Curated playlist
DC Comics orphans
- BatmanIn September 2024, Batman became the first fictional superhero to receive a Hollywood Walk of Fame star.
- Dick GraysonDick Grayson, the DC Comics hero who first appeared in Detective Comics #38 in April 1940, has changed more often than almost any character in superhero comics. He began as a child performer in a circus family. Since then he has carried at…
- SupermanThe first Superman was a homeless man tricked into taking a drug. Jerry Siegel wrote him as a villain in 1933.
- Tim DrakeTim Drake was a small boy in the audience at a circus on the night Dick Grayson's parents were murdered. His own mother and father had just asked the Flying Graysons to pose for a photograph with them. That moment gave the two boys a brief…
- Poison Ivy (character)Poison Ivy exists because of a television show, and the artist who sketched her said so plainly. Carmine Infantino recalled: "The only reason she came about was because of Catwoman on the Batman show. They wanted more female villains."…
- Jason ToddJason Todd, the second Robin in DC Comics, had his life or death decided by a telephone poll in 1988. Readers of the Batman comics were handed two 1-900 numbers. One meant the boy would live. The other meant he would die. They had only a…
- Robin (character)Robin, the young partner of Batman in DC Comics, once had his fate decided by a telephone poll. In 1988, DC invited readers to call a 1-900 number and choose whether the second Robin, Jason Todd, should die. The count came in at 5,343…
- CatwomanCatwoman first appeared in Batman #1, published in the spring of 1940, and in that issue she did not wear a costume at all. She was called only "the Cat," a mysterious burglar and jewel thief. For most of the story she was disguised as an…
- Shazam (DC Comics)Shazam, the comic book hero also called Captain Marvel, headlined an issue, Whiz Comics #2, that sold over 500,000 copies. The hero at its center is a boy who becomes a towering adult by speaking a single word. Yet this same character…
- Supergirl (Kara Zor-El)Supergirl, whose Kryptonian name is Kara Zor-El, first appeared in Action Comics #252 in May 1959. Writer Otto Binder created her, and artist Al Plastino designed her and drew that debut. Her story begins on Argo City, a fragment of…
- Hush (character)Hush is a DC Comics supervillain who first appeared in Batman #609 in January 2003. Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee created him for the twelve-issue storyline Batman: Hush. He was designed as a mirror held up to Batman. His background runs parallel…