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Franchise / The DCU
aka: DCU

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/DC_Universe_4129.jpg

"It's the DC Universe. The end of the world isn't even an excuse for getting off work anymore."
— Linkara, Atop the Fourth Wall
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The DC Universe is the Shared Universe belonging to DC Comics, established in 1934 and now the oldest major comic book publishing company. This is mostly used as a vehicle for their extensive Super Hero mythos, although the nature of the universe allows for almost unlimited storytelling potential in many different genres.

The DC Universe is primarily responsible for establishing the concept of the super-hero in popular culture, with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as some of their oldest and most popular characters. Their introduction of the Justice Society of America during World War II was also the first real super-hero team book, using the cross-over to establish the first shared universe in comics history. Their massive early popularity was stunted by the invention of The Comics Code which nearly killed the industry, and many of the bowdlerised stories from this era are responsible for several negative stereotypes about the medium. There was a revival in the late fifties and early sixties with the creation of newer more imaginative updates of characters like Green Lantern and The Flash, leading to DC's biggest characters forming the Justice League. To explain the difference in continuity, they established a Multiverse with the different versions of the heroes occupying different worlds. The popularity of this team book also inspired Marvel Comics to publish their own team book Fantastic Four, leading into an era of more maturely written super-hero stories dealing with the development of characters and more serious problems.

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One of their most controversial moves was the epic storyline Crisis on Infinite Earths during the eighties, an effort to untangle their years of Continuity Snarl by destroying the Multiverse and establishing one linear continuity for all of the characters to co-exist in. This included revising much of the universe's history and updating the origins of many characters. The Multiverse was brought back during Infinite Crisis, although the mainstream continuity has only been changed in minor ways reflecting the story-telling needs of the writers. There was a second, much more widespread reboot of the DC Universe in September 2011 with all titles being restarted back to number 1, with these titles referred to as the New 52. The titles received new number 1 issues again in June 2016, with the exception of Action Comics and Detective Comics, with DC Rebirth, combining the original DCU with the New 52 in different ways.

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Their distinguished competition is the Marvel Universe, published by Marvel Comics. The two lines appear similar at first glance, but there are some very subtle differences between the two. While there are many exceptions, the main difference is that the super-hero community tends to have a stricter sense of black-and-white morality at DC. This is written as a mature philosophical stand-point, dealing with the heroic archetype and their place as trusted members of society; in the DCU the general public tend to have greater respect for their heroes and treat them with higher esteem. In turn, the heroes of the DCU must undergo the trials of having to keep their respect and morality, even when it goes under fire.

Not to be confused with DC United. The streaming service called DC Universe features numerous live action and animated adaptations of the DCU, as well as a large back catalogue of DC comics.

    open/close all folders 

    Comics series and characters set in The DCU 
For a more complete list of DC comics see DC Comics Series.

    TV series set in (parts of) The DCU 

Superman-based (mostly in Metropolis, but given ol' Kal-El's range all bets are off):

Batman-based (in Gotham City, with rare field trips):

Captain Marvel-based

The Flash-based

Green Arrow-based

Wonder Woman-based

Static-based

Aquaman-based

  • A successful 1960s cartoon was why he was included in the Superfriends to begin with.
  • Failed pilot

Justice League of America-based:

  • Superfriends (Along with its many sequels and permutations.)
  • Legends of the Superheroes (A short-lived 1970s series which attempted to bring the campy style of Batman to the JLA, and failed miserably.)
  • Justice League of America, a failed Pilot Movie based around the post-Justice League International incarnation of the team.
  • Justice League (Takes place in the DC Animated Universe. Crawling with minor and obscure heroes and villains.)

Other TV series:

    The DC Animated Universe 
A subset of The DCU is the DC Animated Universe (a.k.a. the "Timmverse" or the "Diniverse"), consisting of Batman: The Animated Series and every other series, movie and comic that takes place in the same universe. It has its own canon, with more than one Crossover between series, and is best known for its distinctive artstyle, based on the works of Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. This universe originally ended with the final season of Justice League Unlimited though it has been revisited since. See it's own page for a more complete list of media set therein.

