Kind of like how in the 90's DC did the same thing to the heroes that your favorite characters replaced

Look in a mirror real quick because you are demanding exactly what they did, just with your favorite heroes.
I'd make the argument that Barry had a heroic death.
Hal on the other hand, even though they TRIED to reconcile the crapfest that was Emerald Twilight, was never seen by everyone as a hero again, even after he sacrificed his life to save the Earth.
A lot of these heroes are the iconic versions that people are used to seeing on TV, on lunchboxes, cartoons, etc. They were brought back to the forefront to capitalize on brand recognition. I can't really blame a company for making money as long as they do it in a way that makes sense. So far, it makes sense with the ways they brought Hal and Barry back.
I do feel your pain because I was pissed as punch to see the Freedom Fighters get owned in Infinite Crisis, Blue Beetle get capped in the head, and Ralph and Sue expire too.
I was a fan of Kyle AND Wally. However I read Hal and saw him on the superfriends since I was 3 years old (in the 80s). In the mid 90s when I was just becoming a teen I read GL and saw what they did to Hal. I thought it was #### then, BUT I enjoyed reading about Kyle Rayner as well.
The point is, these heroes CAN coexist. Look at Alan Scott. He has done just fine, as has Jay Garrick even though others share their name.
I think we CAN find a happy medium where all there heroes can stick around. We don't NEED to get rid of Hal and Barry to make room for Kyle and Wally and vice versa.
We don't need to be selfish and berate or try to take away other people's favorites.
Like it or not, Green Lantern is selling VERY WELL with Hal back.
I have NEVER seen as much exposure that that title is getting in all my years as a GL fan. I am actually happy about that regardless of who the character in the lime light is.


Kyle being depowered? Do you honestly think that Kyle as Ion was going to be the new status quo? I certainly didn't. It made Kyle BORING!! What is the point in writing a character who has near infinite power and can solve essentially any problem he came across easily?
I like Kyle as a Green Lantern. There was no conspiracy to depower him and kick him to the curb.
The one who got kicked to the curb was Hal Jordan with that horrid Emerald Twilight bull ####. Kyle got to stay around and actually contribute to the new corps. I actually thought he was handled very well in the Green Lantern Corps title and was pleased to see he did not get the ax. Instead Johns tried to give EVERYONE their favorite Green Lanterns wherever they could fit.
I won't even get into the surpassing line since I got really tired of Kyle's Kryptonite being "Uh Oh, my ring fell off....or someone stole it easily". Not the character's fault, but dang it Ron Marz pissed me off sometimes.

As for killing Kyle off to make Hal look good........
Hmmmm are we reading the same story? I saw Kyle do something amazingly brave and sacrifice his life to save the ENTIRE Green Lantern Corps. That makes him look pretty damn good in my eyes.
I don't see anyone using that to play up Hal's strength's or play down Hal's weaknesses. This is just pure fanboy BS plain and simple. Unless you have a direct quote to share than it is simply not true.
The entire story is not even over yet. I seriously doubt DC would want another HEAT war on their hands for killing a groups favorite GL AGAIN!

OK, I have read Flash Rebirth and nowhere do I see Wally being pushed out of the way. In fact Barry NEEDS his help.
If Wally was pushed out of the way in any way it was waaaaay before Barry came back. It was during Infinite Crisis where they made Bart the new Flash. Something I DID NOT Agree with in the least!!
Barry is back, but let's WAIT and SEE what they do with The Flash in the new series. We don't even know yet what they have in store for us.
Fans need to stop jumping the gun prematurely!

Absolutely stupid storyline. You are right. But put blame where blame is due. The writer of the story screwed Conner over.

Yes because we all know that the writers of said titles NEVER had any of their own ideas to kill or replace said characters. They Never decided to do these things themselves, and never typed a story on paper for the comic they obviously didn't write because Dan Didio did it all!!!!!



