How connected is the DC Universe compared to the Marvel Universe?

[Hybrid]

I'm asking straight to the point about modern DC:

Just how connected is it compared to Marvel?

I've always been Marvel over DC, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy DC. I thought I'd ask about this, considering that to me, one of the biggest draws for Marvel is the shared universe.

One of the things I've always liked about Marvel is just how connected everything felt, where heroes meet and possibly team up with each other on the regular while going about their own lives, fight villains normally associated with someone else while still having their own rogues, have supporting casts migrate between different characters (such as Iron Man getting key Spider-Man character Mary Jane Watson as a PA for Stark Industries), and that many worldbuilding elements are present throughout all the books. Events that happened somewhere else can be relevant to a different story, and it's common for books to reference each other (often with captions to tell you where to look).

Just how much of this is true for DC?

I've been told in the past that modern DC is super connected, and isn't nearly as walled-off from each other as I think it is. I've long held the belief that DC is a bunch of small settings making up one large setting, and that Marvel is one large setting making up a bunch of smaller settings. What do you think overall? What are the best examples of the shared universe connection in DC, and how does it compare to Marvel?

Please, by all means, educate me on this.

Thank you.

[Frontier]

It definitely did not start out as connected as the Marvel Universe did but definitely became more interconnected over time, and that peaked during Post-Crisis.

Nowadays I think the interconnectedness is about on par with each other.

[jb681131]

I'm asking straight to the point about modern DC:

Just how connected is it compared to Marvel?

I've always been Marvel over DC, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy DC. I thought I'd ask about this, considering that to me, one of the biggest draws for Marvel is the shared universe.

One of the things I've always liked about Marvel is just how connected everything felt, where heroes meet and possibly team up with each other on the regular while going about their own lives, fight villains normally associated with someone else while still having their own rogues, have supporting casts migrate between different characters (such as Iron Man getting key Spider-Man character Mary Jane Watson as a PA for Stark Industries), and that many worldbuilding elements are present throughout all the books. Events that happened somewhere else can be relevant to a different story, and it's common for books to reference each other (often with captions to tell you where to look).

Just how much of this is true for DC?

I've been told in the past that modern DC is super connected, and isn't nearly as walled-off from each other as I think it is. I've long held the belief that DC is a bunch of small settings making up one large setting, and that Marvel is one large setting making up a bunch of smaller settings. What do you think overall? What are the best examples of the shared universe connection in DC, and how does it compare to Marvel?

Please, by all means, educate me on this.

Thank you.

Since 1985-86, with the event Crisis On Infinit Earths (COIE) - start of the moder age of DC - , all the super-heroes of DC live on the same univers.
But like Marvel, DC also has a few parrallel univers such as Earth-One and Earth-2.
DC also has an Elsword label, and a label at first unrelated to its Super-hero stuff: Vertigo Comics.

But since 2011, with the event Flaspoint and 2016 with the event DC Univers Rebirth, we learn that some Vertigo Comics heroes are also in the same univers such as John Constantitine and Lucifer (from Hellblazer), and the infamous Watchmen (story still being written: Doomsday Clock).

If you want to understand quickly the DC Univers, you got to know there are main "Crisis" events that you can read, and you'll know a lot:

1. Crisis on Infinit Earths - start of the moder age era
2. DC: Legends - creation of the Modern Justice League and Suicide Squad
3. Justice League International - great follow up to DC: Legends
4. Zero Hour: Crisis in Time
5. Identity Crisis - prequel to Infinit Crisis
6. Infinit Crisis - must read the omnibus with all the right tie-ins (OMAC project, Vilains United, Rann-Thanagar war, ...)
7. Seven Solders of Victory + Final Crisis - the 2 series make up one story
8. Green Lantern by Geoff Johns - 3 massive Omnibus but the full run must be read and includes 2 big crossover event: Blackest Night + Brightest Day
9. Flashpoint - start of the new 52 era
10. Trinity War - prequel to Forever Evil
11. Forever Evil + Justice League: Forever Heroes
12. Injustice League - somewhat end to Forever Evil
13. Darkseid War
14. DC Univers Rebirth - prequel to Doomsday Clock - you must read before Watchmen and you may read Superman: Lois & Clark, Superman: The Final Days of Superman and Titants Hunt
15. Batman / Flash: The Button - prequel to Doomsday Clock - optional
16. Doomsday Clock - ongoing - you should read before: Superman reborn, Detective Comics: A Lonely Place of Living and Justice League of America: Panic in the Microverse
17. Dark Knight: Metal
18. No Justice - linked to Dark Knight Metal
19. New Justice - follow up to No Justice
20. Heroes In Crisis

You can also pick up The Multiversity Deluxe Edition by Grant Morrison.