Series in the DCAU:

    DC Universe Animated Original Movies 

    The DC Extended Universe 

    Other DC Movies 

The defining characteristics of The DCU:

  • Big Good: Superman is traditionally the chairman (and often acknowledged as the most powerful member) of the Justice League, and when not acting in his capacity as a Leaguer most other heroes tend to defer to his authority and judgment if only out of respect. Sometimes generalized to the "Big Three" where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman collectively comprise the Big Good of the JLA. The JLA itself is in a sense the Big Good of DCU superteams and/or the metahuman community in general.
    • Explicitly shown in the Trinity maxi-series, to the point where the three become gods.
    • In any story involving the entire Bat Family, Batman will be this even more so than Superman. Alfred Pennyworth is a kind of this even more than Batman.
    • In a similar capacity, Captain Marvel is often treated like this, even in comparison to Superman, possibly due to Children Are Innocent. It's explicitly stated in the comics that Billy Batson would be Marvel full-time to help people, if not for the wizard Shazam insisting that Batson himself deserves some happiness in his life, too.
    • The Guardians of the Universe in Green Lantern used to be this for the DC Universe but the more cynical modern take on them has them acting aloof and manipulative instead.
    • As of the Blackest Night arc, the Big Good for the DC Universe is The Entity, the embodiment of the Light (as in "let there be") that created the universe.
      • Light Is Not Good as it turns out — the Entity's unforgiving of deviation from its plan.
  • Canon Invasion: DC has quite a few character who initially belonged to other companies prior to being bought out. Examples include:
  • City of Adventure: To each hero his own — Metropolis for Superman, Gotham City for Batman, Central City for The Flash, Coast City for Hal Jordan, Bludhaven for Nightwing.
    • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Perhaps each hero has his own city because he can't locate anyone else's.
      • This is being averted in modern days, where it's been established that Gotham is in New Jersey and Metropolis is in Delaware.
      • Gateway City (where Wonder Woman used to hang out before she moved to Washington) is in California.
      • So is Coast City (Green Lantern Hal Jordan's town.)
      • Keystone City (home of Golden Age and modern-day The Flashes) is in Ohio, according to JSA #15.
      • However, it's since been retconned as being located in Kansas, like Smallville, but near the border with Missouri (where Central City, home of the Silver Age Flash, is located), as per Flash vol.2 #188 (published in 2002), in which Wally West builds a bridge between the two cities.
      • Speaking of California, they inverted the usual DC practice of fictional adventure towns based on real places, by taking a real place (San Diego) and sinking it into the ocean, transforming its inhabitants into merpeople in the process. Thus it became the fictional underwater city of "Sub Diego," which Aquaman protected, natch.
      • Green Arrow ended up in an unusual situation with regards to this during the New 52 and Rebirth era. Traditionally he is from the fictional Star City, but during the New 52 they made him the protector of real life city Seattle. Then as part of Rebirth's return to the status quo, a group of villains blew up Seattle, bought the land, and built Star City on its ashes. So yeah... That happened.
  • Continuity Snarl: To the extent that at times it feels like the whole purpose of DC's output is trying to resolve its own continuity problems.
  • Crisis Crossover: The Trope Codifier with the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
  • Crossover Cosmology: The Greek Pantheon, via Wonder Woman show up most often. DC is also home to Kirby's Fourth World which in modern storylines is considered the replacement of the old pantheon. The DC's version of Norse Mythology played a prominent part in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and in other stories. It is far more mythologically accurate than that of the Marvel Universe (for instance Thor has red hair, Loki is Odin's brother). Incidentally the earliest appearance of Thor in DC was drawn by Jack Kirby before going to Marvel.
  • Demoted to Extra: Practically every Golden Age character save for the Justice Society of America's core team has either been killed off as C-List Fodder or relegated to the team's reserves. It's hard to imagine that the Red Bee once had his own backup series.
    • Lampshaded in James Robinson's Starman, where the Red Bee is seriously PISSED OFF during a Thanksgiving with dead superheroes.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: People who say "DC Comics" are really saying "Detective Comics Comics".
    • Debatable. "Detective Comics" could be considered the adjective. Effectively, it'd be "The comics of Detective Comic."
      • This could be "Detective Comics' Comics", but that isn't obvious from just "DC Comics".
  • Descriptiveville: Major offender, a lot of cities have rather bland names.
  • Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The DC Universe has a species of giant space critters called Sun Eaters, who do just that.
  • Easily Conquered World: Alien invasions Tuesday, underground monsters Thursday, and evil masterminds on Friday. If you're looking for an excuse to get off from work, you damn well better have lost your entire city, and even then, you're lucky.
  • Easy Road to Hell: In both the DC and Marvel 'verses there have been examples of people getting sent to Hell with magic, rather than through any fault of their own. Granted, in most such cases they were able to get out later.
  • Elseworld: The Trope Namer. During the '90s and early '00s, DC's Elseworlds imprint showcased a great many "what if" tales that carried on the tradition of Silver Age "imaginary stories"; the best-known was Kingdom Come. Since The Multiverse was brought back, many of these have become full-fledged Alternate Universes.
  • Flanderization: In 1983, Batman quit the Justice League and created a new team called the Outsiders after Superman saying he would not lead the League in saving Lucius Fox from being a hostage in a far away country for diplomatic reasons, and this lead to a dynamic within the DC Multiverse wherein Batman would be portrayed as a maverick and Superman a boy scout. While they patched things up later that year, 1986's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (which took place in a possible future) made Batman the ultimate outlaw anti-hero, and Superman a tool for the Ronald Reagan of every political cartoon of the '80s. In the revised DC Universe, DC ran with this dynamic of Superman and Batman being at odds for about a decade before it just kind-of ran out of steam, though the recent Batman/Superman title and other New 52 material revisited it.
  • Flying Firepower:
  • Generational Saga, just modified in the Post-Crisis continuity:
  • Greater-Scope Villain: A few beings qualify since the New 52 (and, in-universe, even before).
    • Darkseid, the first villain the Justice League faced, has been conquering the multiverse, and is responsible for the invasion and subsequent destruction of Earth-2.
    • The Anti-Monitor, even more dangerous being, who made the Crime Syndicate to escape their world (Earth-3) and destroyed it. He is going to kill Darkseid and is in league with his daughter.
    • Brainiac, easily number #3 on this list, his true form as giant artificial entity, capturing cities from different timelines and universes before their destruction. Vril Dox Brainiac guy is just one of his pawns.
    • Empty Hand, sinister entity that led the Gentry to the invasion of the Multiverse. Currently, just decided to wait. Probably qualifies as THE Biggest Bad.
  • In Name Only:
    • DC Comics created several characters during the Golden Age, but by the end of WWII the interest in superheroes died down, and most titles (except Superman and Batman) were closed or moved to other genres. The Silver Age began with the relaunch of Flash... besides the name and the speed, Barry Allen had nothing in common with Jay Garrick. The same thing was done with Green Lantern, Hawkman, and others. But the prize goes to The Atom, who went from a rough-and-tumble boxer who was kinda short to a physicist who could shrink to subatomic size.

