Should The DCU Be Like The Real World?

[Timothy Hunter]

Hello, it's Tim here. This is a question I have always wondered. Should the DC Universe reflect the real world or be radically different due to various factors such as alien contact, magic, and superpowered beings ?


If you want the latter, then tell me what the DC Universe would look like in your ideal mind.

[Lightning Rider]

This is a tricky one. I like the DCU to be the world of tomorrow, not just in the sense that the heroes are aspirational figures, but that the cities and societies of the world are also a little bit better. Not everywhere, and not perfect, but in general better off because of the existence of superheroes.

If I think about it for too long though, the questions starts overlapping with the question of to what extent superheroes intervene in controversial social problems. I don't expect superheroes to all have my politics or have the same politics as each other, but Superman existing on a planet where military action slaughters civilians or climate change threatens to turn us into Krypton within the next century, and not doing anything about it, doesn't really fit in my mind. So for that reason also, it can't be quite as bad, at least that's how it works in my head.

[Timothy Hunter]

This is a tricky one. I like the DCU to be the world of tomorrow, not just in the sense that the heroes are aspirational figures, but that the cities and societies of the world are also a little bit better. Not everywhere, and not perfect, but in general better off because of the existence of superheroes.

I might be in the minority, but I don't want the DC Universe to be generally better than the world we live in now. Do I want it to be a gritty dystopian hellhole like the world of Watchmen? No. However, I do think that the DC Universe would be better off if it was not seen as utopian, and in fact the fictional elements of it's world make it almost more troubled than our own. It would create conflict, and it would be a nice contrast to the hopeful and virtuous DC heroes such as Superman and Wonder Woman.

[Flash Gordon]

I think it's important for it to resemble our world almost entirely. So Superman's appearance on the world stage is a HUGE event that has shaken the very foundations of society. Everything else follows that.

You can have your Cadmus running weird ass experiments on people, in the subways of Metropolis. Atlantis is a thing that humans are vaguely aware of. Aliens visit. Things are weird, and different, but enough of that stuff happens on the fringes of society that the world itself kinda just chugs along as normal.

I don't want things to be even slightly utopian. We don't live in anything remotely utopian, so neither should our heroes. They should rage against injustices to try and craft a better day.

[Frontier]

I mean, Marvel purports that it's "The World Outside Your Window" but even that only goes so far.

[Timothy Hunter]

I think it's important for it to resemble our world almost entirely. So Superman's appearance on the world stage is a HUGE event that has shaken the very foundations of society. Everything else follows that.
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You could still have a narrative in the DC Universe, where it resembled our own, but when Supernan came along, the world slowly and slowly became more fantastical.

[MajorHoy]

I use to rarely watch The Real World on MTV.

I wouldn't want the DCU to be like that.

[Ascended]

I think it's important for it to resemble our world almost entirely. So Superman's appearance on the world stage is a HUGE event that has shaken the very foundations of society. Everything else follows that.

You can have your Cadmus running weird ass experiments on people, in the subways of Metropolis. Atlantis is a thing that humans are vaguely aware of. Aliens visit. Things are weird, and different, but enough of that stuff happens on the fringes of society that the world itself kinda just chugs along as normal.

I don't want things to be even slightly utopian. We don't live in anything remotely utopian, so neither should our heroes. They should rage against injustices to try and craft a better day.

I totally agree that the DCU should resemble our own world almost exactly, until superhumans arrive. Once that happens, history should turn out differently and I want to see that reflected, at least to some degree. If the current DCU is set ten-ish years after Clark's debut, then the last decade of DC history and the advancements and developments and changes, shouldn't be almost exactly like what has really happened.

That's not to say the world should be a perfect utopia (that's what the villains are for) but there should be changes, some large and some small.

As an aside, way back in the early days of Invincible (RIP!) they introduced Midnight City.....where some crazy mage had put the whole city under a dome of shadow. He was stopped but the spell was never broken, so the city just had to learn to deal with it being night all the time. Its protector was a crazy Batman riff (because obvious commentary is obvious) and I just loved the whole concept. Been wanting to see some of that in the DCU ever since.

[DrNewGod]

It depends on the character. Batman and Green Arrow have to be distorted into something beyond their most popular interpretations if the implications of a world that includes, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman, and Wonder Woman are fully imposed upon their adventures. But limiting Flash, Green Lantern, Superman, and Wonder Woman to a world that's best suited to Batman and Green Arrow would take a lot of the potential (and, a lot of the fun) out of those characters. Moreover, even the pre-superhero historical world can't look too much like our own, if we're to have room for the likes of Gorilla City, Atlantis, Dr. Fate, and Vandal Savage.

At the same time, if you really let what some of the more powerful characters can do have real impact on the world around them, it wouldn't be long before we're no longer writing about a world to which any new reader can easily relate.

To me, all that suggests that the best approach is to keep the DCU close to our world, but not perfectly so, and don't get too hung up on continuity. Use continuity to flavor the setting, but don't let it be the only taste that a reader can detect.

[Ascended]

Hello, it's Tim here. This is a question I have always wondered. Should the DC Universe reflect the real world or be radically different due to various factors such as alien contact, magic, and superpowered beings ?


If you want the latter, then tell me what the DC Universe would look like in your ideal mind.

Ohh, fun question!

I agree with Lightning Rider that it's a tricky question. I think there's pro's and con's to either approach, but I personally really like it when the DCU is more fantastical than the real world (note: "fantastical" is not the same as "futuristic"). Especially if we're dealing with a version of the DCU where superhumans have been active since WWII, I think it makes a lot of sense. I mean, if superheroes have been around almost a century but almost nothing has really changed, it doesn't say much for the heroes, does it?

However, there's a lot of risk in that too. You're already dealing with protagonists who're wildly impossible and have elements in their mythos and setting that are completely unrealistic. Moving the world itself further in that impossible direction could cause a disconnect with the audience, as well as major inconsistencies within the shared universe. I mean, if you're delving into how superhumans change the world, then you want to make sure that Metropolis is truly a City of Tomorrow......but that doesn't work with Gotham, which is best in a more grounded environment.

DC's probably making the best choice, where there are fantastic elements in the world but they haven't become widespread yet. Like, Ted Knight's cosmic energy technology is being developed for mass production in cars and houses, but is still years away from hitting the market. Dinosaurs might wander around a particular island in the Pacific, but for some reason they die when taken away from it so you don't see them in zoo's. Magical theory might be studied at the major Ivy league universities but you don't see those kinds of classes at smaller schools or community colleges, etc.