DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for Detective Comics, a comic book series first published in 1937. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, the first comic under the DC banner being published in 1937.
Most of its published stories are set in the fictional DC Universe and feature numerous culturally iconic heroic characters, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash; as well as famous fictional teams, including the Justice League, the Teen Titans, the Suicide Squad, and the Legion of Super-Heroes. The universe contains an assortment of well-known supervillains, such as Lex Luthor, the Joker, Darkseid, and the antiheroic Catwoman. The company has published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Fables, and many other titles, under the alternative imprints Vertigo and DC Black Label.
Originally at 432 Fourth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, the company offices have been located at 480 and later 575 Lexington Avenue, 909 Third Avenue, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, 666 Fifth Avenue, and 1325 Avenue of the Americas. DC Comics was located at 1700 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan until April 2015, when DC Entertainment transferred its headquarters to Burbank, California.
In 2017, approximately 70% of the American comic book market was shared by DC Comics and its long-time major competitor Marvel Comics, though this figure may be distorted because sales of graphic novels are excluded. As of 2025, in the comic book shop market, DC is the second-largest publisher of comic books, after Marvel, and Image Comics is third. In the bookstore market, DC is the second largest publisher of comic books, after Viz Media, and Marvel is third.
Contents
History
National Allied Publications
In 1935, entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications, intended as an American comic book publishing company. Its debut publication was the tabloid-sized New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 (the first of a comic series later called More Fun Comics) with a February 1935 cover date. An anthology title, essentially for original stories not reprinted from newspaper strips, it was unlike many comic book series before it. While DC Comics is now primarily associated with superhero comics, the genres in the first anthology titles consisted of funnies, Western comics, and adventure-related stories. The character Doctor Occult—created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in December 1935 and included in issue No. 6 of New Fun Comics—is considered to be the earliest recurring superhero created by DC that is still being used. The company created a second recurring title called New Comics, first released in December 1935, which was the start of the long-running Adventure Comics series that also featured many anthology titles. By 1936, the group had become Nicholson Publishing.
Wheeler-Nicholson's next and final title, Detective Comics, was advertised with a cover illustration dated December 1936 but eventually premiered three months late with a March 1937 cover date. The themed anthology that revolved originally around fictional detective stories became in modern times the longest-running ongoing comic series. A notable debut in the first issue was Slam Bradley, created in a collaboration between Wheeler-Nicholson, Siegel and Shuster. In 1937, in debt to printing-plant owner and magazine distributor Harry Donenfeld—who also published pulp magazines and operated as a principal in the magazine distributorship Independent News—Wheeler-Nicholson had to enter into partnership with Donenfeld to publish Detective Comics No. 1, and Detective Comics, Inc. (which helped inspire the abbreviation DC) was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Donenfeld's accountant Jack S. Liebowitz listed as owners. As the company continued to experience cash-flow problems, Wheeler-Nicholson was forced out after the first year. Shortly afterwards, Detective Comics, Inc. purchased the remains of National Allied (also known as Nicholson Publishing) at a bankruptcy auction and absorbed it.
Meanwhile, Max Gaines formed the sister company All-American Publications in 1939. Detective Comics, Inc. soon launched a new anthology title called Action Comics; the first issue, cover dated June 1938, featured new characters such as Superman by Siegel and Shuster, Zatara by Fred Guardineer, and Tex Thompson by Ken Finch and Bernard Baily. Considered as the first comic book to feature the character archetype later known as the "superhero", Action Comics was a sales hit that brought to life a new age of comic books, now affectionately termed the "Golden Age". Action Comics #1 is credited as featuring the first appearance of Superman, both on the cover illustration and inside the issue, and is now one of the most valuable and sought-after comic book issues of all time. The first Superman tale included a superhero origin story with the reveal of an unnamed planet, later known as Krypton, where he is said to have originated. The issue also contained the first essential supporting character and one of the earliest female characters in any comic, with Lois Lane as Superman's first depicted romantic interest. The Green Hornet-inspired character known as the Crimson Avenger by Jim Chamber was featured in Detective Comics No. 20 (October 1938). This character is known to be the first masked vigilante published by DC. An unnamed "office boy", retconned as Jimmy Olsen's first appearance, was revealed in a Superman story by Siegel and Shuster in Action Comics No. 6 (November 1938).
National Periodical Publications
DC's introduction of the reimagined superheroes did not go unnoticed by their competitors. In 1961, with DC's JLA as the specific inducement, Marvel Comics' writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby ushered in the sub-Silver Age "Marvel Age" of comics with the debut issue of The Fantastic Four. Reportedly, DC dismissed the initial success of Marvel's editorial change until its consistently strengthening sales—albeit also benefiting DC's parent company Independent News, as Marvel's distributor—made it impossible to ignore. This commercial situation was highlighted by Marvel's superior sell-through percentage numbers which were typically 70% to DC's roughly 50%, meaning that DC's publications were barely making a profit after returns from the distributors were factored in, while Marvel was making a healthy profit by comparison. Also in 1961, both DC and Marvel increased their cover price from ten cents to twelve cents, while the rival publisher Dell Comics was charging fifteen cents.
