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^note Especially since co-creator Jack Kirby used much of his earlier DC creation, Challengers of the Unknown, to create the Four, leading into an era of more maturely written super-hero stories dealing with the development of characters and more serious problems.

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. In March 2021, DC relaunched their lineup again with DC Infinite Frontier.

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. The often much higher power levels of DC heroes compared to Marvel heroes further widens the gap between the "super" and "normal" categories of characters.

If you would like to know more about the history of DC Comic's editors and Editors-in-Chief changed the company, see here.

Not to be confused with DC United.

Not to be confused with "The DC Universe", the film and multimedia DC Comics franchise in the making with James Gunn as central creator.

The former streaming service called DC Universe featured numerous live action and animated adaptations of the DCU as well as a large back catalogue of DC comics before being retooled to feature the latter only (content was moved to HBO Max, now called Max).

Features of the DC Universe:

The defining characteristics of The DCU:

• Aliens Are Bastards: There are alien races that are brutal and vicious such as the White Martians and members that are evil like Brainiac but the other races while not innocent are not bastards either so they act more in a greyish area making them Anti-Heroes.
• Amusingly Awful Aim: There's a minor villain called Mr. Terrible, who is an Evil Counterpart to Mr. Terrific. While Mr. Terrific represents the pinnacle of human perfection and is incredibly skilled at any activity you can imagine, Mr. Terrible is the exact opposite. Everything he tries to do turns out bad. Case in point: In one issue of Villains United, he attempts to kill someone by throwing a knife at them. He was aiming for the head - it hit them in the leg.
• Atrocious Arthropods:
  • Blue Beetle: The New 52 reimagines the Reach with a more insectoid look, while retaining their role as an antagonistic race of conquerors.
  • Green Lantern: Parallax is the cosmic embodiment of fear and the creature that possessed Hal Jordan to make him evil. It's appearance is a cross between a dragonfly and reptile.
  • Supergirl: Godship, the main villain of Bizarrogirl, commands an army of large insect monsters.
  • Superman:
    • The Post-Crisis version of Insect Queen is an insect-like alien who seeks to colonize Earth.
    • Kryptonite Nevermore has Superman saving Lois Lane and her pilot from a swarm of flesh-eating ants.
  • Wonder Woman (1942): The Robert Kanigher run featured the Termite Queen, a one-shot villain who appeared in issue #58. She was a monster termite with a vicious hatred of humans and the ability to telepathically command termites, which she used to make them consume metal and wreak havoc.
• 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:
  • Back in the Golden Age, DC was formed from three nominally separate companies: Detective Comics, All-American Comics, and National Publications.
  • The characters of Fawcett Comics, such as Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family.
  • The characters of Quality Comics, such as Plastic Man, Kid Eternity, and the Freedom Fighters.
  • The characters of Charlton Comics, such as Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, and The Question.
  • The characters of Milestone Comics, such as Static, Hardware and Icon & Rocket.
  • The characters of the Red Circle (formerly owned by Archie Comics) such as the Mighty Crusaders, the Shield and the Web.
  • The characters of WildStorm Comics, such as Stormwatch, Grifter, The Authority and the Wild C.A.T.s (WildStorm), who have joined the mainstream continuity (along with the people in the Vertigo Comics line) as of the New 52. Alongside Wildstorm, they got the rights to America's Best Comics, with the partial exception of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which was creator owned by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill and is currently published by Top Shelf, a subsidary of IDW Publishing).
• 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.
  • This became very prominent in the 2010s, when the 2011 New 52 reboot tried to streamline the universe without clearly laying out what had lapsed into Canon Discontinuity. Later on in the New 52, writers tended to reference events that had previously been struck from continuity without explanation. Rebirth followed in 2016, an initiative that still shared all of its canon with the New 52, but allowed its writers to bring series more in line with where they had been before New 52. Since writers quickly dropped unpopular elements of the New 52 canon — either without canon to replace it or with a flimsy Retcon that didn't make sense with other New 52 elements that were still canon — this iniative led to even more continuity snarls.
