In a recent podcast interview, Mark Waid revealed that he will be returning to DC for a new project next year, his first regular work for the company since 2008 after he become the Editor-in-Chief of BOOM! Studios in 2007.
Waid had a story in last year's Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last Stories Of The DC Universe #1, but besides that, he has not done new work for DC since 2008 (not counting a Batman project published in 2009 that was done beforehand), which was a striking change for Waid, who was an editor at DC in the late 1980s and then one of the company's most prominent writers for the next two decades, with an iconic run on Flash, producing Kingdom Come with Alex Ross, 52 with Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Keith Giffen and revamping Superman's origin in Superman: Birthright. His last projects for DC was a reboot of Brave and the Bold and a brief return to Flash.
Waid appeared on the A Hero Story podcast and the discussion turned to how to best do a reveal in a story while making sure that people know the person who you are revealing without having a character, like, say out of nowhere, "Remember the Reverse Flash?" Waid mentioned that he had been dealing with that issue on a new project he's doing for DC that's coming out next year.
The hosts, of course, noted that they had plenty of readers who were specifically wondering if Waid would be returning to DC and this obviously answered that question.
Waid's issues with DC (which were presumably tied to DC's former leadership) came up a number of times over the years, like in a chat with CBR back in 2009:
Brian Cronin: And I guess your previous "I'm dead to DC" bit would answer all the "Any DC work in 2009?" questions
Mark Waid: Who knows how long the cycles last? Anything's possible.
Mark Waid: I could be back in favor tomorrow. Or I could be the next Cary Bates. Who knows? Ah, well.
And then again, back in 2018, he told CBR about an unused Flash story idea, "It's the one Flash story I never got a chance to tell. Since it's unlikely I'll ever be invited back, the short version is this: Wally's first solo time-trip was to save a classmate from death, but he failed. So he tried again. And again. And again to the point where everything he was doing was just making other lives worse. The lesson to be learned was that time travel can't fix everything. In other words, I guess, I created Flashpoint about 20 years early...? (Kidding. I kid.)"
It might not have been likely, but in comics, anything is possible if you wait long enough, so fans can finally see Waid return to some of the characters he was so well known for decades.