Look I know what your saying, but again, we DO have to accept change to an extent. I don't see any of these newer versions (Kyle, Conner, Wally) of the silver age versions going anywhere. They are all still featured in the comics, they were not killed off (with the exception of Kyle..... FOR NOW).
You don't have to like it, absolutely, but understand that other people do and that there may be more of them that feel positive about the new direction than you do. We are all passionate about comics and that's a good thing.
I hope there is a point where everyone can be pleased again with the direction of both Marvel AND DC.

I just heard the October comic sales numbers, and it sounds like Didio's not going anywhere for a while, if that's an indication. DC took the top six slots and dramatically closed the market share gap between them and Marvel. That's what DC was able to do the month before the colored ring promotion.

And putting sales aside, you were still able to recommend several DC books for someone to read, which seems contrary to a call for Didio's head.

I do not care about Blackest Night as long as it stays the hell away from the books I collect. That is the one thing I have enjoyed most about it. When Infinite Crisis was around, and more specifically after it ended, I was... upset that all of the titles I had collected had changed for no apparent reason and with absolutely no explanation for why it had happened because I had not purchased a book, or series, that had nothing to do with the ones I was getting. And then shortly after that it appeared the job of editor at DC was being performed by a drunken baboon with several obvious and extremely noticeable errors in continuity of books. That was the closest I have come in recent years to stopping buying from them altogether.

Blackest Night however has thankfully stayed mostly in mini-series and the Green Lantern titles, so I can safely ignore it and enjoy the ongoing stories in the books that I do get. So I must give kudos to DC for that.

Its more than possible that he may be picking up back issues that were marked up by his LCS...

Sounds either really unlikely or like a horrible, horrible LCS.

The crossovers into the monthly titles only started last month, so it's be a real short turnaround for those books to wind up bagged, boarded and marked up as a back issue. By and large, my store doesn't mark up the price on books for a while. Pretty much anything that's come out in the last six to nine months is still on the shelf at cover price.

I have to say I definitely agree with almost everything MattPetersen had to say. I've been a fan of GL since the mid 80's, and I don't think the books have ever been this good and appealed to so many people. I can recall not 6 or so years ago trying to convince my friends how great a concept the green lantern corps was, and how well it would translate into a sci-fi movie. The fact that 6 years later, we're seeing this book (blackest night and gl) outsell everything is awesome to me.

I have been very critical of the EIC's of both companies, probable more so of Joey Q than Didio, but they've both made some mistakes. But say what you will about them, at least they are allowing their creative teams to try some new things and see where it goes. Given that approach you're going to have some hits and misses, (Final Crisis and Secret Invasion being a couple of definite misses in my book), but you're also going to get some great stuff too (Blackest Night, Identity Crisis, Annihilation).

I think it's great the OP has taken a reasoned approach to his letter, and I'm sad that he has not liked Blackest Night. I feel it's one of the best series DC has done in a LONG time, and part of what I like about it is the fact you DON'T have to read all the tie-in books to get the main story. Sure GL and GL Corps are integral, but they should be given that's where all this started from. The other books are just fleshing out the main story if you're interested in seeing how this affects the rest of the DCU. But unlike Civil War you don't have to buy every stinking side book to get the full picture of what's going on.

Before Kyle was introduced the Green Lantern book and character were stale. I don't agree entirely with the way they went about dealing with Hal, but something needed to be done to breathe new life into the book. I personally believe that introducing a character that wasn't flawless, the perfect Lantern and one of a thousand of other characters that could do the same thing was brilliant. I got tired of the self doubt thing after the first 10 issues or so, but he was more relatable than a pilot with no fear and limitless willpower. Kyle wasn't killed to make Hal look good. I don't even think that Kyle is dead. Kyle was easily taken down while he was Ion which was a character you even state as having "near infinite power." Taken down like a rookie while having the Ion entity easily removed by Sinestro, easily being infected by Parallax because Sinestro tells him he killed his mother and then kills a fellow Lantern. That was all done to show that it wasn't Hal's fault that Parallax infected him and it could have been anyone. Even Kyle. It was all done to show that Hal was a better GL and that's not fan boy BS. It's a fact that even diehard Hal fans admit to. The whole Parallax concept was a huge cop out to make it look like it wasn't Hal's fault. Then Kyle is put into Green Lantern Corps where he gets his rear handed to him by lame villains that he was able to handle alone years ago. So, I have to say that he has been de powered greatly since Rebirth because he is nowhere near the character he was in his own book not to mention JLA.

