It's just odd when I hear people go on about all the rape and dismemberment, as I read way more DC than Marvel - in trade - and just don't see it it all.
Not in the Superman books, Batman books, Green Lantern, GLC, Blue Beetle, LoSH etc
Maybe a bit of strong violence, but never enough to see it as a company wide policy.

Of course, I do often grab older DC's books in trade, so maybe if it is going on, it's balanced out across the good stuff.

But I also get a kick out of ASBAR, so maybe I'm just fucking blind to it.

but where’s all this rape?

There was the rape of Sue DIbny and Dick Grayson in a short span of time. That was around the last time I read DC regularly. Didio may have slowed down a bit since then, I guess.

Yes, you could do a similar strip on Dido - perhaps Johns is making a joke and Dido approves it - but this time it was joke on Johns.

And I say this as someone who enjoyed Green Lantern: Rebirth and is enjoying Superman.

The punchline should have been Dido saying “Fine, whatever, just make sure someone in his family gets dismembered or raped. Santa Claus never did have a proper motivation.”

I read a heap of DC books these days, and I still haven't seen all this dismembering and rape.

There was a bit in a Green Lantern I read with some sort of Shark Man thing eating people, and it seems to happen in GLC a bit - to aliens though.... but where's all this rape?
There was that big fella in Batman who I believe killed prostitutes, but other than that, I'm just not seeing it!

(I agree it's wrong for Didio...I'm just gonna pretend it's Levitz )

The problem is that DiDio is the single biggest enabler of Johns' storytelling approach and is basically allowing him to singlehandedly dictate the direction of the DCU at this point. To joke about Johns while absolving DiDio of responsibility makes the punchline ring false.

I think everyone is missing the point that this is a criticism of Johns approach to comics and not Didio.

Actually, everyone gets that point. They just disagree with the view that Johns and Didio have differing approaches to comics.

(Granted, JLA 60 is a fun comic by Waid, with Plastic Man telling his son a fictional story around rescuing Santa from Neron. It includes the following sequence:

"But then Neron pulled out his trump card: he turned the entire JLA into coal!"
"Even Batman?"
"Especially Batman! We were DOOMED! DOOMED I tell you!")

“Dan DiDio is acting totally out of character! This comic sucks … unless he’s actually DiDio-possessed-by-Desaad.”

I don't think anyone here came off like that, the criticism was mild and somewhat constructive.

This comic series is pretty good, and gets better every month or so. I actually would get a kick out of reading Giffen's take on the story described.