DC Entertainment's Jim Lee and Dan DiDio: There Is A Reason Some Characters Are Missing

Echoing remarks they have made in the past, DC Entertainment co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee told ComicBook.com during an interview at Comic Con last month that there is a reason certain characters have been spending time out of the spotlight.

A year after we asked them whatever happened to the Legion of Super-Heroes, ComicBook.com's Jim Viscardi caught up with Lee and DiDio to ask the same question again -- and Lee said that while he understood fan frustration, there is a larger plan in place that he believes will pay off.

"I'm a huge Legion fan," Lee said. "I think there are reasons why we're holding certain things off the shelves right now, and when they do appear, the reasons will be apparent. Your patience will be rewarded."

Lee and DiDio added that next year, Legion fans would thank the publishers, to which Lee appended "We're not committing to that. In some future time, you'll be like 'thank you.'"

The Legion of Super-Heroes stand out in particular because they were once one of DC's best-selling titles, becuase they have not had an ongoing book for about five years, and because their presence on the Supergirl TV show was expected to yield some kind of comic book revival. Founding Legionnaire Saturn Girl is appearing sporadically in Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Doomsday Clock, having met with Rorschach in Arkham Asylum.

They are hardly alone, though; recently, Bart Allen (Impulse) reappeared after a years-long exile, and thus far nothing has been explained as to what exiled him. The Justice Society of America, DC's oldest superhero team, had seemingly been written out in favor of younger, sexier versions -- until the original Jay Garrick made a brief appearance in "The Button," a four-part crossover story between Batman and The Flash which had implications not only for those titles but for Doomsday Clock as well.

Given their connections to Doomsday Clock, and the fact that it was former DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns who wrote them out of continuity with Flashpoint, one might assume that it is Johns who has a hold on the characters. That may or may not prove to be true: he has been playing with Legion and JSA characters in Doomsday Clock, and another DC Universe: Rebirth idea introduced by Johns -- that there are in fact three men going by "The Joker" in Gotham City -- will be explored in a new, Johns-written miniseries from DC's forthcoming Black Label imprint.