Dan Didio isn’t just the co-publisher of DC Comics, he’s also one of the company’s writers, working on monthly series The Outsiders, and having written the Metal Men strip in the just-released mammoth Wednesday Comics collection. I talked to him about his writing, why the Metal Men looked like they’ve just stepped out of the 1960s, and whether his day job sharpens writing skills.
I was re-reading your Metal Men strip in Wednesday Comics before talking to you, and it seems like a light, fun strip and then ends on such a downer. You kill them off! Even though the remaining characters talk about rebuilding them later, there’s this air of wistfulness, a “They were great, now they’re gone” thing.
That used to be the end of every Metal Men comic in the early days of the series. They’d always get blown up at the end, and they’d always be left with the question of whether or not Doc Magnus could rebuild them again just the way they were. That was one of the staples from the early stories that I remembered, I remembered it so well that when it came time to bring that story to an end, it seemed like a fun way to approach it.
Was this a very nostalgic thing for you? Have you always been dreaming of doing a Metal Men strip?
Well, it’s funny because, originally, I was not one of the first choices to do anything in Wednesday Comics. One of the teams had dropped out at the last minute, and the editor, Mark Chiarello, came up to me and goes, “I need some help here,” and I said, sure, what do you need? He says, “Well, I need one of these,” and I had already turned him down once before, but I said, okay, I know you’re in a crunch, I guess I’ll do one, what’s left? He gave me a list and I thought, I’ll try the Metal Men. I enjoy it, and when we had Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez as the artist, I jumped at the chance. He’s one of my favorite artists of all time, and it was just a great opportunity, I really wanted to do it to work with him. I was really nervous, because I’m a really big fan of the Metal Men, and the last thing I wanted to do was do a story that didn’t do the characters that I enjoyed so much justice, or give them the proper treatment.
There’s a couple of injokes in the thing. One of the first things I tried to do, and we sort of shook it off after the first three segments, was that we tried to identify every character by name in every strip. It seems ambitious and, unfortunately, it was a little more daunting than I’d expected to try and work that into the story in every single issue. And then, in the very first one, we actually introduce them in disguises, and the disguises are actually from the [original] series itself, when the series was running in the ’60s. If you look at it correctly, the very first line-up you look at has the characters in disguise underneath their faces in the logo.
I was wondering if the very retro disguises were intentional, they kind of stand out on that first page. It’s like a time-warp.
Yeah, that was a joke in the original series. In the ’60s, the Metal Men took on human identities and they were some of the most outlandish, ’60s clothing, I always remembered it fondly and we found a way to work it into the story, which was even more fun.
That’s something I love about 1960s comics, and especially 1960s DC, was that they tried to be contemporary and failed in the most over the top way possible.
Oh, they failed brilliantly, I think. [Laughs] Their failure is even more fun than a success would be. That’s the fun stuff.
Even though you’re probably best known for being DC Comics’ co-publisher, and before that, the DC Universe Executive Editor since 2004, you have a background in writing, right?
In my days in television, I worked in publicity, I worked in programming, and as a scriptwriter and story editor in animation, as well as developing animated series.
You like to get around.
I have to say, I’ve been incredibly lucky to work in areas I’ve always wanted to be involved in. If you came to me as a youngster, when I was ten years old, and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’ve wound up doing two of the three jobs I was looking for. Unfortunately, I wasn’t healthy enough to be an astronaut. [Laughs]
So what itch does writing scratch that your official duties at DC doesn’t?
There’s a real fine line you have to walk when you’re editing, which is that you want to get the story, the sensibilities, the tone, the direction down, but you have to let the people [creating] it do it in their own style, and in their own manner. You look at the outcome of the story, and as long as you achieve the outcome, you should be satisfied. But a lot of times, the way you reach that conclusion, you would tell it in a different way because that’s just inherent from different people approaching things in different ways. So, by writing it yourself, you’re able to take the direction you want and have it come to that conclusion in a way that, you hope, other people want to see.
Do you think your “day job” makes you a better writer?