I'm not saying that they need to get rid of Hal, Barry and Ollie again. I'm saying that they should have left them dead. How many years did they get to be Green Lantern, Flash and Green Arrow? Their mantles had already been passed on. Why couldn't Kyle, Wally and Connor have the as many years to start their own legacies? It's because those in charge at DC wanted their childhood heroes back at the expense of the new generation of heroes who were still proving themselves as worthy successors to the mantles. That is being selfish. Kyle and Wally couldn't even shine in JLA/Avengers without being phased out to bring back Barry and Hal for half the series.

As for Flash, I feel that there was even less of a reason to bring back Barry than Hal. There were already more than enough Flash characters that existed and Wally had already surpassed Barry and had solidified his spot in the DCU as the fastest man alive. Bringing Barry back was just another fan boy move by Johns and those in charge at DC. You can make much more of an argument for Hal's return than Barry's. I also thought that Bart becoming the Flash was lame, so we can both agree on that. I think it is only a matter of time before Wally is pushed more to the side to make room for Barry, but only time will tell.

No, Dan DiDio didn't write the stories where my favorite characters were killed, injured or pushed to the side, but he is the man that allowed it to happen. He even demanded that one of those characters be killed shortly after coming onboard, so before any other character I really like gets the axe on his watch I feel that he needs to go.

I'm sorry, but I have to call out this point.

Off the top of my head I don't know how many pages Barry, Hal, Wally, and Kyle each appeared in, but this was a story that encompassed the entire history of both the Avengers and the JLA. Past and alternate versions of many characters from both teams appeared throughout that series. It was a celebration of both the teams and, whether you like it or not, Barry and Hal were a major part of the JLA.

Also, this was something that was originally being written and drawn back in the early 80s, when Wally was still Kid Flash and Kyle didn't even exist. I don't know how much of the original version made its way into the final product we got this decade, but I seem to remember once reading that Hal was taken out of much of the original, twenty year old art and replaced with Kyle.

Mixing feelings about this post. I absolute hated Final Crisis and dislike Batman RIP.

I LOVE Blackest Nigth, AWESOME series Brilliant plot WITHOUT make any insult to characters history (and without use the real "soul" of the characters that appear as Black Lanterns, thing that people were very worry about).

I used to read ONLY 70's 80's stuff. (before 1988) Now, since Geof Johns I found the DC Universe AWESOME again. and this Johns did that when I don't even knew his name. This guy hit me very hard with BRILLIANT ideas and stories rewriting the DC Universe with new ideas and paying RESPECT TO ALL characters since GL Rebirth to Blackest Night, Flash Rebirth and now Superman New (and awesome classic) Origin.

Like I said, previews to Johns I had not read anything since the middle 80's.

What are the "crimes" of what Didio is accused? (sorry for don't know this, in case is a silly question).

Mmmm, I may be wrong, but I think we are here watching a fight between the 70's 80's guys against the 90's guys. :speechles

Totally agree. and the story present 4 heroes in a even way. Wally, Kyle, Hal, Barry are all of them there and even Barry and Hal comment about be happy and proud to have great people like them to keep the good fight.

As an expert on both the original unproduced crossover and the new one I have to say that both stories are really different.

Oh, really? See below.

Alan Scott is my Green Lantern and Jay Garrick is my Flash. In my world, Kyle and Wally aren't even blips on the radar.

Not defending Didio by any means, but my axe is way older than yours and I've been grinding it far longer -- to about the same effect as you.

So suck it up. It'll be OK. Trust me.

well i guess you answered your own question about the crossover examples and then, well, blackest night itself is four dollars a pop.
i not talking bad about your selection of reading material. i read the same books but all im saying is that its becoming expensive for the same amount of material as before.

rep to you for speaking the truth