DC Nation Panel: Co-Features, Accidental Spoilers, And Why You Don’t Invite Fans On Stage [NYCC]

Today at the DC Nation panel at New York Comic Con 2010, Dan DiDio, Bob Wayne, Jeff Lemire, Jim Lee, Bryan Q. Miller and new Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras, introduced "Lost in Translation" style as "Mister Bob Harris!"

The panel was definitely dominated by DiDio (until he had his mic taken away from him -- we'll get to that), with new Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras's newness to the job being the butt of more than a few jokes. Whether Harras's relative silence is a sign of DiDio still leading the DC editorial plan or Harras simply still getting into the job is unclear.

It was largely a fan-appreciation event, with the reduction of prices to $2.99 as the major theme and a Jim Lee-drawn slide of new-costume Wonder Woman as Rosie the Riveter displayed on the screen, saying, "Hold the line at $2.99!" Still, a few spoilers and announcements managed to leak out, about the future of the co-features, minority characters, a new Milestone title, a shortening of "Multiversity" and an incident where inviting a fan up from the audience went hilariously awry.On AQUALAD AND CHARACTERS OF COLOR: When a fan dressed as Aqualad stated that he enjoyed the new characters of color being introduced in "Brightest Day" such as Jackson Lake, the new Aqualad, DiDio said that when he looks out at the panel audience it's very diverse, and it's very important to DC Comics to make their universe reflect the diversity of their readers.

On COFEATURES: Nick Spencer's "Jimmy Olsen" will be finished in a one-shot. The rest of them will either be oneshots or special miniseries, except...

On THE ATOM CO-FEATURE: This will turn into a new Jeff Lemire-written "Atom" ongoing series, or at least they heavily suggested this to the point where it might as well be an announcement.

On HAWKMAN: DiDio tried twice to get the fans to cheer for Hawkman's story in "Brightest Day." Both failed.

On BATGIRL: Bryan Q. Miller says that the next year of the book will feature her second semester at Gotham U, Damian Wayne and a special Valentine's issue featuring Klarion the Witchboy. Also, he'll introduce new rogues for the character at the end of #16, and as previously announced, artist Dustin Nguyen is joining the series.

On DIDIO'S NIGHTWING T-SHIRT: "The only reason I wanted to kill Nightwing is because I wanted to BE Nightwing."

On RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #5: It WILL be coming out next week, and ten pages of it are by Pere Perez, with the rest by solicited Ryan Sook.

On DOOMSDAY RETURNING SOON: "Uh... he's in the DCU Online game!"

On IF CYBORG WOULD JOIN THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA: "Didn't that just happen?" asks DiDio. "Not yet," says Wayne. "Whoops."

On RALPH AND SUE DIBNY: "We came to the panels and characters were dying and the one thing that we heard from the fans was, how come characters don't stay dead?" Ralph and Sue will stay dead.

On BRAVE AND THE BOLD: It's on hiatus while J. Michael Straczynski catches up on "Superman" and "Wonder Woman."

On THE EVIL MARTIAN IN BRIGHTEST DAY:

Fan: "Is the evil Martian in 'Brightest Day' J'onn's wife?"

DiDio: "No!"

...

DiDio: "SH*T! SORRY!" At this point, Bob Wayne took away DiDio's microphone.

On OUTSIDERS: DiDio says after the December issue, with Freight Train's origin, Philip Tan will be replaced with Keith Giffen on art duties.

On RENEE MONTOYA/THE QUESTION: She'll be in the new "Batwoman" series.

On WHEN WE'LL SEE A NEW MILESTONE BOOK: DiDio says we'll see a "Xombi" book soon, creative team unnamed.

On WHO'S WHO: They intended originally to have it out after "Final Crisis," but now they say it makes more sense to have it out post-"Flashpoint."

On MULTIVERSITY: DiDio says they're waiting for Morrison to get through his Batman logjam first. Interestingly, DiDio said it would be five issues, which differs from Morrison's original description of it as eight or nine.

On LETTING FANS JOIN THE PANEL: Finally, there was an interesting incident where a Lian Harper fan asked about the character. After getting a response from DiDio where he joked that she was "the brutally murdered dead kid," he invited the fan up on the stage, where she proceeded to criticize Grant Morrison's "Batman and Robin" (she was annoyed with Jason Todd's hair color) and Tony Daniel's "Batman" (she said she couldn't tell if it was Dick or Bruce since Daniel wrote him with so little personality) until they finally took away her microphone and Wayne said that was probably the end of the fans-on-panel experiment.