DC's DiDio & Lee Explain Exactly How Rebirth Differs From The New 52

DC Comics has been reborn -- or, rather, it's about to be reborn. The publisher revealed details about Rebirth, their massive linewide relaunch, last weekend during Los Angeles' WonderCon convention. The initiative isn't a hard reboot, unlike what DC did in 2011 with the launch of the New 52; instead, Rebirth continues the New 52 continuity but, as DC Co-Publisher Jim Lee told CBR, revisits what came before to make sure "we haven't jettisoned things from the past that we might have thrown out with the bathwater initially."

Lee, along with fellow Co-Publisher Dan DiDio, spoke extensively about Rebirth's origins and what else separates it from DC's previous relaunches. DiDio and Lee also touch on a number of other topics, including DC's new price point, what lies ahead for books like "Wonder Woman" and "Detective Comics," and how they got writer Christopher Priest on board.

On how "Rebirth" compares to DC's New 52 reboot:

Jim Lee: Someone asked, "Is this as ambitious as the New 52?" I think Dan had a great point which is it's more ambitious because with the New 52 we needed a break, we needed to move these characters forward. This time around we're really focusing on story and character and making sure that we're still sticking with the New 52, but making sure that we haven't jettisoned things from the past that we might have thrown out with the bathwater initially. Geoff Johns has put an enormous amount of time in with all the different writers of the books and all the editors to make sure they understand the characters and the premises. We actually have charted out six months to a year of each title, so in many ways there's a more coherent vision of the universe going forward as we launch with "Rebirth" and go forward.

Dan DiDio For me, for the time that I've been at DC, my two seminal moments are the lead-in -- that "Countdown to Infinite Crisis" and the "Infinite Crisis" period of time that gets you to the New 52, and then the launch of [New] 52. Both have a very distinct -- one is about a real cohesive operating universe that really runs in lock step with each other that really builds a world. And with New 52 it was really a cold start, in some way some things worked from before, some things were new from before and it was really double paddles to the system and really jump starting the line.

What we've done with this is we've really taken both things out. We've taken what really worked with the continuity of that "Infinite Crisis" period and then taking the freshness and newness of the New 52 and pulling them together. Rebirth, for me, is an amalgam of -- at least in my period of time -- of everything we've been working on to this point.

On how Christopher Priest ended up returning to DC:

DiDio: It's interesting. We called him. [Laughter]

It's so weird because what you think is -- certain people, you take for granted, you think they're always busy. We're sitting around, we're talking about what a wonderful job, what an amazing job he did on "Black Panther." Everybody's going, "I don't know, are we gonna call him?" Everybody's like, "He must be busy, we haven't heard from him." Because if we don't hear from somebody obviously they must be too busy, and that's not the case. So we called him up, we talked to him about one book and it didn't click but he's interested in doing something. Okay, what's open? We pitched a whole [bunch of] different ideas to him and he really latched onto "Deathstroke." Because of that, this is a massive win. It was great to have him come on board. Editorially and across the board, we're all huge fans of his work. The fact that he's coming back to DC to do this is something really special.

On what they said to empower new "Batman" creators Tom King and David Finch, who are taking over from Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo:

DiDio: I had to go through that with the people following "Hush." You gotta remember that, there was a period of time when "Hush" was that one-year run which was the body of work for Batman. People come on board, it was tough. You want to find somebody with the passion and vision to come on and take the book behind them. They're not gonna worry about what preceded them, they're more concerned with what they're gonna do. Who says, "This is Batman, and that's all that matters." And when you get that you know you're in.

With Tom, he was nervous, but he communicates a lot with Scott so there's a lot of understanding there about what was planned for the character. He was in the Batman universe through "Grayson" peripherally so he knew a lot about the character and the book. Tom's stuff has been just so strong, and we have the same faith that we did in Scott when Scott first took over "Detective [Comics]." I think this is a book that's going to grow with the two working together. I think the seasoned strength of David Finch and Mikel Janin working with Tom King is really gonna be able to keep that book as strong as we hope it to be.

Lee: To his credit, he's doing a very different type of Batman tonality-wise. The first issue is just like one amazing chase scene adventure-action scene. He's exploring a different part of the Batman mythology which I think is super smart.