Throughout the long history of DC Comics, there have been many weird, embarrassing,
or just plain sketchy things they've tried to keep secret.
At this point, you may be asking, "like what?"
Well...stuff like this...
Back in 1984, DC Comics wasn't doing so hot.
While Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman merchandise always sold big, the comic books themselves
were scraping rock bottom, according to ComicBook.com.
Meanwhile, Marvel was making bank at the time, so DC's parent company, Warner Brothers, proposed
the idea of selling their comic book subsidiary to Marvel.
According to Geek Tyrant, Marvel's president initially rejected the sale.
He decided that if DC's sales sucked, it was because its characters sucked.
Famed Marvel editor Jim Shooter was shocked by this decision, so he swooped in and begged
the president to reconsider, pointing out that DC's poor sales were due to bad writing,
not bad characters.
Shooter proposed introducing the heroes to the Marvel Universe with seven starting titles:
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Teen Titans, Justice League, and the Legion
of Superheroes.
But in the end, what killed the buyout wasn't an alien invasion, a magic spell, or an asteroid,
but corporate politics.
Marvel's potential comic book marketplace dominance veered a bit too close to violating
antitrust laws, and everyone went their separate ways.
These days, Shazam is a DC superhero, headlining a multimillion-dollar blockbuster.
The way he got there was not so heroic.
When Superman first hit newsstands in 1938, every publisher in the nation suddenly wanted
its own superhero.
One of the early successes — which came out only months after Superman's debut — was
Billy Batson, a young boy who uttered the word "Shazam!" to become full-grown powerhouse
Captain Marvel.
Batson's stories were published by Fawcett Comics, and as Newsarama points out, comics
starring the "Big Red Cheese" not only outsold Superman, but also inspired the first live-action
superhero adaptation ever.
"Shazam!"
DC sued Fawcett, alleging that Captain Marvel was a Superman rip-off.
Fawcett won the case in 1951, but DC appealed, winning a retrial in 1952.
Fawcett probably could've given it another go, but superhero comic sales had dropped
off by that time, so they gave up.
The name Captain Marvel got scooped up by Marvel Comics in the 1960s, according to Gizmodo,
while the Batson character languished until 1972, when the rights were bought by none
other than DC Comics, which eventually renamed him "Shazam" to avoid its own copyright clash
with Marvel.
Most media forms have a history of mirroring the United States' culture of racism.
The comics industry has sometimes been ahead of its time, considering that the entire superhero
genre was the brainchild of Jewish creators striking out against Nazis.
Comics have often tried to fight prejudiced attitudes.
Sadly, though, there have been numerous occasions where outdated cultural attitudes toward minority
groups have poisoned comics, DC included.
Many of the propaganda covers DC published during World War II included cartoonishly
racist depictions of Japanese people.
DC later developed more than a few characters comic book creators likely wish you'd forget,
including Egg Fu, an oval-shaped Asian stereotype, and Extrano, a gay stereotype.
But some of the publisher's sketchy relationship with race isn't quite so obvious.
For example, how about Green Lantern's longtime sidekick, Tom Kalmaku ? Of Inuit descent,
you might wonder how Green Lantern's airplane mechanic chum might be considered racist.
Well, how about the fact that in the first few decades of the character's existence,
his official nickname was "Pieface," a term that's widely considered as a slur against
anyone who has Asian-looking features?
In recent years, DC has made sure that any time Tom shows up in the comics, his nickname
doesn't.
But it's a pretty bad look for one of your flagship heroes to call his best friend a
racist name for years.
While a lot of recent focus has centered on Hollywood, just about every industry has some
history with the sexual harassment, abuse, and problematic power dynamics women have
struggled against for centuries.
Comics are no exception, and perhaps the most noteworthy figure to receive promotions despite
a known history of sexual abuse, is former DC editor Eddie Berganza.
According to Vox, the long and tangled trail of allegations against Berganza was largely
swept aside for years.
By the time Berganza became executive editor in 2010, allegedly any female DC staffers
who reported his actions to HR were removed, leading to even more female creators avoiding
DC Comics.
By 2012, an incident involving Berganza at WonderCon was criticized by enough people
that DC demoted him to the still-prominent position of group editor of the Superman titles.
In 2017, BuzzFeed reported that multiple women were still coming forth with sexual assault
allegations against Berganza.
That's when the company finally fired Berganza after an internal review.
The Times of Israel told the tale of two nerdy young men named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster,
who had the grand idea of a story about an alien baby, doomed to death, being rocketed
to Earth, where his amazing powers and moral resolve would make him the world's champion.
It's one of the most influential ideas in American culture.
But when DC Comics agreed to print their story in the late 1930s, Siegel and Shuster had
no idea how valuable it really was.
So they sold all the rights for Superman to DC Comics for a paltry $130.
Decades later, as DC profited from cartoons, toys, and blockbuster films, Shuster and Siegel
faced eviction threats and medical debt.
Though both men did eventually make some money from their creation, it certainly wasn't their
fair share.
According to Ars Technica, the duo first sued the comics company all the way back in 1947,
reaching a settlement that earned them royalty payments that continued throughout their lives
and credit for the hero's creation.
The legal battles didn't die with them, though.
In the 2000s, their families mounted another legal battle, arguing that a 1978 change in
copyright law should give them more rights over the character.
After years in court, DC/Warner Brothers won the case in 2014.
Most people with a passing knowledge of comics would say Bob Kane created Batman.