  • DC Infinite Frontier has dealt with the continuity snarls by cutting the Gordian Knot and making every character remember every iteration of the DCU's timelines. Everything is part of history now. Even the parts that contradict each other. Especially the parts that contradict each other.
• 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 (1989) 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.
• Devil, but No God: The voice of God has been heard in certain The DCU, usually talking to The Spectre, who works as its Agent of Vengeance. However it has never been actually seen, and only seems to interfere on VERY rare occasions, even when The DCU is threatened with destruction.
  • DC has a God-surrogate called The Presence, and there are several other beings which are pretty God-like. For continuity purposes, these are sometimes explained as being various aspects of The Presence.
    • The Voice (who talks to The Spectre)
    • The Logos (a group of godlike beings that make up a sort of harmonious pantheon, also usually involved with The Spectre)
    • The Source (the universal creative force, mostly appears in works related to Jack Kirby's Fourth World mythos)
    • The Entity (the "white light of creation" from the Blackest Night arc)
  • A JLA miniseries starring Zauriel the Angel climaxed with the rogue angel Asmodel storming the palace of God only to find it empty. Zauriel lectures Asmodel on the naivete of expecting God to be some mere corporeal form: God is everywhere and swiftly sends Asmodel to Hell.
  • By contrast to this, various devils often show up in the DC Universe, most notably Neron, whose shtick is making Deal With The Devil type bargains with unwitting mortals. Demons seem to pop up far more often in the series then their heavenly counterparts, even though some (like Etrigan) aren't all bad. Lucifer even had his own ongoing title under the Vertigo imprint.
  • In The Sandman (1989), we're introduced to Lucifer Morningstar and several other powerful demons preside over Hell. While there are also angels and we're offered a glimpse of Heaven, God is only briefly mentioned in passing. There are many deities and spirits from various mythologies represented in the series, but the Abrahamic God never makes an appearance.
  • The climax of Lucifer, a spinoff of The Sandman (1989) and therefore technically connected The DCU, ultimately did show God and what happened to him: he ditched his creation millennia ago because he was unimpressed with how humanity was turning out. Lucifer ultimately has to convince God not to scrap the whole thing altogether.
• 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 said he would not lead the League in saving Lucius Fox from being a hostage in a far away country for diplomatic reasons, and this leads 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:
  • Batman villain Firefly is this, possessing a jetpack and an arsenal of incendiary weapons.
  • Global Guardians: Fire, a Brazilian woman who has green Wreathed in Flames and flies around. Later joined the Justice League International, creating a solid career for herself.
• Generational Saga, just modified in the Post-Crisis continuity:
  • The JSA characters, i.e. the first Green Lantern (Alan Scott) and The Flash (Jay Garrick) being the first generation.
  • They were followed by the next generation of superheroes such as Superman Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), The Flash (Barry Allen), Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow...
  • Followed in turn by the generation of their sidekicks: Robin (Dick Grayson), Supergirl (Kara Zor-El), Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), Wonder Girl (Donna Troy), Kid Flash (Wally West), Aqualad, Speedy, et cetera.
• 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.
• Innocent Aliens: The alien races are benevolent with members being Earth’s heroes such as the Kryptonians and the Green Martians.
• 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, that is - Eclipso itself is functionally immortal), the first two Blue Beetles (Dan Garrett and Ted Kord), 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. Many of those were brought back in the New 52 or DC Rebirth, however.
  • 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.
  • By virtue of them suffering a Death by Origin Story, Thomas and Martha Wayne are the most conventional example. For over 15 real-time years, Jason Todd had this fate as well.
• Leotard of Power: Many powerful superheroes wear leotards as part of their superhero costumes.
• 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.
  • Pre-Crisis, Earth-1 represented contemporary/Silver Age continuity whereas the alternate Earth-2 represented the Golden Age (with some minor retcons to introduce more differences).
  • The main DCU is known as New Earth or Earth-0, due to the changes made to the timeline during Infinite Crisis.
