Not even Superman is safe from the almighty powers of the executives.
The DCU
- Peter David cited several contradictory editorial mandates from his time working on Aquaman (1994), such as having Aquaman be a loner but also a leader of the people, and having stories set in Atlantis but Aquaman wasn't allowed to be in Atlantis. Eventually he got fed up and quit.
- Watchmen: Alan Moore's original idea was to use the Charlton Comics superheroes that DC had acquired the rights to, but he was was not permitted to do so because he wanted to kill some of the heroes off. Moore himself has said that he agrees with DC's decision, as his story was much more effective since he was able to do more with his own characters than he could have with the Charlton characters.
- Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight story came about because DC Comics executives decided they needed a newer, hipper Green Lantern, so they gave the writer of his series three issues to get rid of the old guy and all related characters. The storyline itself was also changed from its original idea of "Hal Jordan going rogue after the Zamarons took over the Corps" because the editors said no one knew who the Zamarons were. The writer quit, and they hired a new writer and reused the story title for the storyline.
- Infinite Crisis: Nightwing was almost killed off because Editor-in-Chief Dan DiDio wanted a big character death, similar to Supergirl and The Flash in Crisis on Infinite Earths, to send shockwaves for the DCU in the aftermath. This led to a Writer Revolt as most of the staff, Geoff Johns included, refused to do so.
- DiDio and the editorial staff had complete control over the storyline for Countdown to Final Crisis because DiDio hated how 52's story got off-track from its original intent to explain the changes that had happened to the DC universe.
- Countdown to Final Crisis was part of the meddling in Grant Morrison's plans for Final Crisis. The New Gods were supposed to be completely absent from the DC Universe, so that their return in the book they were supposed to die in would be more impactful; but DC put them everywhere, even creating an entirely separate Death of the New Gods series, to the point that Morrison opted to just ignore everything that happened in both of those series.
- Batman:
- In some very early issues of Detective Comics, Batman would shoot criminals to death on a regular basis. One day, DC editorial director Whit Ellsworth asked the writers to tone it down and make it kid-friendly, leading to Batman's Thou Shalt Not Kill attitude that he holds to this day.
- In the original comics, The Joker started out as a sadistic serial killer; in the first two years he was used, he killed close to 30 people. Eventually, he became less murderous and more of an Idiosyncrazy villain with a "jokes and gags" theme who robbed banks, built wacky gadgets, and pulled harmless pranks because of the Comics Code Authority.
- DC insisted Batman have a Kid Sidekick, which co-creator Bob Kane protested for being a stupid idea. He lost the argument, leading to the creation Dick Grayson, the first Robin. Another account claims that Kane had drafted a more fantastical sidekick for Batman, a young boy with the codename "Mercury" who'd wear a special suit that gave him powers. Jerry Robinson then convinced Kane to bring the child down to a more realistic level and suggested the name "Robin" after "Robin Hood" (the bird symbolism wouldn't come into play until much later).
- From 1995-98, writer Doug Moench and artist Kelley Jones, who were in charge of the main Batman title, were allowed to pretty much ignore the rest of the Bat books and tell their own stories for their first three years of their run. However, on their fourth and last year on the book, editorial demanded that they tied the book with the other bat-titles. Jones revealed
in interviews that this caused several cases of Aborted Arc, including one they had been building up to for the last three years about a puppeteer holding a Batman puppet appearing in the background during multiple issues being introduced as someone who knew Bruce's identity, was capable of manipulating both him and Batman and has been preparing to confront Bats on his own terms. - According to Tom King, his Batman (Tom King) storyline was meddled in by Dan DiDio, who heavily pushed for other, more darker events. For instance, Nightwing was shot in the head by the K.G.Beast and was meant to have been healed instantly by Zatanna. Instead, DiDio demanded that Dick be altered by it, thus kicking off two years of the much maligned "Ric Grayson" storyline. As well, Alfred's death was supposed to have been a Scarecrow Fear Gas attack, but was forced to be changed to be real.
- Batgirl:
- Editorial cancelled Batgirl (2000) with the justification of "we're launching a new Hawkgirl title and we don't want too many female-led books" and ordered the writers to make her pull a Face–Heel Turn. The turn was eventually reverted due to fan backlash.