At this time, the senior DC staff were reportedly unable to explain how this small publishing house was achieving its increasingly threatening commercial strength. For instance, when Marvel's product was examined in a meeting, the emphasis on more sophisticated character-based narrative and artist-driven visual storytelling was apparently overlooked. Instead, superficial reasons were put forward to account for the brand's popularity, like the presence of the color red or word balloons on the cover, or that the perceived crudeness of the interior art was somehow more appealing to readers. When Lee learned about DC's subsequent experimental attempts to imitate these perceived details, he amused himself by arranging direct defiance of those assumptions in Marvel's publications as sales strengthened further to frustrate the competition.
However, this ignorance of Marvel's true appeal did not extend to some of the writing talent during this period, and attempts were made to emulate Marvel's narrative approach. For instance, there was the Doom Patrol series by Arnold Drake (who had previously warned DC's management about Marvel's strength), a superhero team of outsiders who resented their freakish powers, which Drake later speculated was plagiarized by Stan Lee to create The X-Men. There was also the young Jim Shooter who purposely emulated Marvel's writing when he wrote for DC after studying both companies' styles, such as for the Legion of Super-Heroes feature. In 1966, National Periodical Publications established its own television arm, led by Allen Ducovny, to develop and produce TV projects, with Superman TV Corporation handling the distribution of NPP's shows.
Kinney National / Warner Communications (1967–1990)
In 1967, National Periodical Publications was purchased by Kinney National Company, which purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1969. Kinney National spun off its non-entertainment assets in 1972 (as National Kinney Corporation) and changed its name to Warner Communications Inc.
In 1970, Jack Kirby moved from Marvel Comics to DC, at the end of the Silver Age of Comics, in which Kirby's contributions to Marvel played a large, integral role.
As artist Gil Kane described: "Jack was the single most influential figure in the turnaround in Marvel's fortunes from the time he rejoined the company ... It wasn't merely that Jack conceived most of the characters that are being done, but ... Jack's point of view and philosophy of drawing became the governing philosophy of the entire publishing company and, beyond the publishing company, of the entire field ... [Marvel took] Jack and use[d] him as a primer. They would get artists ... and they taught them the ABCs, which amounted to learning Jack Kirby ... Jack was like the Holy Scripture and they simply had to follow him without deviation. That's what was told to me ... It was how they taught everyone to reconcile all those opposing attitudes to one single master point of view."
Given carte blanche to write and illustrate his own stories, he created a handful of thematically-linked series he called collectively "The Fourth World". In the existing series Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and in his own, newly-launched series New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People, Kirby introduced such enduring characters and concepts as arch-villain Darkseid and the other-dimensional realm Apokolips. Furthermore, Kirby intended their stories to be reprinted in collected editions, in a publishing format that was later called the trade paperback, which became a standard industry practice decades later. While sales were respectable, they did not meet DC management's initially high expectations, and also suffered from a lack of comprehension and internal support from Infantino. By 1973 the "Fourth World" was all cancelled, although Kirby's conceptions soon became integral to the broadening of the DC Universe, especially after the major toy-company, Kenner Products, judged them ideal for their action-figure adaptation of the DC Universe, the Super Powers Collection. Obligated by his contract, Kirby created other unrelated series for DC, including Kamandi, The Demon, and OMAC, before ultimately returning to Marvel Comics in 1976.
DC Comics
In 1977, the company officially changed its name to DC Comics. It had used the brand "Superman-DC" since the 1950s, and was colloquially known as DC Comics for years.
In June 1978, five months before the release of the first Superman film, Kahn expanded the line further, increasing the number of titles and story pages, and raising the price from 35 cents to 50 cents. Most series received eight-page back-up features while some had full-length twenty-five-page stories. This was a move the company called the "DC Explosion". The move was not successful, however, and corporate parent Warner dramatically cut back on these largely unsuccessful titles, firing many staffers in what industry watchers dubbed "the DC Implosion". In September 1978, the line was dramatically reduced and standard-size books returned to 17-page stories but for a still increased 40 cents. By 1980, the books returned to 50 cents with a 25-page story count but the story pages replaced house ads in the books.
