A few months ago, in an obvious reaction to Disney acquiring Marvel, Warner Bros hired Diane Nelson as new President – replacing the longtime Paul Levitz. Nelson has finalized her executive team and announced that Dan Didio and Jim Lee would act as Co-Publishers, Geoff Johns would become Chief Creative Officer, Jim Rood would take on Executive V.P. of Sales and Marketing and Patrick Caldon is now Executive V.P. of Finance and Administration. The last two probably won’t affect the comics too much, but putting a bigger workload on Lee, Didio and Johns will definitely have an effect on their output. MTV News spoke directly with Diane Nelson about the new executive team and she said the creation of this executive team will put DC on track to be more ambitious in all they do. When asked about how the new job would affect current DC workhorse Geoff Johns, Nelson said that both he and Jim Lee have the support to continue to be creative, but whether they would be able to output at the same level remains to be seen. Paul Levitz and Dan Didio have to be freaking out right now. Jim Lee hasn’t been directly involved with a monthly comic in over a year (if not longer) and seems to be happy working on character designs and being a creative consultant for multimedia projects; so this job, while a promotion, will be more of a lateral move than changing jobs. The Geoff Johns thing is going to be big. Not only is he writing most of the DC books in the Top 25 List, but also become the writing linchpin in the DCU. While he’s already been succeeded on Adventure Comics by Paul Levitz (it’s literally been 20 years since he wrote anything monthly. wtf?!?), Johns is still planning on setting the pace with Green Lantern as he finishes up Blackest Night and its assorted tie-ins. Maybe Johns will be able to find more writing talent in his new position that can continue on the trail that he’s blazed, but without a big name draw writing, DC may get worse before it gets better. Or maybe I’m wrong and the prospect of working for bosses that are so fresh from the bullpens will draw some big name artists and writers to DC – much like when Joe Quesada was hired at Marvel.

What do you think – will this be a good thing for DC or will readers see the product suffer?

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