Welcome to the page where I talk about the characters of the DC Universe. As I've said in my Home Page is my favourite comics Universe.
By now, as you can see, here is no lots of info: here there are the origin of the DC Comics Inc. and links to other sites to enjoy them. I hope to be able to offer you much more information about DC and its characters. Please, be patient!
....and SOON IN THIS PAGE:
When Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, ended his military career in the USA forces he used to spend time to write fiction stories. In 1935 he founded his own company: the National Allied Publishing, that changed the name soon to National Periodical Publications. The company had a sort of hero publications as New Fun Comics, More Fun Comics y Detective Comics where appeared characters we could consider as super-hero (for example the Dr. Occult, a detective with mystical habilities, who appeared in New Fun Comics #6, 1935); however the begining of a great success was in June 1938, when it was published in a brand new comic named Action Comics the first adventure of a character created by Jerome (Jerry) Siegel and Joseph (Joe) Shuster in 1934 for newspaper strips: Superman, the Man of Steel. He was a being from outer space able to jump over the highest towers, to bend steel beams with only his hands and to resist the fireshots of any pistol. The success this character give lead in 1939 to the creation by Bob Kane of a new dark and mysterious super-hero who appeared in the pages of Detective Comics #27: Batman, the Dark Knight.
New characters were born then: there appeared heroes as Hawkman (Flash Comics #1, 1940), Atom (All American Comics #19, 1940), Hourman, Sandman, Spectre (More Fun Comics #52, 1939), Dr. Fate (More Fun Comics #55, 1940), Green Lantern and Flash (Flash Comics #1, 1940), who gathered together to found The Justice Society of America (All-Star Comics #3, 1940). Robin, the Boy Wonder become Batman's partner in Detective Comics #38 (1941). An amazon warrior was born from Paradise Island's clay in All Star Comics #8 (1941): she was Wonder Woman. The company also bought some characters' copyrights from the Quality company: Uncle Sam, Black Condor, Doll Man, The Human Bomb, The Ray and the Phantom Lady, who formed the team named The Freedom Fighters. The comic's Golden Age was born, and the company don't wait too much to change again the name toDC Comics Inc. (where DC acronym comes from one of the main comics published then: Detective Comics).
The begining of World War II had an effect in DC heroes. los heroes. In December 1941 all the heroes menctioned above and other ones born later as Sargon the sorcerer (All-American Comics #26, 1941) or Johnny Quick (More Fun Comics #71, 1942) ) become members of the All-Star Squadron (with 54 members). But after Pearl Harbor attack the team was disbanded an the male members entered to the Army as normal soldiers. Finally they realized they were more usefull with their hero identitites so they founded the Justice Batallion. During the war years appeared some collections based on the conflict, and some of them had characters without powers or USA soldiers. For example: The Seven Soldiers of Victory (Leading Comics #1 to 14, from 1941 to 1945) , Hop Horrigan (All American Comics #1, 1939), the BlackHawks (Blackhawk #1, 1944), the Boy Commandos (Detective Comics #64, 1962), Mr. America (Action Comics #1, 1938)... and some others with special habilities, as the Phantom Patrol (Flash Comics #29, 1943), a team of soldiers who returned from death to continue their battle. When World War II ended the heroes colections returned to normal way, but since then it used to appear a sort of new characters who battle in World War II. It appeared a list of Western characters, too: Nighthawk(Western Comics #5, 1948), Johnny Thunder (All-American Western #100, 1948), Bat Lash (Showcase #76, 1959)...
In the 50's emerged a crisis in teh american comic book caused by the arrival of TV sets to the american homes. There were only a few topics comic readers liked these years: Science Fiction and Westerns. DC Comics was one of the few companies capable to resist the crisis by means of its main characters: Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The success of space aliens and science fiction topics stimuled DC to create a new hero: The Martian Manhunter (who first appeared in Detective Comics #225, 1955), a police detective who really came from the Red Planet. The new characted had a good approval by readers, so DC finally decided to create a new comic named Showcase to be a test for new characters. In #4 a new version of the Flash appeared, being very different from the 40's version and having a new origin. This hero had a success so great that next years saw the re-born of other Golden Age's characters: Atom (Showcase #34, 1959), Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Hawkman (The Brave and the Bold #34, 1961)... An new hero team appeared, too: theJustice League (The Brave and the Bold #28, 1960), based in the same idea of 40's Justice Society. Revitalization process continue in the 60's and it was not only a resurgence of DC, an increase in sells and number of publications(characters and teams were born, as the Legion of Super-heroes (Adventure Comics #247, 1958), The Phantom stranger (Phantom Stranger #1, 1952), the Doom Patrol (My Greatest Adventure #80, 1963), the Teen Titans(The Brave and the Bold #54), the Challengers of the Unknown (Showcase #6, 1956) or the Metal Men) ), but also the other comic companies revived too: it was the comic "Silver Age". Some companies were born, some others were re-born. One of these companies was Timely, that some years later became the Marvel Comics Group.
