Former DC publisher Dan DiDio gives insight into plans for Generation initiative

Former DC co-publisher Dan DiDio departed the company earlier this year, meaning he has no involvement in DC's day-to-day operations. But until his abrupt exit, he was one of the main people steering the ship toward a new, mysterious initiative titled Generation that they billed as "the charge towards DC's future." With DiDio leaving DC and the subsequent-but-unrelated industry hiatus due to COVID-19, DC's plans to reach and implement Generation remain unfulfilled, and even largely unknown.

But in an interview with Dan Shahin on his YouTube show Comic Book News, DiDio opened up about where he and DC were at in the process of implementing Generation –which may still come to pass – when he left.

"It was a concept, an idea, a pitch that either will or won't reach fruition – beats me. It's something I was pushing forward. I had a number of meetings with editorial over an extended period of time. I actually presented it some of the retail base too, to see what their interest and input was," DiDio explained. "A lot of times when I had a new huge initiative I tried to get as much consensus as possible. So I ran it past a lot of people for stress-testing. I had a lot of very strong, good, vocal retailers who would tell us what was right, what was wrong, help identify the landmines. So we were in the stages where we were moving it down the road when, ultimately, for me, it came to an end. At this point it's in the hands of the people that make the decisions."

DiDio remained mum about what exactly is or was planned for Generation, but did respond to Shahin's comparison to Marvel's 'Marvel NOW!' initiative in which Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and other iconic Marvel heroes were replaced by others taking on their identities. Some have speculated that Generation would include a similar plan for DC characters such as Batman and Superman – however DiDio denies this was in the plans he laid out.

"I'll tell you right now, it wasn't that. It wasn't even close to that. The only thing I'll say is, it was a long-term plan featuring a lot of the key, recognizable characters, and a long-term evolution over years that had been thought out."

Whether Generation comes to pass remains to be seen – DC had previously announced a series of one-shots that seemed to be building to something, but those one-shots have yet to be rescheduled following shipping delays that occurred due to COVID-19.