      Though in this case, things were retconned twice. The first time, it had been revealed that the Golden Age characters lived on Earth-2, while the Silver Age characters lived on Earth-1.

      The second time it was retconned to fit into the new continuity created by Crisis on Infinite Earths. Alan Scott, for instance, was revealed to have received his power from the Starheart, an artifact created by the Guardians of the Universe (i.e., the same guys who made the Green Lantern rings), and Jay Garrick and Barry Allen were later revealed to both have received their power from the "speed force".
    • Since DC's business theory (such as it is) is about hanging onto trademarks as long as possible, they have a long history of reusing names in some odd fashion or another. Such as the 1940's superhero Johnny Thunder, the 1950's cowboy Johnny Thunder, and the 1980's noir detective Jonni Thunder. Or all those unrelated characters named Starman. This often leads to the point where a story tries to reconcile these different incarnations somehow.
  • Intra-Franchise Crossover:
    • Of all Crisis Crossovers DC Comics had in its history, the most fitted to this trope is during Final Crisis, especially when Superman goes into the Multiverse in Superman Beyond tie-in and meet a lot of his alter-egos in parallel universes, with a lot of known Supermen like the Red Son, as well new versions of him, like Overman (a Nazi-Aryan Superman) and President Calvin Ellis (basically Barack Obama as the Son of Krypton). All of them worked together to stop Darkseid and end the Crisis.
    • A first genesis of this was with Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which Superman met his Earth-2 and later Earth-Prime counterparts, which became a major part of the plot of its sequel Infinite Crisis.
    • And going even more backward, all starts with Flash Of Two Worlds, in which Earth-1 Flash (Barry Allen) first encounters with Earth-2 Flash (Jay Garrick) after both discovered the existence of the other since Barry accidentally crossed the "vibration barrier" between dimensions. This was just the start of the Crisis Crossover events DC would have during all its history.
  • Irony: Superboy Prime was initially DC Comics' way of making fun of fanboys (a Straw Fan). Recently the explanation for any inconsistencies in the DC Universe is that Superboy-Prime punched reality so hard that it changed history (seriously). So the one character they made to make fun of the stupidity of fanboys is now the answer to those same fanboys' questions about continuity problems. It's like giving the keys of a circus to a monkey.
    • Which seems to sum up Running the Asylum right there, whether or not that counts as irony.
  • Killed Off for Real: Many DC characters that have died were thought to come back after Blackest Night. While 12 random people were brought back to life, many more stayed dead. Examples are Sue Dibny, Johnny Quick (Johnny Chambers), The Question (Charles Victor Szasz), the Elongated Man (Ralph Dibny), Eclipso (Jean Loring), Mirror Master I (Samuel Joseph Scudder), Doctor Mid-Nite I (Charles M. McNider), Sandman (Wesley Dodds), Mister Terrific I (Terry Sloane), Damage (Grant Emerson), Kal-L (Earth 2), and many more not listed here.
    • Kobra, a longtime Big Bad in The DCU, seems to have been Killed Off For Real (having your heart ripped clean out of your chest by Black Adam will do that). However, since his minions recently resurrected his brother (who was killed off waaaaaaay back in 1978) to become the new head of their Religion of Evil, all bets are off.
  • Leotard of Power: Many powerful superheroes wear leotards as part of their superhero costumes.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: Does it need to be said?
  • Magic or Psychic?: Psychic abilities are given the same rules as science. Magic, on the other hand, bends the laws of science and can even be a broad weakness for sturdier characters, like Superman.
  • The Multiverse: The DCU has a long tradition, recently revived, of having numerous alternate universes.
  • No Communities Were Harmed: The aforementioned Cities Of Adventure.
  • Present Day: Mostly. Time Travel is common, as are series set in The Wild West, World War II, or The Future.