I think everything makes you a better writer, honestly. Practice makes you a better writer, editing makes you a better writer, being aware of the world around you, reading makes you a better writer. You know, you always want to find experiences on which you can base your stories, because it gives it a base on which you can draw from, and yet, you want to have ideas and references and be able to grow things from things that excited you, so that you can bring things you believe other people want to read into your stories.
Does that weigh in your head, the references, being aware of what other people want to read? You talked about Metal Men including things from the original strip…
Well, there’s a lot of iconic stuff in Metal Men I wanted to attack. The self-sacrifice, the difference from how Doc Magnus perceives the Metal Men to how they perceive themselves, this incredible flirtatious relationship between Doc Magnus and Platinum where he always turns her off, but when she’s in danger, he’s extraordinarily concerned for her – He fights against his own feelings, his own emotions, he thinks, “Well, these are just robots,” but then he gets swept up in the emotional connection he has for them. Just the unabashed approach to life the Metal Men have, I think, is one of the things I like most about the series. There’s a lot of great, great heart in those characters and those stories, and the best part in Metal Men, too, is that each character has a very particular voice and a very particular style and way of speaking. What I love about Metal Men is that, you can cover up the characters and just read the word balloons, and you’ll know who is saying what, because they’re that distinctive. I think, when you have that, then you have characters that people can really relate to and understand who they are and how they behave, because they have a very distinct voice.
When you were writing the strip, were you looking to get back to the “classic” version of the characters?
For me, personally, the good thing about Wednesday Comics was that it was unattached to any level of continuity than existed within DC Comics, so you could really draw upon whatever references, whatever ideas you have about the characters you have in your mind, and not worry about what has come before and just embrace what you remember best. That is what, I think, made Wednesday Comics so enjoyable was that you had this great snapshot of what makes each of these great DC characters special. That’s what you want to see. One of the goals of Wednesday Comics was to approach the widest audience possible. So, if that’s the case, and that’s the motivation behind what we’re creating, then it’s our responsibility to go with the most iconic interpretations [of the characters]. And, since there wouldn’t be follow-through, you could really have a beginning, middle and end, so there you could give the full reading experience with that.
Did it leave you wanting to do more Metal Men?
It’s funny you ask that, because I’m writing The Outsiders right now, and I’ve just worked [Metal Men villain] Chemo into the story. Apparently, I have a leftover Chemo bug I have to deal with. [Laughs]
How’s Outsiders going for you? You’ve been doing that for a few months now.
It’s really interesting, because my time became more constricted because of my responsibilities here at the company. But I’m working with [artist] Philip Tan on the book, and he’s just an absolute pleasure to work with, and so excited and so enthusiastic that I can’t help but get excited about what we’re doing. We’re actually collaborating a lot closer than what we’d been doing, and it’s been such a wonderful experience. I just don’t want to let go of this book.
I was going to ask, with the co-publisher gig, are you going to have time to stay on the series?
We’re going to try and stay on. Actually, Philip and I have reached a point where we’re actually talking through the plots now, and he’s thumbnailing them all the way out by himself, then we work through the thumbnails on the phone and he goes off to do the full pencils and I’m dialoguing off his pencils right now. It’s been an extraordinarily collaborative process, and Philip has brought so much to the process, and his artwork has brought such a real energy to the series. It makes me just want to do more.
In the beginning, we had a rough start, because Philip got married at the start of the series, he was married in the Philippines, and had a difficulty of staying in touch with us for a two month period. But now that he’s back, and we’re settling down, we’re in a really good groove on the series and having a lot of fun.
I’m not sure how he’ll feel about you calling his marriage a rough start.
[Laughs] No, no, no, I was talking about the series, not the marriage! The marriage is great!
How did you end up with Outsiders? For me, the series is still Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo’s first version of the team, I was entirely the right age for that when it started.
Strangely enough, that’s exactly the reason why. Probably my single favorite artist at DC Comics, in addition to Garcia-Lopez, would be Jim Aparo.
He’s so good, and so underrated.