In this character reborn wave an interesting story appeared and was the origin of the DC Multiverse: "The Flash of two worlds" (The
Flash #123, 1961): Barry Allen, the "golden Age"'s Flash arrived by means of his powers to an alternative Earth where he finally found Jay Garrick, the 40's Flash (whose adventures Barry used to read when he was young and do he imitate Jay when he get his powers). Barry deduced then that both Earths were created at a time in two similar universes separated by different vibrations. Soon all the "Golden Age" characters re-apeared in this Earth, finally named Earth-2 (where lived the 40's versons of Superman,
Batman, the Justice Society... and the characters DC bought to Quality: theFreedom Fighters), while the Earth where the "Silver Age" Heroes live was finally named Earth-1 (both names were first mentioned in Justice League of America
#21, 1963: the Justice League met the Justice Society).
There were two parallel universes with similar (but not exactly history ... Why not three universes?. Earth-3 appeared, an Earth there were a super-villain team (the Crime Syndicate of America) all them evil versions of the Justice League members:
... and this alternative Earth had only a hero... Lex Luthor!!! (who was in Earth 1 and 2 the main enemy of Superman). Since then more Earths appeared, as Earth-S, where DC put the characters bought to Fawcett (Captain
Marvel and theMarvel familly ... without any relationship with Marvel Comics); or Earth-X, a world where Nazis won World War II, and the world the Freedom Fighters moved to(remember they were bought to Quality company). We ought to add to this fuss Earth-C (a world where lived humorous characters as Captain Carrot), Earth-4 (which appears in 1984 when DC placed there the characters bought to Charlton Comics: Blue
Beetle, Captain Atom,
Nightshade, Question and
Peacemaker). The Earth the comic readers live was named Earth-Prime, however at last it was the world of one famous hero: Superboy... that's a paradox... I could be wrong, but I think any super-human hero has appeared in our world yet...
The multiverse, an interesting idea, became finally an incomprehensible nightmare with characters jumping from one earth to other by means of hi-tech machines or mistical arts: control was lost. This lead DC to develope since 1982 an idea for a simple DC Universe (who was nearly 50 years old). A couple of meetings give the answer and in July 1985 appeared Crisis on Infinite Earths (12 issues by Marv Wolfman and George Perez), where a multidimensional catastrophe threated to make the Multiverse dissapear... and finally does (in Crisis on Infinite Earths #10, January 1986) to be re-born by a new Big-Bang which created an unique Universe (in
Crisis on Infinite Earths #11). This event involved a total renovation where new Earth was a mix up of Earths 1, 2, 3, 4, S and X. Change was so huge (not only Multiverse dissapeard but also some very famous heroes died, as Supergirl and Flash (issues 7 and 8 respectively),that people talk about Pre-Crisis events and Post-
Crisis ones.
Crisis was new beginning seized to redefine all characters, update them, to remove useless load collected during several years and make them more reals. Then appeared the Post-Crisis versions of Superman (The Man Of Steel #1, 1986, by John Byrne), Batman (Batman #404, 1986, by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli), Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman #1, 1987, by George Perez), Flash (Flash #1, 1987, by Mike Baron y Jackson Guice), the new Justice League (Justice League #1, 1987, by Keith Giffen, J.M.DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire), Green Arrow (Green Arrow: The Long Bow Hunters, 1987, by Mike Grell), Hawkman (Hawkworld, 1988, by Timothy Truman and Alcatena), Blue Beetle (Blue Beetle #1, by Len Wein and Paris Cullins, 1986), Capitan Atom (Captain Atom #1, 1987, by Cary Bates and Pat Broderick), The Question (The Question #1, by Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan). The brand new unidimensional universe was modern and constistent, and the characters were demigods no more to become heroes having weak points and a human life with daily problems. The utopic cities that used to appear in comics before become normal cities, with the problems that we find in our cities: drugs, homeless people, air pollution.... problems that heroes have realized they are not powerfull enought to solve.
When DC Universe and DC characters were updated, DC decided to make oftenly "crossovers" between series (characters appearing in other colections as guest stars) and even mini-series or maxi-series the most of the DC Heroes uses to appear in, to make the DC Universe even more consistent :
In 1994 it was decided to do a second re-adjust to DC Universe: Zero Hour (5 issues with crossovers in ALL the collections). Although Crisis redefined DC Universe and lead to a character re-creation, some of them (as Hawkman) suffered different writters and different points of view, so they were not consistent. Zero Hour remove all these "instabilities", making them the cause of a disaster were universe Time is dissapearing. At the end the Big Bang is altered and a similar universe is born, with consistent biographies for all the characters. It's an adjust DC has made to succeed. And some of the macro-sagas appeared since then are:
Dare to contribute (as I do) in The Comic Characters' DataBase!
If you are a fan of any Titans' team, visit the Titans' Lair!
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Last updated by Profesor-X on 8/10/97