Cass Cain and Jaime Reyes were both part of an obvious outreach for new DC readers and I think that they were astoundingly successful in that regard. But there seemed to be an issue in committing to having them as part of the wider DC Universe, especially after 2010 and New 52.

Consequently, you drop those characters and then well... you risk losing your new readers that came in as fans in their specific era. To be frank, I was a manga reader before I was a DC comics fan. So Cass was my inroad, but then readers like me were abruptly shown the door.

It feels like things are turning, albeit very slowly. Now that generation of readers, getting positions as the writers and editors, bringing new sensibilities to comics. But it's butting heads with some new mandates as a tiny subsidiary of a giant telecom company, of all things.

I'm just making assumptions as an outsider, but there has been a risk with DC cutting down on the number of books they put out. The consequence has been to reduce the wider universe of characters to backup books or once a year anthologies. They focus on tried and true characters.

I think if you listen to the creatives at DC speak about it, it paints a rosy picture. And I want nothing more than for this to succeed. But like... it was just LAST YEAR that we saw the purge of many editors and creatives at DC. During the month of Fandome!

This has just been a meandering rant. I don't know if I have a point other than that I hope DC does very well. I hope the side characters get more spotlights. And I hope they get to put out more titles than just the expected ones, so new readers stay engaged for a long time.