A few things have become clear as the dust settles from the appointment of the new executive staff at DC (see “New DC Executive Team Announced”).  First, and probably most importantly, new CEO Nelson has kept experienced DC hands in charge of creative areas of the company, and appears to be building a talent-friendly environment.  With DiDio, Lee, and Johns in charge, the company is unlikely to do anything disastrous with the characters. 

 

Second, a new hand (John Rood) is being brought in to run sales and marketing for the new entity, which given his entertainment background appears to be a step toward marketing DC’s characters as transmedia properties, rather than simply as comics, books, DVDs, etc.

 

Third, DC is preparing to make a move on digital comics.  Although it’s unclear exactly what that move will be, co-publisher Jim Lee and Rood appear to be driving it.  Former publisher Paul Levitz was uninterested in digital comics at their current stage; it appears that attitude is being swept away in the new regime. 

 

And fourth, an apparently unstable structure may not be in this case.  Usually, any kind of “co-“ titles are temporary, with one or the other of the co-titled execs leaving and the other in charge before long.  The co-publisher situation with DiDio and Lee appears to be a little different, however.  DiDio will be in charge of the New York publishing operation, and Lee will be based on southern California and continue to run Wildstorm, along with digital comics.  With portfolios that discrete, it may be that Nelson plans to have the two run their own areas of the company, with little opportunity for the kind of conflicts that make co-titled situations inherently unstable.