Jim Aparo’s The Brave and The Bold was what got me into DC Comics in the early days. For me, personally, I always enjoyed that book. I remember when Brave and Bold was cancelled and Batman and the Outsiders started, and I was there from the very beginning of that. I love the aspect of the team that’s fighting the rules and never receiving the respect that the other, more prominent, teams receive. It shows that they’re doing it for reasons other than just fame or glory. They’re doing it because it’s right, and that’s one of the themes that I want to explore with that book.
And there’s a wonderful soap opera quality to it. So many of the characters do not exist in other books or other series, so you can really focus your storytelling and direction in that book, because it’s the only place you can see them.
So is that what appeals to you about writing comics? The ongoing soap opera?
It’s really a bit of everything. There’s a sense of outrageousness that you try to accomplish, but try to make it seem as if it’s normal and part of the everyday life of the heroes. There’s the interaction with them. There are challenges in the writing itself, though. There’s a challenge to try and convey as much information as possible in a conversational manner, so you can keep the story going even as people learn what’s going on. Or the introduction of all the psuedo-sciences, all the backgrounds of the characters you need to keep the story moving forward. It’s a challenge to inject enough information and make it entertaining and fun to read. Right now, I have the huge saving grace of beautiful pictures. The issue that comes out next is some of his best work.
We’re trying to make this as frantic a book as possible. We want to introduce as many new concepts, new characters [as possible]. As the story develops, you’ll see that we’re introducing counter-teams – Geo-Force is building one team in Markovia, and Black Lightning is building another team in America, and you’ll see ultimately the challenges each team is being faced with, and ultimately, the confrontation between the teams. The challenge [for us] is that there are two distinct storylines going on, and the fun challenge is intertwining them as we go on.
But again, that sense of ongoing drama and soap opera, is similar to what comics were like back when Batman and the Outsiders launched in the 1980s, the never-ending battle…
It’s interesting, you asked before about the differences between being a writer and being co-publisher. I write in the style that I know, and the way that I know, the way that excites me. Which may not be the norm at the moment, or the standard way people are approaching books. There was always an expression we used in animation, that we never wanted to waste a word. Because you only have a certain amount of pages, or a certain amount of minutes in a show, every minute should be precious, every page should be precious, and should be presenting information on how to understand the character on the story on every single page. It’s very easy to come up with patter or banter, but unless it’s helping with the story or helping you understand the character, I tend to gravitate away from that.
I think that, not the only way to write, but the best way to write, is writing what you want to write, as opposed to something that you think someone else wants to read.
Absolutely. And it’s the way you feel most comfortable. Whatever works best for you, whether it’s a dark, grim, voice, a gritty sensibility or a light, airy tone, or something that’s more off the wall, you need to write what you know, because I think people can pick up on that, and pick up the comfort in your style, when you write in a style that’s comfortable to you.
I think readers can sense when people are writing something that’s in their own voice, as opposed to something they feel they should write.
And that’s the thing. You need to write to your strengths, and write what you know. It’s always good to try and reach above your ability, but you need to know where your strengths are, and where your base is.
How is it juggling what you know about the rest of the DC line as co-publisher with being the writer of a monthly series? I know that your first issues of Outsiders touched on what was going on at the time with the Superman books…
It’s funny, because the issue that came out yesterday, we actually touch upon two current storylines [in other series]. We do a fun little gag in this issue. The entire War of The Supermen series takes place in the background of this issue, because it’s a hundred-minute war. The war starts on page one, and it’s over by page twelve, and everyone’s wondering what was going on. Plus, we touch on – because [Bruce Wayne’s butler] Alfred was a part of the early days of this incarnation of the team – we have Alfred hinting on some of the events that are happening in the Batman books right now. We’re having some fun with that, but then, after that, it goes off on its own route, you know?
And then, you’ll take a break next summer to write another Metal Men for a second Wednesday Comics, right…?
You know what, I don’t know if I would do another Metal Men… I’m still waiting to see how the hardcover does. I think it’s one of the best presentations of our work to date in all the time I’ve been here, and I’ve been here eight years now. I absolutely love the book, I’m so proud to be involved in it. Mark Chiarello is one of, if not the best, editors on our floor, but now I’m ready to see what the next big thing is.
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