- Gail Simone confirmed that her "Death of Oracle" storyline in Birds of Prey was supposed to lead to Cassandra adopting a new identity and joining the team (partly to offset complaints about the Monochrome Casting in the series). She claims she even began writing Cass' debut issue before being told that Cassandra's return would instead be handled in Batman Inc. title.
- Writer Scott Snyder mentioned that Cassandra was present in his script for the first issue of the New 52 Batman title, but at the last minute his editors forced him to write her out since canonically, she was still supposed to be living in Hong Kong. He was also barred from using Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown in his Night of Owls Bat Family Crossover, making them very notable absentees in an event that involved every Bat-book being published at the time except Batwoman. Eventually, editorial decided that neither Stephanie or Cassandra existed in universe at all despite the Bat-History being one of the relatively untouched parts of DC at the time, however they'd later be introduced in Batman Eternal and Batman and Robin Eternal respectively years later.
- In Bryan Q. Miller's Smallville Season 11, previews indicated that Stephanie Brown would show up as Batman's partner Nightwing. Miller also gave an interview to TV Guide talking about Stephanie's appearance in the comic. Editorial intervened and had it changed to Barbara Gordon.
- War Games was created after someone high in DC's editing department requested a story that would end with Stephanie Brown's death. Then-Batgirl writer Dylan Horrocks opposed the story considerably and refused to have anything to do with it, save having Steph guest star during her time as Robin.
- Gail Simone was fired from Batgirl (2011) on two separate occasions. The first time, it was because refused to write the crossover issues for Death of the Family, with DC eventually bringing her back after massive fan backlash. The second time, it was because a new editor was tired of the True Art Is Angsty angle going on. Which wasn't even her idea, but the result of previous executive meddling; she's gone on record that the next creative team's Lighter and Softer approach is the book she wanted to write.
- Justice League of America: Dwayne McDuffie was not allowed to use any of the Big Seven, and had to constantly rewrite stories around the plots of other books. In one instance, McDuffie was informed that Hawkgirl was to be killed off in Final Crisis, but at the last second was informed that she wouldn't die after all. The latter news came after a scene reacting to her death was both written and drawn, leading to the drawn pages being rewritten but using most of the completed artwork.
- The Flash:
- Bart going from Impulse to Kid Flash was an editorial decision. The writer of the story, Geoff Johns, has openly admitted dislike for being forced to do it, and Bart's creator Mark Waid dislikes it as well. This also applies to when Bart was aged up from Kid Flash to the Flash.
- When Barry Allen returned in Final Crisis, Wally West was still around. The two had very similar costumes, the only difference being that Wally's belt was the modern "arrow" thing and that he didn't have wings on his boots like Barry. In The Flash: Rebirth, artist Ethan Van Sciver was tasked with redesigning Wally's Flash suit to better distinguish him from Barry. He's said that DC gave him very strict guidelines on what he could and could not do to the suit: the colors had to stay relatively the same, the symbol had to be a familiar Flash symbol and he couldn't have an open cowl. These were all because DC didn't want to come off like they were demoting Wally back into his Kid Flash role or displacing him from the Flash name. Eventually, Van Sciver settled on altering the suit by adding elements of Wally's DCAU suit and Dark Flash: a simpler lightning bolt, white eyes for his cowl and darker red. Ironically, the open cowl design, showing off Wally's red hair, would be used for the character's return in DC Rebirth.
- Writer/artist Francis Manapul mentioned that he wanted to work in an appearance from Wally West in his new series, but was barred from doing so by editorial. Wally wouldn't return to the Flash book, and the DCU as a whole, until after Manapul and Buccellato left for Detective Comics, and a new team was assigned.
- When Wally is eventually reintroduced, he is still depicted as being Iris' nephew, but is younger than the rest of his generation (being a teen while Dick Grayson and Roy Harper were adults) and is half-black. Him being black at all was a result of Executive Meddling so that he'd line up more with the West family on The Flash (2014).
- The original Wally West was eventually reintroduced (the New 52 version was turned into his cousin), and would take up the mantle of the Flash once again. While Wally remembers the pre-Flashpoint timeline, when he forms a new costume, it has silver highlights and an open cowl for his hair. Artist Brett Booth has said that this was because of editorial mandate.