As for the comparason with Marvel, I find marvel less connected than DC.
Because Marvel has multiple separate Hero teams or solo heroes: The Avengers, The X-Men, The Fantastic 4, Marvel Knights, The Guardians of the Galaxy, Ghost Rider, The Runaways, ...
Even if some Marvel teams/heroes meet others sometimes, they mostly each have their own timelines and events.
In DC all the teams are connected somehow.

[kjn]

Let me get it from another, and somewhat more subjective angle.

The DC universe started as several independent settings that melded together over time (and note that this melding started very early, one can see it with the JSA in All-Star Comics). But it wasn't designed that way, and the culture of DC was much more that each title was its own insular island.

So references to other titles are rather rare. Wonder Woman is currently lead or co-lead in two titles: her own title and Justice League Dark. But they never refer to each other, despite both titles concurrently dealing with huge upheavals in DC's magical and mythological structure, and with the same events. What gets referred are the corporate-mandated crossovers and events.

In a way, I think Marvel's creative structures can be described as a bureaucracy under a sovereign monarch, while DC's is feudal. Because Marvel has a culture of a head honcho setting the rules, there has developed a sense for effective collaboration and coordination between people lower down in the hierarchy. DC's structure on the other hand gives more freedom to individual editors and titles, but that also includes the freedom to ignore the other titles.

So DC's universe is as interconnected as Marvel's universe. But their stories aren't.

[jb681131]

Let me get it from another, and somewhat more subjective angle.

The DC universe started as several independent settings that melded together over time (and note that this melding started very early, one can see it with the JSA in All-Star Comics). But it wasn't designed that way, and the culture of DC was much more that each title was its own insular island.

So references to other titles are rather rare. Wonder Woman is currently lead or co-lead in two titles: her own title and Justice League Dark. But they never refer to each other, despite both titles concurrently dealing with huge upheavals in DC's magical and mythological structure, and with the same events. What gets referred are the corporate-mandated crossovers and events.

In a way, I think Marvel's creative structures can be described as a bureaucracy under a sovereign monarch, while DC's is feudal. Because Marvel has a culture of a head honcho setting the rules, there has developed a sense for effective collaboration and coordination between people lower down in the hierarchy. DC's structure on the other hand gives more freedom to individual editors and titles, but that also includes the freedom to ignore the other titles.

So DC's universe is as interconnected as Marvel's universe. But their stories aren't.

You got it a bit wrong there man, in my opinion.
Yes DC started out with unconnected universes, but the author of this thread is asking about "modern DC", which I explained is all connected.
Yes Wonder Woman for exemple as different things happening in the different titles she's appearing into (and you forgot Justice League).
But as DC, marvel has different things happening withing their different titles even if a hero is a few of them.
Also in Marvel, big teams don't tend to mix much, for exemple, the X-Men appart from a view crossovers, are never linked to the Avangers or Fantastic Fours even in their huge events.
But I will agree that the "magic" side of DC has often been a bit aside from the main heros adventures. You can take for exemple the big Necroworld arc in Swamp Thing / Animal Man.

[Hybrid]

You got it a bit wrong there man, in my opinion.
Yes DC started out with unconnected universes, but the author of this thread is asking about "modern DC", which I explained is all connected.
Yes Wonder Woman for exemple as different things happening in the different titles she's appearing into (and you forgot Justice League).
But as DC, marvel has different things happening withing their different titles even if a hero is a few of them.
Also in Marvel, big teams don't tend to mix much, for exemple, the X-Men appart from a view crossovers, are never linked to the Avangers or Fantastic Fours even in their huge events.
But I will agree that the "magic" side of DC has often been a bit aside from the main heros adventures. You can take for exemple the big Necroworld arc in Swamp Thing / Animal Man.

