Going into its second year, is 'The New 52' still new? "It's still New! I think the 'New X-Men' have been 'New' for a very long time, so don't knock my New off so soon!" DiDio joked.
Reflecting on the past year as whole Didio went on to say, "From my standpoint it's been an interesting year; we started last year and as we built getting into the New 52 there was a lot of trepidation among the retailers, the fans, everybody, even our own staff. But we believed in what we were doing and we went out there and basically hand sold it to everybody," DiDio said. "We saw people's minds change and join us and come along with us. Now a year later the numbers are holding strong for us."
Looking at the inclusion of his Wildstorm characters, Jim Lee surprisingly revealed that he actually had very little input into the decision making. "I actually was pretty hands off on that, partly because the whole thrust of the New 52 was to streamline things and to simplify, to add new elements. So I was really curious to see what the New York-based editorial team could do with the Wildstorm characters and how they saw them and how they saw them integrating into the DC Universe."
However, one Wildstorm team that's been absent has been Lee's WildCATS. "[The introduction of the Wildstorm characters has] been pretty successful so far, I'm pretty happy with the results, but I have held back the WildCATS characters and that title. I would love to do it at some point, but I feel that's one I need to be more involved in out of all the books, so that's one I've held back a little bit," said Lee.
The duo remained mum on the first major crossover event of The New 52, The Trinity War but did share some tonal descriptions of what readers can expect. "Trinity" does not just refer to the characters involved. Without giving it away, "Trinity War' -- the word trinity resonates throughout the project on many, many levels and so in a sense there's almost three distinct parts. Well, almost three stories combined into one and then each part really redefines the universe in a really cool and unexpected way," Lee said.
With the old characters firmly established, going forward, 2013 will be all about introducing new characters like Talon. "There is one major goal: one of the things we're going for right now is the introduction of new characters and new ideas to the 52. Right now what we did is take the pre-existing characters, we had to rebuild them and build a strong base for them. Now I feel we have the impetus to try new characters and new things," said Didio.
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From The Pull List: October 17, 2012