Seeking new ways to boost market share, the new team of publisher Kahn, vice president Paul Levitz, and managing editor Giordano addressed the issue of talent instability. To that end—and following the example of Atlas/Seaboard Comics and such independent companies as Eclipse Comics—DC began to offer royalties in place of the industry-standard work-for-hire agreement in which creators worked for a flat fee and signed away all rights, giving talent a financial incentive tied to the success of their work. As it happened, the implementation of these incentives proved opportune considering Marvel Comics' Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter, was alienating much of his company's creative staff with his authoritarian manner and major talents there went to DC like Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman, and George Pérez.
In addition, emulating the era's new television form, the miniseries, while addressing the matter of an excessive number of ongoing titles fizzling out within a few issues of their start, DC created the industry concept of the comic book limited series. This publishing format allowed for the deliberate creation of finite storylines within a more flexible publishing format that could showcase creations without forcing the talent into unsustainable open-ended commitments. The first such title was World of Krypton in 1979, and its positive results led to subsequent similar titles and later more ambitious productions like Camelot 3000 for the direct market in 1982.
Time Warner / Time Warner Entertainment / AOL Time Warner (1990–2018)
In March 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., making DC Comics a subsidiary of Time Warner. In June, the first Tim Burton-directed Batman film was released, and DC began publishing its hardcover series of DC Archive Editions; these were collections of many of their early, key comics series, featuring rare and expensive stories previously unseen by the majority of modern fans. Much of the restoration work was handled by Rick Keene, with colour restoration performed by DC's long-time resident colourist Bob LeRose. The Archive Editions attempted to retroactively credit many of the writers and artists who had worked for DC without receiving much recognition during the early age of comic books when individual credits were rare.
The comics industry experienced a brief boom in the early 1990s, thanks to a combination of speculative purchasing—mass purchase of the books as collectible items, with the intention to resell at a higher value (as the rising value of older issues was thought to imply that all comics would rise dramatically in price)—and several storylines gaining attention from the mainstream media. DC's extended storylines in which Superman was killed, Batman was crippled, and Green Lantern turned into the supervillain Parallax, resulted in dramatically increased sales. However, the increases were temporary, and sales dropped off as the industry went into a major slump, while manufactured "collectables" numbering in the millions replaced quality with quantity until fans and speculators alike deserted the medium in droves.
DC's Piranha Press and other imprints (including the mature readers' line Vertigo, and Helix, a short-lived science fiction imprint) were introduced to facilitate compartmentalized diversification and allow for specialized marketing of individual product lines. They increased the use of non-traditional contractual arrangements, including the dramatic rise of creator-owned projects, leading to a significant increase in critically lauded work (much of it for Vertigo) and the licensing of material from other companies. DC also increased publication of book-store friendly formats, including trade paperback collections of individual serial comics, as well as original graphic novels.
One of the other imprints was Impact Comics from 1991 to 1992 in which the Archie Comics superheroes were licensed and revamped. The stories in the line were part of its own shared universe.
DC Entertainment
In 2011, DC rebooted all of its running titles following the Flashpoint storyline. The reboot called The New 52 gave new origin stories and costume designs to many of DC's characters.
DC licensed pulp characters including Doc Savage and the Spirit which it then used, along with some DC heroes, as part of the First Wave comics line launched in 2010 and lasting through fall 2011.
In May 2011, DC announced it would begin releasing digital versions of their comics on the same day as paper versions.
On June 1, 2011, DC announced that it would end all ongoing series set in the DC Universe in August and relaunch its comic line with 52 issue #1s, starting with Justice League on August 31 (written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee), with the rest to follow later on in September.
On June 4, 2013, DC started DC2 and DC2 Multiverse. DC2 was for Batman '66 while DC2 Multiverse was for Batman: Arkham Origins.
In 2014, DC announced an eight-issue miniseries titled Convergence which began in April 2015.
In 2016, DC announced a line-wide relaunch titled DC Rebirth. The new line would launch with an 80-page one-shot titled DC Universe: Rebirth, written by Geoff Johns, with art from Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, and more. After that, many new series would launch with a twice-monthly release schedule and new creative teams for nearly every title. The relaunch was meant to bring back the legacy and heart many felt had been missing from DC characters since the launch of the New 52. Rebirth brought huge success, both financially and critically.
In January 2018, DC held an event in the now-defunct Newseum in Washington D.C. The event featured a pop-up shop with autograph opportunities, panel discussions with stars and producers from Arrow, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Gotham, Supergirl, and Freedom Fighters: The Ray, comic book authors and artists, and premiere screenings of Black Lightning and Batman: Gotham By Gaslight.
WarnerMedia / Warner Bros. Discovery unit (2018–present)
On February 21, 2020, the Co-Publisher of DC Comics, Dan DiDio stepped down after 10 years at that position. The company did not give a reason for the move, nor did it indicate whether it was his decision or the company's. The leadership change was the latest event in the company restructuring which began the previous month, as several top executives were laid off from the company. However, Bleeding Cool reported that he was fired.
