To be fair, they had to do that issue because A. 1986 was only a couple of years away when that issue came out and B. Crisis was coming and they had to either find a way to keep the Atomic Knights in canon (via VR simulation) or outright erase them from canon ala Kamandi, who was retconned into becoming an entirely different DC character (Tommy Tomorrow).
I should note that Arcudi's Doom Patrol was largely INO. Arcudi spent his 6-7 issues ignoring the Vertigo incarnation of the team and had a lot of existing DC characters and OCs running around. Sales pretty much tanked, to the point that when his editor made Arcudi start directly referencing the Vertigo series and brought Dorothy and Robotman's trans girlfriend back, the book was canceled. Which in turn gave Byrne the excuse he needed to force his reboot onto people.
Charles Foster
I believe it has to do with the rights for the individual characters.
Jonathan Sanders
Why would that be an issue? All DC shows are made by WB.
Adrian Adams
Larry Hama made Sandman an Avenger, but Hama's run was basically super editorially mandated with DeFalco basically writing up storylines and Hama being ordered to script them. And DeFalco was the one who wrote Sandman's redemption arc.
To be more exact, Ordway has a Claremont/PAD type contract where DC pays him to do nothing but doesn't guarantee he gets work.
He did several fill-in issues of JSA and sections of Infinite Crisis but in general, doesn't get work unless it's JSA related.
Evan Evans
>He did several fill-in issues of JSA and sections of Infinite Crisis but in general, doesn't get work unless it's JSA related. What should he have worked on though? I like JO but I'm stumped on what comics he should do aside from magic books like Wonder Woman or Shazam.
Thomas Walker
Warner Brothers, prior to AT&T buying it, was pretty much a divided state of fiefdoms thta HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE each other and constantly find new ways to fuck over each other. With DC Comics often getting fucked instead of being the one doing the fucking.
Case in point: Cartoon Network has to pay DC a licensing fee for every DC cartoon they make. And merchandising rights is a legal landmine: Cartoon Network doesn't see a dime out of any merchandise unless they arrange it before a show goes into production and DC won't allow it, because Cartoon Network also demands veto power over any merchandise as well for it's stuff as well.
This leads to stuff like Green Lantern The Animated Series and Beware the Batman not getting any toy tie-ins, shifted all over the time slot so it never succeeds, and in the case of Beware the Batman, blackballed from ever airing on TV/getting a proper DVD release, due to Cartoon Network sacrificing it to the alter of tax right offs, meaning it's now unpersoned from ever seeing the light of day again.
Similarly, it helped kill Young Justice because DC did cut a deal to make merch for YJ with Cartoon Network but it was through Mattel. Mattel's merch was in such poor quality that no one bought it, which pissed Cartoon Network off and was one of the major factors for killing YJ off. They lucked up better with Teen Titans Go but TTG only has managed to survive/thrive, because A. it's a passion project of one of CN's top guys and B. CN burnt DC so badly with GL, BtB, and YJ, that Cartoon Network has them by the balls over TTG.
Camden Cox
Hell, Levitz had DC itself hidden in the WB toy department or something like that. It was when he left that WB started playing close attention to them again.