- Young Justice: Peter David was restricted with what he would do with Tim Drake (who was Robin at the time) during the mid-'90s to early 2000s because the Bat-family comics editors had the final say on how Batman-related characters were used. One of the restrictions put on him was that Robin couldn't be seen in public, as the Bat-family was supposed to be considered an urban legend In-Universe. He mostly parodied the whole idea, with Robin hiding in the shadows even in broad daylight and characters saying things like "we know it's you, Tim."
- Batwoman: J.H. Williams III and Haden Blackman both walked off because of "Eleventh Hour Changes". These include a new origin for Killer Croc and not allowing Kate Kane and Maggie Sawyer to marry (though they said specifically that it wasn't because they were gay but because of the brouhaha of superheroes marrying that was becoming something of a stigma in certain companies). This caused the last two issues of their run (#25 and #26) to be thrown out by DC, which pushed back the finale of their run where Batwoman and Batman fight to a few months later for the next writer to tie up the loose ends.
- Star Trek: DC's first run on the comic came to an abrupt end after issue 56 because Paramount decided to exert greater control over the licensing. DC kept the license and launched a second series in conjunction with the release of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, alongside an ongoing monthly for Star Trek: The Next Generation, but DC's writers had to submit their scripts to Richard Arnold's department at Paramount for approval, and characters created in the previous series were barred from being used.
- Convergence: Despite numerous editing inconsistencies, the staff for the Green Arrow tie-in were explicitly told to make sure Connor Hawke was given the correct skin coloring and racial background. Word of God from colorist Nei Ruffino states the editors were aware that making a mistake with Connor was a Fandom-Enraging Misconception after the numerous screw ups done in the past, so the editors made absolutely sure it was done correctly this time.
- Wonder Woman: Around the early 2000's, editorial mandated that Artemis Goddess of the Hunt couldn't appear in the book after Artemis of Bana-Mighdall became a supporting character. They thought readers would be too confused by two characters with the same name. Greg Rucka was prepared to lampshade this by doing a whole storyline where Demeter assumed the Hunt portfolio, but this was cut short by Infinite Crisis.
- Superman:
- The Death of Superman: The story was created to fill in a time gap. Clark and Lois got engaged in 1991 so 1992's big event was to be their marriage but by that point, but Lois & Clark was in development and they wanted the couple to get married at the same time in the TV show and the comics. Now struggling to fill the gap in their storyline, one of the writers, as was often the case during story speculation, joked, "Why don't we just kill him?" — he was taken seriously, and the rest is history.
- Superboy: During the 2000's lawsuit between DC and the Shuster Family over rights to Superman, a legal tactic used by the opposition brought up the possibility that DC did not own the right to the concept of Superboy they way they did with Superman. Realizing this, DC had a mandatory edict that the Superboy concept, or even name, could not be used to avoid further legal issues. This meant that:
- After Infinite Crisis, despite the fact that many of Superman's Pre-Crisis spects were made canon again, they could not reference any Superboy related adventures. After several years, this became relaxed, and Geoff Johns was allowed to reintroduce the original Legion (that Superboy had adventures with), and even subtly declare Superboy canon with Superman: Secret Origin.
- Conner Kent, the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, was the first, immediate choice as the sacrificial lamb of Infinite Crisis following the rejection of Dick Grayson's death. The death of Conner (and parallel mandated graduation of Bart Allen to the Flash) scuttled most of Johns' plans for Teen Titans, and despite working on the book for a bit longer, eventually gave the book to another writer. Conner could only be referred to by his name and not Superboy until Final Crisis.
- Superboy-Prime, one of the main antagonists of Infinite Crisis and the later Sinestro Corps War arc of the Green Lantern books, was a Clark Kent from a parallel world, but was affected as well. During the Green Lantern event, he was explicitly referred to as Superman-Prime and did not wear the traditional blue and red uniform he had previously. Following this, he became an antagonist during the heavily executively mandated yearly comic, Countdown to Final Crisis, where he was aged up to adulthood to match his mandated adult name. During this time, DC ruled to legally own Superboy, so during Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, Superman-Prime was again de-aged and referred to as Superboy-Prime, and came into blows with a resurrected Conner Kent, who was also referred to as Superboy.
- At a convention in 2019, George Perez admitted that he was extremely unhappy during his brief stint on the 2011 Superman title, as his scripts were often rewritten without consulting him. He went so far as to say that the incident was the first time in his long career that he simply stopped caring about his assignment.
