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Curated playlist

DC Comics titles

  • Wonder WomanWonder Woman's creator invented a device crucial to the lie detector.
  • Justice LeagueThe Justice League, also called the Justice League of America, made its debut in The Brave and the Bold #28, dated March 1960. Its premise was unusual. Superheroes who already headlined their own comic books would agree to share a single…
  • 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…
  • Harley QuinnHarley Quinn, the DC Comics character, first appeared on screen on the 11th of September 1992, in the 22nd episode of Batman: The Animated Series. The episode was called Joker's Favor, and she was supposed to appear in it once and never…
  • Flash GordonGeorge Lucas made Star Wars after he could not get film rights to Flash Gordon. Producer Dino De Laurentiis refused.
  • Spectre (DC Comics character)The Spectre first appeared in More Fun Comics #52, dated February 1940, and his debut opens with a murder. A New York detective named Jim Corrigan is on his way to his own engagement party when thugs stuff him into a barrel, fill it with…
  • The ShadowThe Shadow is a fictional crime fighter whose catchphrase has outlived most of the stories told about him. "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" Those words opened the radio adaptation and earned a lasting…
  • Martian ManhunterMartian Manhunter, whose Martian name is J'onn J'onzz, first appeared in Detective Comics #225, dated November 1955. Writer Joseph Samachson and artist Joe Certa created him for DC Comics. He went on to become one of the seven founding…
  • 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…
  • Doomsday (DC Comics)Doomsday, the DC Comics supervillain created by Dan Jurgens, got his name from a note scribbled on a wall chart. In 1991, the editors and writers of the Superman comics held their annual brainstorming session. Some writers had noticed a…
  • Teen TitansThe Teen Titans are a team of teenage superheroes published by DC Comics, and many of them began as sidekicks to the stars of the Justice League. In February 1978, the final panel of Teen Titans issue 53 showed the heroes, now in their…
  • Swamp ThingSwamp Thing, the mound of living vegetation that guards nature in DC Comics, got his name because his creator never gave him one. Writer Len Wein later recalled: "I didn't have a title for it, so I kept referring to it as 'that swamp thing…
  • ZatannaZatanna Zatara first stepped onto a comic book page in Hawkman #4, dated November 1964. Writer Gardner Fox and artist Murphy Anderson created her for DC Comics. Today she is counted among the publisher's best-regarded supernatural heroes,…
  • Doctor FateDoctor Fate, the helmeted sorcerer of DC Comics, was nearly called Doctor Droon. Writer Gardner Fox came up with that name, and an editor changed it before the character reached print. Fox remembered the episode in a 1987 interview, and he…
  • MetamorphoMetamorpho, the DC Comics hero, begins as a mercenary named Rex Mason who takes a job to steal an Egyptian artifact called the Orb of Ra. For a man who sells his skills to the highest bidder, it should be a routine theft. Instead it sends…
  • Peacemaker (character)Peacemaker is a comic book antihero whose name promises the opposite of what he delivers. When Christopher Smith debuted in Fightin' 5 #40 in November 1966, he was a pacifist willing to do anything to bring peace to the world. Writer Joe…
  • Lobo (character)Lobo is a DC Comics antihero whose name, in his alien tongue, roughly means he who devours your entrails and thoroughly enjoys it. The name is not a boast. He comes from a planet called Czarnia, and he roams the galaxy as a mercenary and…
  • Doom PatrolThe Doom Patrol, a team of misfit superheroes at DC Comics, ended its first run in the autumn of 1968 by dying together in the final issue, number 121, to save Codsville, a small fishing village in Maine. Nobody in comics had done that…

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