Didio Dishes on Duela's Demise

Newsarama spoke with DCU Executive Editor Dan Didio about the larger series, the characters who will star, and some specific plot points. Here's what Didio had to say about Duela's demise...

NRAMA: Moving along with the characters – Duela Dent. An odd choice to open with. She’s been seen on New Earth before, right?

DD: Yes she has. She was mostly Pre-Crisis, but she did appear on New Earth, so we’re looking at an explanation of how she got there. You’ll find that there are definite rules to the multiverse and definite roles that the Monitors play in the multiverse as well. A lot of this will be revealed as we move along, but what you’ll see, and what I think a lot of people picked up from issue #51 is that the Monitors have, given the dire nature of the situation, are basically border guards. They’re responsible for the borders of their respective universes, and are there mostly, to make sure that there are no incursions in or out of each of the multiple universes, so that each universe stays as individual and as pure as it can.

If somebody does cross over, there are methods by which the Monitors correct the situation.

NRAMA: Including killing?

DD: In this case, including killing those who have traveled back and forth between universes. The death of Duela Dent in this issue – it’s not as important that Duela died, but what’s more important is why she died, and the implications of one overzealous Monitor stepping out of his own boundaries and goes searching for her, and starts the dominoes falling. His actions create a series of situations that start to unravel a lot of things.

NRAMA: But with Duela, she’s showing some level of self-awareness in that she says that she knows she’s from another earth. So does she just know, or has she traveled within recent memory?

DD: A lot of these memories are starting to come free in the characters, and what we’re starting to see is that if they’re from another universe, they know that. There are very few characters that are self-aware as much as she was, and that self-awareness is what brought the attention to her, and ultimately, her demise.

NRAMA: Just to clarify with Jason Todd – how does Duela know who Red Hood is?

DD: You’ll find out that in the missing year, following his role with Nightwing, he became a lot more prominent among parts of the underworld, and the word spread about him. Ultimately, the facts of who he was got out, and he wasn’t protecting that secret as well as he should have. But conversely, one of the things you’ll find out with the Monitors is that they’re not sure who Jason is – and that will become a part of the story.

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