If you watched cartoons in the nineties and early two thousands then you’re probably
familiar, at least in small part, with the DC Animated Universe.
That’s right!
Way before Marvel paved the path with the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the silver screen
and even WAY before DC tried it again with the Arrowverse, DC Comics connected multiple
shows in one overarching continuity.
It was AMAZING and today, let’s dive in and take a look at it.
The DCAU is sometimes called the Timmverse thanks to the heavy involvement of the “father”
of the universe, writer, character designer, and animator, Bruce Timm.
The show that started it all was Batman: The Animated Series in 1992 and was joined by
the Superman: The Animated Series in 1996.
Also included is the follow to the Batman series, the New Batman Adventures, Batman
Beyond and it’s spin off title, the Zeta Project.
Then came Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, a childhood favorite of mine, Static
Shock, and a couple of web series in the form of Gotham Girls and Lobo.
There’s also several comic book series that take place in this continuity that are severely
overlooked and even give more backstory for some of its characters.
Honestly, it’s a bit insane just how much content is packed into the DCAU.
Now there’s probably a few of you out there wondering why I didn’t mention Teen Titans.
Well this might surprise you, but the Teen Titans TV show takes place in its own continuity
despite running while the DCAU still had shows on air at the same time.
Fun fact though, the 2003 Static Shock episode titled “A League of Their Own” makes a
reference to the Titans before the show even came out.
“So where’s Robin?”
“With the Titans.”
“The who?”
“You’ll meet ‘em someday.”
This seems to imply that the cartoon was initially intended to be in the Animated Universe, but
it could also simply be implying that the universe has its own version of the team.
In fact, years prior there was a DCAU version of Teen Titans that was proposed, but ultimately
rejected.
There were also a few more rejected series that evolved into something new entirely.
The first was an incarnation of the Justice League of America with a roster completely
different than the one that we got in 2001.
This team would have given lesser known characters a spotlight including Mister Miracle, Doctor
Fate, Vixen, The Question, Nightshade, Black Lightning, Supergirl, Lightray, Hawkman, Hawkgirl,
Black Canary, and Green Arrow.
The only proposed character to make the final show was Hawkgirl, but many of the others
were brought on for Justice League Unlimited in 2004.
This 90s Justice League was scrapped when the team decided to dedicate themselves to
creating Batman Beyond which let’s be real, was a pretty smart move.
Then…
there was Lobo.
Believe it or not, this guy was a HUGE deal back in the day.
He was ultra violent, crude, and even had a healing factor.
Hmm…
Sounds familiar…
Anyway, the Lobo animated series actually got a decent amount of production done on
it before it was canceled due to concerns over its mature content.
It can only be assumed that a lot of the work on the series carried over to the uh… interesting...
Lobo webseries.
The DC Animated Universe was monumental and how entire generations were first exposed
to DC Comics’ roster of characters.
SO it’s no surprise that even as the TV shows stopped being produced, fans did not
want to see it go.
Thankfully, we got to see the DCAU (or at least a universe similar to it) live on in
the comics as Earth-12.
First appearing in the event, 52, Earth-12 is set fifty years ahead of the main DC Comics
continuity in the era of Batman Beyond.
It’s implied that this universe is the same as the DCAU, but truth be told, we don’t
know too much about it.
What’s strange though is that we get brief glimpses of a couple of new characters in
Earth-12, Firestorm and a new Green Lantern, the later being Hal Jordan’s grandson and
NOT Kai-Ro who was established to being the Green Lantern during the time of Batman Beyond.
A few years later, the DC multiverse was restructured after the Flashpoint event.
As a part of this, DC got itself a brand new set of realities that can be seen on DC’s
map of the Multiverse.
Now, there’s a brand new Earth 12!
This time, without the hyphen.
The new Earth 12 resembles the DCAU much more than its previous incarnation, so much so
that this reality is nearly identical.
They even went so far as to officially give the totalitarian version of the Justice League,
the Justice Lords, a spot in the multiverse as Earth 50, directly opposite of Earth 12.
Unlike most of the fifty two universes, Earth 12 hosted quite a bit of content with a lot
of the recent Batman, Superman, and Justice League Beyond series, but even it was abandoned
in favor of something ELSE!
See, in 2014 DC Comics released “Future’s End”, a series set not only in an alternate
timeline to the main continuity, but five years ahead of it!
To make things more complicated, they introduced a new Batman Beyond and with it, a new future
that looks incredibly similar to what we’ve seen on Earth 12, but at the same time, also
completely different.
Because of this, DC has pretty much abandoned telling Earth 12 stories in favor of producing
them in the Future’s End setting, despite it being DRASTICALLY different from what we’ve
seen in the DCAU.
The craziest thing is that Eath 12 hasn’t even gone anywhere!
As far as we know, the multiverse map is still accurate.
So in a way, the DC Animated Universe still lives on, but ultimately ignored and possibly
forgotten and that’s just sad.
Regardless, the DCAU is one of the single most iconic and most influential things that
DC Comics has ever produced and its influence has repercussions all over its entire multiverse.
Without it, we wouldn’t have gotten characters like Harley Quinn or Terry McGinnis or Livewire
or uh…
Condiment King.
Seriously, he’s one of my favorites.
I might have to do a video on him some time down the road.
He’s a bad guy that only uses condiments.
Hehe.
And hey, when researching this episode, I found a lot more information on even more
canceled DC Comics cartoons and even other animated projects.
So if you’d like me to do a video on that then just leave a comment don below or tweet
me @TrailerDrake.
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Thank you for watching this video to completion.
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Okay, bye!