of Batman RIP, Final Crisis and Blackest Night. At some point during my hiatus, Mr. Morrison lost his touch as a storyteller. RIP was probably my biggest disappointment as far as Batman storytelling goes. Final Crisis was so out of sequence and forced you to buy so many alternate titles that I became angered, far before the death of Bruce Wayne. And now, many years after the zombie movement took off everywhere else, we have Blackest Night. I attempted to give Blackest Night a fair chance, but it is nothing but shock tactics each month. Also once again, you need to buy almost every major DC title to keep up with this event. Your crew of solid writers has dwindled down to Bill Willingham and Geoff Johns, who has now become hit and miss. Those two men cannot carry an entire comic book franchise. I don't know what happened with Chuck Dixon, but it is a far bigger loss to DC Comics.

During all of my frustrations with DC, I steadily picked up more and more Marvel titles. Led by Bendis, David, Fraction, Kyle, Yost, Kirkman, Brubaker and Millar the steady stream of great writing has me picking up Marvel titles first each week to read. They seem to put more thought and effort in to each title and event to make sure everything unfolds for the reader nicely. Yes they have had some issues with things releasing on time, but nothing compares to All-Star Batman and Robin for lateness so that argument is lost. When Marvel unveiled Secret Invasion and showed how they had laid the groundwork for it for over 5 years I was simply blown away. All of their major events unfold seamlessly into one another and they take the time to actually develop characters into people who you can love, or hate.

I feel that the only way that I can make a statement as a fan and consumer is to stop purchasing DC Comics material until such time that it will be worth my time and money again.

Best of Luck,
Paul Konasavage