DC Comics is one of the largest producers of comic books in the entire world, responsible for absolutely genre-defining characters such as Batman and Superman. These characters practically defined geeky culture in America when they first appeared and the story of DC’s founding is just as fascinating as any superhero origin.

The first inkling of DC Comics was founded in 1930 by Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz. The two made a fortune putting out pulp magazines, which were borderline pornography for the time. The women were about as naked as they could be by modern standards, and some people even went to jail over these comics. This eventually pushed the two to get out of the pulp magazine business and that’s when, on January 11, 1935, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, a prolific pulp fiction writer, was inspired to make his own kind of comics.

This resulted in the very first issue of New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine being released. Wheeler-Nicholson needed business partners for the new comics he was putting out, and Harry and Jack wanted to put the pornographic magazines behind them, which led to the three teaming up. Together they formed Detective Comics, Inc. Eventually, Nicholson would be bought out by Harry and Jack, who would then continue looking to expand their new business venture.

Superman Was The First Comic Book Superhero

Superman Was Created by Joe Shuster And Jerry Siegel

Jerry Siegel was a long-time comic fan and would read any pulp fiction comic he could get his hands on and was constantly thinking about what his own stories would be. Joe Shuster was an artist who was remarkably skilled, but very poor and not formally educated at drawing. However, that didn’t stop him from drawing on anything he could. Both natives of Cleveland, Jerry and Joe together imagined Superman, who was possibly inspired due to Jerry losing his father to a violent crime. It’s easy to see why Jerry would want to imagine a hero who couldn’t be stopped by bullets.

Jerry and Joe tried to submit their character to every editor across the country, and every single one rejected him. In a time of cowboys, detectives, and mad scientists, no one was doing superheroes. Superman was the first of his kind and was a genre-defining character. After four years of trying to get Superman picked up, DC finally took the character, and he was seen in Action Comics #1, which went on to become one of the most valuable comics of all time. Superman’s very first issue had him taking on government corruption, domestic violence, and urban crime, cementing him as a hero for the people.

Jerry Siegel And Joe Shuster Created A Genre With Superman

Superman Changed The Face Of American Comics

One of the major inspirations behind Superman was also the fear of the Nazis, which Jerry explained by saying, “Nazism was rising up and a lot of innocent people were being killed, countries were being invaded, a lot of innocents slaughtered, and I felt the world desperately needed a crusader, even a fictional one.” Superman was an unbelievable success, selling more than a million copies with just three released issues. He was one of the first characters to explode from comics to radio, toys, and even the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Superman’s creation was a cultural shift for America and was the biggest success DC had.

With Superman’s unbelievable success, DC wanted to cash in on this success with another, so it sent out a nationwide call for the next big superhero, and two men answered. Bob Kane heard the call and quickly enlisted his friend Bill Finger, a former shoe salesman with aspirations of becoming a writer. The two of them spent a week brainstorming, and with great contributions from Bill Finger, Bob Kane presented the idea of Batman to DC Comics.

Batman went back to the earlier ideas of comics, with him being a detective who went after urban criminals, but this was different. It was a twist on the iconic pulp fiction comics. Instead of just a hard-boiled detective who fought crime as his job, Bruce Wayne was a man of wealth who chose to put on the Batsuit and go out and fight crime, purely to make the world a better place, as opposed to being obligated to do it to survive like the standard detective. It was a massive hit and the origin of Batman cemented him as one of DC’s staple characters.

Batman quickly became so popular that he was even able to rival Superman. With these two characters who were practically defining American comic culture, DC had more success than ever. But of course, as things get more popular, there are also more critics of it. One of the first critics of DC Comics was a man named William Moulton Marston, who claimed that DC wasn’t using the comic medium to its full potential. In response to this criticism, DC offered him a job, and it was one of the best choices the company would ever make.

Wonder Woman Brings A New Perspective To DC Comics

The Greatest Female Superhero Of All Time

With a new position at DC Comics, Marston claimed that comics were far too masculine, and to remedy this, he created possibly the most famous female character of all time: Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman first debuted in All-Star Comics #8 by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter, appearing in the very last story in this 26-story comic. Whereas Superman and Batman could be considered father figures to the fans reading, Wonder Woman was created to offer a mother figure for boys and girls to look up to.

DC’s Trinity Cemented The Company In American History

These Are Some Of The Most Popular Fictional Heroes Ever Made

And just like that, DC Comics had three iconic characters under its label. By 1945, comics had tripled their circulation, selling millions of issues every month, a far cry from the trashy pornographic magazines from just ten years earlier. This massive success of DC Comics inspired others to try and follow suit, and newsstands were quickly flooded with new characters and new worlds, and the public simply ate it up. It seemed there wasn’t such a thing as too many comic books at the time. From here, DC simply kept pumping out new characters, and iconic ones like Green Lantern and Flash were quick to hit stands next.

The only real competition that DC had was Captain Marvel from Fawcett Comics. This was a brilliant character because, while Batman and Superman were adults that kids could look up to, Captain Marvel was a character that kids could pretend to be. Captain Marvel, who would later be renamed to just Shazam, was a truly brilliant character in that he was a child who could transform into an all-powerful adult. At one point, Captain Marvel was even outselling Superman, but DC would eventually acquire Fawcett Comics and add the mighty Captain Marvel to its own roster of characters.

DC Comics Has Been One Of The Most Successful Comic Producers Ever Since

Nearly Every Character DC Has Is Recognized The World Over

There would be a lot of changes for DC Comics over the decades. What once started as a business venture by three men to get out of a shady business ended up with artists creating some of the most popular and famous characters the world has ever seen. DC would eventually be bought by Kinney National Company in 1967, who then bought Warner Bros-Seven Arts in 1969. Kinney National then changed its name to Warner Communications Inc., which would also later merge with Time Inc., which became Time-Warner. Today, DC Comics is part of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Overall, DC Comics remains one of the biggest names in American comic books, and it’s rightly deserved as it helped shape the genre.