- Supergirl (1982) was abruptly cancelled because it was supposed to be continued in a new magazine, DC Double Comics, featuring the adventures of Supergirl and Superboy. But then Supergirl (1984) flopped, Kara Zor-El was declared expendable for the editors, and she then was killed off in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- In the late 80s', DC editorial vetoed any mention of Kara Zor-El, going as far as to censor her name in the comics' letter columns. However, Mark Waid, a big Supergirl fan who was working as an editor for DC back then, managed to sneak a last goodbye to the character into the Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot story published in the 1989 Christmas with the Super-heroes one-shot. Unfortunately, Waid got in trouble with DC and lost his job due to that story.
- Despite high acclaim and good sales, writer Sterling Gates was kicked out of the Supergirl (2005) book because he was apparently depicting Supergirl as a mature woman.
- In 1940, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster came up with The K-Metal from Krypton, a story where Superman learned about his origins, was affected by Kryptonite for the first time, and was forced to reveal Lois Lane his secret. Such a story would have upended the series' status quo completely and forever, but it was rejected by editorial, and remained forgotten for decades. Ironically, every single development was eventually introduced to the character.
- Mark Millar and DC butted heads during his run on The Authority as DC kept insisting and editing or changing things to tone down what he wanted to do, reaching its nadir during the "Brave New World" arc, which was sidetracked with the "Transfer of Power" arc — and when Millar got the book back, it was after 9/11, so DC now had more grounds to force these changes. That said, a lot of the problems are the result of Millar himself as he wasn't easy to work with and a lot of the stuff he wanted to do were arguably tasteless including the Colonel, an analogue of the late Jenny Sparks, engaging in necrophilia with her corpse and the brainwashed and turned into a Sex Slave Swift having her mouth used as an ashtray and lick plates clean in a sexual manner.note
- Heroes in Crisis, written by Tom King, was the result of this with the original idea being more about the hero community reacting and coping with a tragedy with emphasis put on the characters going to therapy. However, while the editors liked the idea, they also wanted a murder mystery and get rid of some C-List Fodder characters while also push some characters like Harley Quinn who was getting a lot popularity and attention due to her introduction in the DCEU movies. The hasty rewrite of the story including a very notable change in direction mid-story ended up with a lot of Aborted Arcs, inconsistent characterization and the character assassination of Wally West a.k.a. The Flash III (a character that editor Dan DiDio has always hated) who is revealed as responsible for the tragedy that killed multiple C-list heroes (including Red Arrow) and framed Booster Gold and Harley Quinn for inconsistent reasons just to have Justice League hunt them. This event ended up screwing with the plans of some writers who tried to do as much damage control as possible and spent most of the Rebirth Era of DC Comics trying to redeem Wally West. While writer Tom King would constantly claim that he had the story planned during and shortly after the event ended, he would later admit that the editors wanted the murder mystery, were heavily pushing for Harley Quinn in a main role and that he was encouraged (not forced) to use Wally West as the main antagonists of the story.
- Legion of Super-Heroes: Despite being set in the 30th century, the Legion during the Silver Age featured many aliens but no black characters, be they humans or Human Aliens. Both Jim Shooter and Mike Grell tried many times to introduce black characters, but were always shot down by then-editor Murray Boltinoff, who planned to explain this in a future storyline. That explanation came in Superboy #216, which revealed that all black people on earth had rejected living alongside whites and moved to the isolationist colony of Marzal; their leader, Tyroc, especially despised the Legion and encouraged his people to hate them, but when the Legion proved themselves, he saw how wrong he was and joined up with them. Shooter and Grell absolutely despised the idea, describing the storyline as the most racist concept they'd ever heard. Grell especially hated Tyroc's portrayal as a stereotypical angry black man with "the world's stupidest super-power", so deliberately put him in the most ridiculous costume he could think of as a small bit of revenge.
- Titans (1999): Infamously, as Andrew Helfer's editorial meddling derailed Jay Faerber's strong writing until Faerber left the series. Helfer wanted the series to focus on a brand new group of kid heroes, which led to the DEOrphans getting shoehorned into the series and Faerber having to restructure all his plans to work around them. Faerber later went on record and stated that Helfer came onto the series as editor with absolutely no prior knowledge or familiarity with the Titans at all, and was basically shoving his ideas onto a pre-existing team he never cared for in the past.