  • Private Profit Prison: Most of the prisons seen are more managed by some of the Big Bad of the company than the same government. Famous DC prisons like Belle Reve, Arkham Asylum and Iron Heights are usually managed by characters like Amanda Waller, Dr. Sivana or Hugo Strange for their own profit, business or plans instead of what their own govenment states on them.
  • Remember the New Guy?: DC Comics had several heroes that were created in the 70's and 80's, but were established as having been active during the 40's. Among them were Amazing-Man (chronologically, one of the earliest black superheroes) and Commander Steel, both of whom were established as having fought alongside the members of the JSA.
  • Research, Inc.:
    • S.T.A.R. Labs (Scientific and Technological Advanced Research) is an independent group of research laboratories throughout the U.S. and across the world. It has a long history of coming up with high technology and new inventions, and has also regularly gotten involved in superheroic activities.
    • Project Cadmus was into genetic engineering; its abandoned laboratories are in some caverns near Metropolis.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Mr. Bones, originally; it's been quietly disposed of since then.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can:
    • The Phantom Zone is essentially an other-dimensional prison that holds numerous Kryptonian criminals. As such, there many stories where the prisoners escape and the heroes have to fight to throw them back into the Zone.
    • The Source Wall is a huge cosmic barrier between the Source (the source of power behind existence itself) and the rest of creation. The Wall is decorated with the bodies and visages of all of the would be conquerors who have sought to claim the power of the Source for themselves, imprisoning them for all eternity. The Wall is one of the more effective Cans in fiction and only three people have ever escaped it. One of them, Yuga Khan (the father of Darkseid), managed to summon just enough power to free himself from the Wall...only to get himself imprisoned in it again in another bid to obtain the Source, this time for good. The second one was Darkseid himself, and he needed the help of the one who imprisoned him in the first place (Superman) to do it. The third was Superman, who was trapped by Darkseid and required the help of every variation of Supergirl from the last twenty years to break free.
      • Following the New 52 reboot, the Source Wall has been strongly tied into the Green Lantern books, as the Source behind it powers their lanterns and rings. Former GL Kyle Rayner (now the White Lantern) made a trip beyond the wall to re-energize the Source, but he Came Back Wrong and needed quite a bit of sorting out afterwards.
      • Fun fact; the Source Wall is often used for Lawyer Friendly Cameos for Marvel Comics characters, with Galactus and Dr. Doom among others being depicted as figures trapped on it.
  • Shout-Out
  • Super Hero: Of course.
  • Two First Names: Various civilian identities of their superheroes.
  • Underwear of Power: Trope Maker, really. (Although they are technically exercise trunks, not underwear.)
    • As of the 2011 reboot, this has been eliminated from the uniforms of the heroes that still wore them (Superman and Batman being the foremost examples). As of DC Rebirth, Superman got his undies back.
  • A Villain Named Khan: The supervillain Manga Khan is an intergalactic trader with a gaseous body who wears a metal suit to give him his form. The suit makes him immune to harm as well as granting him tremendous strength.
    • Yuga Khan, Darkseid's father, is this.
  • Weaponized Ball: The villain Sportsmaster sometimes uses shot-puts and other balls as bludgeoning weapons, as well as using trick versions that explode.
  • Wretched Hive: While New Earth as a whole is a much better place to live than Earth-616, there are a lot of cities where it sucks to live. Gotham City is the most iconic, with its sister city Bludhaven being so bad that Gothamites look upon it with disdain. Star City has gone to hell following Justice League: Cry for Justice, as it had the misfortune of occurring so close to the Blackest Night. But the single worse place to live in the DCU is Hub City.

Alternative Title(s): DC Universe, DC Super Stars, The DC Universe, DCU, DC Comics

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