But as Fast Company points out, that's not the whole truth.
While Kane certainly came up with the name "Bat-Man," his original concept, of a red-shirted,
domino-masked blonde man with real bat wings, was dramatically different from the final
product refined by Bill Finger, who really deserves a huge amount of the credit.
According to Wired, Finger created most of the iconic elements of the Dark Knight, including
his wealthy alter-ego Bruce Wayne, his origin story, Gotham City, and many of the major
villains, including Joker, Penguin, and Catwoman.
"Bill reconstructed Batman into the Batman that we all know today."
Yet Kane took all the credit, with a particularly notorious example being the creator's self-aggrandizing
tombstone, which refers to Batman as a "Hand of God" creation that was divinely bestowed
upon him.
In recent years, Finger's name has finally started popping up in Batman films, comics,
and media, but that doesn't excuse DC's long history of giving Kane all the credit.
Nobody saw Superman coming, or could have foreseen how meager that $130 payment would
someday seem.
Watchmen, on the other hand?
That happened in the 1980s, and what DC did to the book's creators doesn't sit well with
some.
According to writer Alan Moore, when he and artist Dave Gibbons first crafted the series,
the publisher presented themselves as a "new DC Comics" and offered a deal: Once Watchmen
went out of print, the rights would revert back to the creators.
Moore and Gibbons enthusiastically signed the dotted line, but DC had another plan in
mind.
The publisher has ensured that Watchmen has never gone out of print.
"Back at that time, there was no such thing as a comic that remained in print for longer
than six months."
Moore also claims DC attempted to blackmail him, by employing and then firing a friend
with a dying brother, to remain "quietly compliant" about new Watchmen-related works.
Moore would have preferred to publicly denounce those projects.
Though Moore will forever be remembered for writing some of DC's most iconic works, it's
no surprise that he's refused to ever work for the company again.
And that's not even the only time Moore has clashed with DC Comics.
There are a lot of great Batman stories out there, but The Killing Joke by Alan Moore
and Brian Bolland is often considered the definitive Joker tale.
Most Batman writers, in any medium, hail the story.
One author who isn't a fan, though, is Alan Moore himself, according to Inverse.
Moore now believes the story he wrote was far too gruesome, weighty, provocative, and
violent for, a, quote, "simplistic comic book character like Batman."
He regards the whole thing as a terrible misstep.
Although Moore wrote dark stories including Watchmen and the more adult take on Shazam!
called Miracleman, he claims he never intended for other comic writers to follow his lead.
Though Moore admits to no longer having any interest in Batman, he does say if he were
to approach the caped crusader today, he would prefer to write the colorful, smiling version
of Batman.
Moore has said several times that he's not even a fan of the superhero genre anymore,
according to SyFy.
Even still, Moore's dislike for his own story doesn't change The Killing Joke's immense
impact on popular culture, particularly in regard to inspiring Heath Ledger's performance
in The Dark Knight.
Wonder Woman is one of the most inspirational superheroes around.
Feminist philosophy played a key role in her creation, and she's been a symbol of empowerment
for three-quarters of a century.
She's only become more popular since the 2017 film starring Gal Gadot.
Now that Diana Prince is bigger than ever, DC is probably glad it didn't publish the
weird Wonder Woman bondage comic Frank Miller wanted to write in his post-Dark Knight Strikes
Again days.
The only material ever developed for the project involved a number of rather exploitative drawings
of the heroine.
According to Comic Book Resources, Miller had discussions with DC editor Bob Schreck
about the project, which would have re-envisioned Diana and her origin in an adult-oriented
way.
The character's creator, William Moulton Marston was a radical feminist who liked that sort
of thing as a "...metaphor for the many ways in which women were collectively and individually
constrained by law and 'tied down' by marriage, domesticity, children, and all the rest of
it."
Given how easily that message could be misinterpreted, it's probably a good thing that DC stayed
away from the project.
The 1992 story "The Death of Superman" is a sprawling epic that shows the Man of Steel
perishing against a monstrous foe named Doomsday, followed by a mad scramble for inheritors
to claim his legacy.
It has become one of the all-time classic Kal-El stories to date.
The reason it all happened, though, is pretty nuts.
As SyFy explains, the '90s weren't a good time for Superman sales.
The inspirational Kryptonian hero languished against darker, flashier rebels such as Wolverine
and the Punisher.
DC's Superman line needed a big event, so they decided to finally have Clark Kent and
Lois Lane get hitched.
But right before the couple could say "I do," the TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures
of Superman came out, putting a heavy focus on the romance and making it seem unwise to
make the simmering soap opera heroes from TV happily married in the comics.
So the wedding was postponed, and the Superman writers needed a new, massive event to fill
the empty space.
Writer Jerry Ordway allegedly joked "Let's kill him!" and suddenly, comics history was
forever changed.
In 2013, DC issued an "Open Talent Search" by which unknown artists could submit illustrations,
based on a prompt, for a chance to draw one page of an upcoming Harley Quinn comic, according
to Newsarama.
It seemed like an awesome opportunity, but there was a problem.
The prompt asked submitters to draw a picture of Harley lying naked in a bathtub and "humorously"
considering various methods of self-harm.
Not surprisingly, this combination of self-inflicted injury and titillation didn't sit well with
the American Psychiatric Association.
DC quickly backtracked, claiming the page description was taken out of context and was
not intended to make light of a serious situation.
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