Dc Comics

1935brandclassic

DC Comics is the American superhero publisher behind Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Justice League, founded in 1935 as National Allied Publications. The 'DC' name grew out of 1940 'Superman-DC' branding and was made official in 1977. It now sits under Warner Bros. and powers a huge chunk of comic film, TV and online fandom.

Overview

DC Comics is the American comic book publisher behind Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Justice League4. The company sits under Warner Bros. as part of DC Entertainment, and its characters power a huge chunk of superhero pop culture on screen and in print.

Fans argue endlessly online about whether DC or Marvel does it better, with Urban Dictionary entries calling DC 'sovereign' over its rival and joking about the mix-ups people make between the two publishers5. DC is recognizable for dark, mythic storytelling built around a small core of iconic heroes and villains like the Joker, Lex Luthor and Darkseid, along with the widely recognized 'DC bullet' logo.

How It Spread

Through the 1950s and 1960s DC built out the Justice League of America with Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and The Flash, and a 1960s Batman television show on ABC pushed the Caped Crusader into mainstream fame. The 1980s brought Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, two mid-decade releases with gritty, antihero plotlines that reshaped what a superhero book could look like. The 1990s ran giant event storylines including the death of Superman, Green Lantern's turn to villainy, and Batman getting his back broken by Bane4.

DC's characters carried into blockbuster film with releases like Man of Steel1 and The Dark Knight Rises2, while DC Entertainment folded in as a Warner Bros. subsidiary during the 2000s. The DC Comics Wiki launched on August 28th, 2006 and gathered more than 80,750 entries in the following eight years.

Fan communities piled onto Tumblr with blogs like DC Comics Confessions6, and by March 2014 the DC Comics Facebook page had passed 1.4 million likes while the @DCComics Twitter account had passed 586,000 followers3.

Frequently Asked Questions