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February 24, 2008: WonderCon 2008 - DC Nation Panel

Dan Didio was joined at the panel by Bob Wayne, Mike Carlin, Jann Jones, Sergio Aragones and new Superman writer James Robinson.

The DC Nation panels are always a fun trip and I recommend them to any and all convention goers. There's a lot of sarcasm that may appear mean once transcribed, but I assure you, it was all in fun. We in the audience were told as always that "What happens at the DC Nation panel, stays at the DC Nation panel," and we're not to tell anyone what happened in the room.

So here's what happened.

Didio often throughout the panel mentioned "The book we can't talk about." He can be a lot of fun with crowds, but what's worth the price of admission is when he accidentally leaks information (or thinks he does) and Bob Wayne treats him like a child who's picking his nose in public while Didio giggles uncontrollably.

Dan Didio asked the crowd, "How many people have been reading Countdown all the way?" Many hands were raised and one person jumped up and yelled. Didio asked the person to stand, saying, "We're in love with you right now."

Didio asked several people in the crowd what they liked about Countdown. One person responded, "Better than 52."

He then asked me personally what I liked about 52. I said, "I expected it to be a train wreck and it wasn't." Bonus points to me for honesty. Didio even suggested that they use that for the cover of the collected edition.

When asked if DC would ever work with Marvel on another crossover, Mike Carlin explained that "Anything you do with them, is just fun for that five seconds, which stinks because then you can never refer back to anything. You put a lot of work into something and it's just a comic book instead of something that can be part of the big picture."

"Gary Frank intends to draw Superman as long as we'll let him, and we intend to let him for a while."

James Robinson, the new writer on Superman, announced that Renato Guedes will be the new artist on the book.

An audience member asked if the Legion of Superheroes from the current Action Comics arc might ever get it's own book. Didio told him to ask the question again next year. "Not that I'm dodging it."

Didio explained the conception of DC Universe #0 is that he and Mike Carlin were working on Countdown #0 and realized that there was a gap in the story between that and Final Crisis #1. "We needed the zero book to be a launching pad for a lot of stuff that'll be following after the book." Grant Morrison asked Geoff Johns to work with him on DC Universe #0 and they expanded the whole idea of the book. It will feed into stories like Final Crisis, Wonder Woman and Blackest Night. George Perez will be one of the artists working on it and it will be sold for 50 cents. "This is the launching pad for everything good that's going to be coming down the pipe."

"The DC Universe has been built on the multiverse concept that was part of DC for so long up until Crisis on Infinite Earths. We brought it back for a short period of time to show the strength of that concept. The multiple incarnations of a character, the multiple interpretations."

An audience member asked if there would be more Jimmy Olsen after Countdown. James Robinson responded, "Very much so. One of the things that me and Geoff are talking about is giving Jimmy a real identity in Metropolis and really making him Superman's best friend again and have that work in today's world."

Someone asked Robinson what attracted him to writing Superman. He explained, "What attracted me to the book firstly was a chance to work with Geoff Johns who I've been friends with for years. I'd already committed to the other book that we can't talk about and I thought that would be enough work for me, and he sort of told me what he had planned and I'll probably be on it for two years with him. One of the things that I found to be a problem is that a lot of readers cherry-pick the stories they want to read from Superman and Action Comics depending on a guest character or artist. We're going to go back to where the two books are in tandem with each other instead of separate. And the goal is to make Superman into a book that you read every time it comes out, Action or Superman to make it a book you look forward to every month and you can't wait to see what happens next. We have plans for Superman, Lois, Jimmy, Metropolis, you're going to see the return of a character, a fan favorite of mine, the Jim Harper Guardian. We came up with a good reason for him to return and a role in Metropolis."

Didio admitted they're kicking around an idea for a Bizarro book, but didn't specify what it might be.

In the lightning round, I asked why Chloe would not be appearing in the comics, to which Bob Wayne responded, "I don't know."

The Vertigo Universe is NOT part of the 52.

How long is the Multiverse around for? Didio said, "Until Thursday."

Finally Didio fielded the LAST question from the audience, which was: Will there ever be a collected edition of Superman Red/Blue. He responded, "Goodnight everybody!"

As the room cleared out for the next panel, I tried to get to James Robinson for an interview about Superman, but a couple of guys from iFanboy beat me to it. Fortunately they were very nice and allowed me to record their interview. So special thanks to them, and here are a couple of Superman related highlights.

Superman is a characters that a lot of people have struggled with. What's your take?

James: I want to give him his humanity back while also trying to make him this big action hero. I would like to give him my own personal take on that. I'm also fascinated by the difference between Batman and Superman. With Batman, he's pretending to be Bruce Wayne, and I think with Superman, he's actually Kansas City farm boy Clark Kent who's pretending to be the greatest superhero of all time. I want to bring that humanity back to him. Also Geoff Johns and I intend to give Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane and Clark Kent, the trinity of those three characters, separate identities. We'll bring Krypto back and make him a fun little sidebar. At the same time you're reading an issue or an arc, it's also building toward something bigger and more exciting.

So your book is going to be interwoven with Geoff Johns.

James: Yes, in that we'll have two separate storylines going at once, but there'll be much more reference back and forth depending on what's playing out between the two books. We have a couple of big crossovers that I think will be much more of a back and forth kind of thing.

Thanks again to the nice guys at iFanboy for letting me in on that.

As I left, I caught Dan Didio in the hallway and asked him, seriously, what happened to Chloe and why we won't be seeing her.

Dan: There wasn't the sense of urgency to bring her into the comics primarily because she's existing already. And the way they were going to bring her in wasn't exactly the way she was portrayed in the television show anyway. If you were looking for Chloe as she exists, she wouldn't be the same character. Chloe's a teenaged character playing against a teenaged Clark Kent. When we planned to introduce her, she was going to be a teenaged character playing against Jimmy Olsen.

Not the same story, so not the same character. The sense of urgency to have her there as part of the lore wasn't so strong.

Do you have any expectations for her some point in the future?

Dan: Not really. I'm pretty comfortable with the cast that they have, and more importantly, the way that Geoff and James are planning to push the stories. I don't think they have any plans to bring her in. They have enough fodder for their stories. It's really good stuff. So good I can't tell you, I mean it really is. There's an unfolding saga of Superman that Geoff and James have plotted to 2010, and more importantly it's a story you never saw before in a Superman comic.

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February 24, 2008: WonderCon 2008 - DC Nation Panel

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