  • The WildStorm universe has nominally been part of the DC Multiverse since the company was bought by DC, though crossovers are rare. With Flashpoint, however, many Wildstorm characters have shown up as part of the main DCU.
  • Kingdom Come and Tangent Comics are perhaps the most famous of numerous works detailing specific Alternate Universes.
  • Occasionally mention will be made of the Vertigo Universe, but Vertigo's recurring characters (The Sandman (1989), Swamp Thing, Lucifer, etc.) really take place in their own little corners of The DCU that no longer interact with the rest of the universe due to Executive Meddling. Up until 2011, anyway, when they made a comeback.
  • We are ostensibly a part of the DC multiverse, Earth-Prime. Except between 1985 and 2005, when we didn't actually exist.
  • Since the New 52, the Prime Timeline is known as Prime Earth (no confusion with the aforementioned Earth-Prime).
• No Communities Were Harmed: The aforementioned Cities Of Adventure.
• Plot Archaeology: The DCU usually does this with certain events in its history, reviving old (and more than finished) issues and collections just for the event's sake. Some examples are seen in the Blackest Night event where all the historical tiles of DC had one more number (i.e. if a collection finished on issue 405, the BN Special is the 406) and even some crossovers with actual characters as seen in events like Zero Hour and Convergence.
  • A major offender is Booster Gold. Being a time traveller, Booster has had various numbers which were continuations of past events stories and still being part of them as tie-ins. Some examples are in DC One Million and Zero Hour, usually made even decades before these events finished and still count as part of their collections.
• Present Day: Mostly. Time Travel is common, as are series set in The Wild West, World War II, or The Future.
• Prime Timeline: Prime Earth, though it was Earth-1 during the Golden Age and Earth-2 during the Silver Age. The older ones, and more besides, were collapsed, combined or otherwise done away with during the Crisis events.
• 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.
  • This is also Etrigan's schtick.
• 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 Cameo's for Marvel Comics characters, with Galactus and Dr. Doom among others being depicted as figures trapped on it.
• Space Travel Veto:
  • The alien race known as the Daxamites hold this position. A xenophobic race by nature, Daxamites have traditionally avoided interaction with other space-faring races, but exceptions have been made, in order to secure the defense of their planet. To that end, they have forbidden space travel of any kind and shun any among them who break that cultural taboo.
  • Krypton had two different reasons for abandoning space travel. Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was because the scientist Jax-Ur had accidentally blown up a colony on the moon with an experimental rocket. Post-Crisis, the scientist Kem-L had used an alien device called the Eradicator to modify the DNA of every living Kryptonian, ensuring that they would die if they ever left Krypton.
• Spiritual Antithesis:
  • The DC universe is like the Marvel Universe, due to both being long-running comic book continuities, but the way they do things is a lot different: DC reboots their main universe every few years to streamline continuity while Marvel keeps the same one with constant updates; DC heroes tend to be more clean-cut and heroic while the Marvel heroes tend to act within morally grey areas; DC places a larger emphasis on legacy and passings-of-the-torch while Marvel has more independent superheroes who grow up to stand alongside the last generation. While this might make it sound like Marvel is the Darker and Edgier to DC's Lighter and Softer, in reality, they both have moments of lighter and darker content. The main difference is that while Marvel works to make its world and characters feel realistic, DC emphasizes the relationship and history between heroes to drive its arcs.
  • Marvel like DC are the two longest comic book universes but the way they do things are different such as the DC heroes try not to commit morally questionable acts most of the time unless they have to while the Marvel heroes decide to commit morally questionable acts to save the ones they care about or the world. Most of the villains stay as straight-up bad guys most of the time while the villains in the DC universe try to change their ways and even become anti-heroes at times.

• Touch the Intangible: Nth metal is a rare element which is able to interact with and harm incorporeal beings, such as ghosts. It's notable for being the material that Hawkman and Hawkgirl's maces are made from.

• 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.However you should be fine living anywhere else.
• White-and-Grey Morality: The heroes like Superman are straight up good while the villains do have redeeming qualities and sympathetic backstories.