In June 2020, Warner Bros. announced a separate DC-themed online-only convention. Known as DC FanDome, the free "immersive virtual fan experience" was a 24-hour-long event held on August 22, 2020. The main presentation, entitled "DC FanDome: Hall of Heroes", was held as scheduled on August 22. The remaining programming was provided through a one-day video on demand experience, "DC FanDome: Explore the Multiverse", on September 12.
As Warner Bros. and DC's response to San Diego Comic-Con's cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the convention featured information about DC-based content including the DC Extended Universe film franchise, the Arrowverse television franchise, comic books, and video games. The convention also returned for the virtual premiere of Wonder Woman 1984 and returned once again on October 16, 2021.
In August 2020, roughly one-third of DC's editorial ranks were laid off, including the editor-in-chief, senior story editor, executive editor, and several senior VPs.
In March 2021, DC relaunched their entire line once again under the banner of Infinite Frontier. After the events of the Dark Nights: Death Metal storyline, the DC Multiverse was expanded into a larger "Omniverse" where everything is canon, effectively reversing the changes The New 52 introduced a decade prior.
Furthermore, AT&T spun off WarnerMedia to Discovery, forming Warner Bros. Discovery. This merger was completed on April 8, 2022.
In January 2023, DC relaunched their line under the banner of Dawn of DC following the conclusion of Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths and Lazarus Planet. Later that year, Jim Lee was promoted to President of DC in May.
Logo
The November 1941 DC titles introduced an updated logo. This was almost twice the size of the previous version and the first with a white background. The name "Superman" was added to "A DC Publication", effectively acknowledging both Superman and Batman. This logo was the first to occupy the top-left corner of the cover, where the logo has generally resided ever since. The company began to refer to itself in its advertising as "Superman-DC".
When Jenette Kahn became DC's publisher in late 1976, she commissioned graphic designer Milton Glaser to design a new company logo. Popularly referred to as the "DC bullet", this logo premiered on the February 1977 titles. Although it varied in size and colour, was at times cropped by the edges of the cover, and was briefly rotated by 4 degrees, the logo remained essentially unchanged for almost three decades. Despite the various logo changes since 2005, the old "DC bullet" continues to be used only on the DC Archive Editions series.
On May 8, 2005, a new logo (dubbed the "DC spin") was unveiled, debuting on DC titles in June 2005 with DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy No. 1 and the rest of the titles the following week. As well as being used for comics, the new logo was designed for DC properties in other media, including films since Batman Begins (with Superman Returns showing the logo's normal variant), the TV series Smallville, the animated series Justice League Unlimited and others, as well as for collectibles and other merchandise. The "DC Spin" logo was designed by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studios and DC executive Richard Bruning.
In March 2012, DC unveiled a new logo designed by Landor Associates, which consists of a letter "D" peeling back to reveal the letter "C". The logo was intended to signify the concept of superheroes having "dual" identities and was adaptable across different mediums.
In May 2016, in conjunction with the DC Rebirth, DC replaced the "peel" logo with a circular logo reminiscent of the 1972 logo.
In July 2024, an updated version of Glaser's 1977 "Bullet" logo was unveiled during San Diego Comic-Con, as well as an accompanying intro sequence featuring Superman for DC Studios.
Imprints
Active
DC (1937–present)
Elseworlds (1989–2010, 2024–present)
Vertigo Comics (1993–2020, 2024–present)
WildStorm (1999–2010, 2017–present)
Earth-M (1993–1997, 2018–present)
DC Black Label (2018–present)
DC Graphic Novels for Young Adults (2020–present)
DC Graphic Novels for Kids (2020–present)
DC Horror (2021–present)
DC Compact Comics (2024–present)
DC All In (2024–present)
Mad (1953–present)
Defunct
DC Archive Editions (1989–2014; replaced by DC Omnibus)
Piranha Press (1989–1993; renamed Paradox Press)
Impact Comics (1991–1993; licensed from Archie Comics)
Amalgam Comics (1996–1997; jointly with Marvel Comics)
Helix (1996–1998; merged with Vertigo)
Tangent Comics (1997–1998)
Paradox Press (1998–2003)
WildStorm Productions (1999–2010)
America's Best Comics (1999–2005)
Homage Comics (1999–2004; merged to form WildStorm Signature)
Cliffhanger (1999–2004; merged to form WildStorm Signature)
WildStorm Signature (2004–2006; merged with main WildStorm line)
CMX Manga (2004–2010)
DC Focus (2004–2005; merged with main DC line)
Johnny DC (2004–2012)
All Star (2005–2008)
Minx (2007–2008)
Zuda Comics (2007–2010)
First Wave (2010–2011; licensed from Condé Nast Publications and Will Eisner Library)
Young Animal (2016–2021)