Actually, the X-Men aren't nearly as walled-off from the rest of the MU as some might think. Much of this comes from the fact that the X-Men, like Spider-Man, can stand on their own (thus not needing an MU hero outside the mythos to show up every issue), and the whole Fox movies rights that lasted nearly two decades making them feel separate. There are multiple examples of the connection between X-Men and the rest of Marvel. To name a few:

• Two founding members of the Brotherhood (Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch), and one founding member of the X-Men (Beast), are long-serving Avengers. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are notable, in that for most of their history they've been mutants (until a movie-synergizing retcon) that were far more involved with the General MU than the Mutant MU.
• Secret Wars was a large event where the X-Men were as prominent as the other Marvel heroes.
• They've had adventures alongside the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Spider-Man, the Power Pack, among others.
• Several events considered "X-Overs" actually did feature characters outside the brand, such as Mutant Massacre crossing over the X-Men, New Mutants and X-Factor while also featuring appearances from Thor, Daredevil and Power Pack.
• Other mutant characters have been on the Avengers, such as Wolverine, Storm, Sunspot, Cannonball, Rogue, and Havok.
• The Phoenix Force, a key element of the X-Men mythos, is established as having a history with Asgard. Other elements, such as the Savage Land and the Shi'ar, have impacted the rest of Marvel as well.

I mean, there's an X-Men/Fantastic Four mini coming up...

[DrNewGod]

The real historical difference is that editorial at DC in its formative years were distinct fiefdoms, but beginning about 40 years ago, those fiefdoms began being forced to cooperate to create the kind of connected universe Marvel had. Marvel, on the other hand, had fiefdoms begin to emerge along about 30 years ago, but its culture and heritage were much more interconnected (and remained so) because a small handful of creators were involved in all of the titles during Marvel's formative years.

[Vordan]

The biggest difference between the two was summed up to me like this: Marvel is primarily the work of two creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Those two created the characters that formed the “core” of the MU, and there was a fairly consistent tone running throughout all of them, because they were mostly written and drawn by the same guys. DC meanwhile is primarily built upon two characters, Superman and Batman. Those two were created as being completely isolated in their own “worlds” so to speak and had completely different tones they were going for. DC has a much wider range of tones imo than Marvel does because of that. Ever since Post-Crisis DC has made sure to show that yes, the characters all exist in one universe, and tore down the fiefdoms that had existed Pre-Crisis.

[kjn]

I'm not saying that there isn't any interconnectedness for DC. But I think there is a definite difference in degree between DC and Marvel here. How large it is, I don't know, but I've read plenty stories of DC writers lamenting the hassle of getting the use of other characters for cameos or guest-starring.

And no, I didn't forget Justice League. I omitted it because I view a difference of degree for Wonder Woman's importance in that title compared to her role in Justice League Dark, and because I don't regularly follow it and thus couldn't say anything about how JL-JLD-WW tied to each other.

Is there a way to quantify this? One way is to look at cameos and appearances in other books (numbers via the marvel/DC fandom wikis). On one side I take Harley Quinn, on the other Kamala Khan (Ms Marvel). Both are relatively new characters and have seen considerable push from their respective publishers. They also have somewhat similar number of total apperances.

Total apperances for Harley during New 52/Rebirth was 383. Of these 140 was in her own titles (her name in the title), 135 in team books as a member and crossovers (Suicide Squad, Heroes in Crisis), and 108 in other titles. So Harley Quinn's appearances is roughly one-third own books, one-third team books as a member, and one-third in other titles, with a slant towards the first two.

Kamala Kham looks noticably different. Total apperances since her start was 307. Of these 48 was in her own titles (her name in the title), 89 in teams books and crossovers (Secret Warriors, Champions, Marvel Team-up, and various Avengers), and 170 in other titles. So her appearances is one-sixth in her own book, one-third in team books, and more than half in other titles.

While not conclusive, I do think it is quite illustrative.

[Frontier]

I do feel like modern DC is not anywhere near as interconnected as the books were during Post-Crisis. Just look at how insular the Batfamily books are now compared to the 90's or early 2000's.

Granted, Marvel isn't much better when we have Captain America running around multiple books while he's a fugitive and not even Captain America in his solo book.

[Zero Hunter]

I'm asking straight to the point about modern DC:

Just how connected is it compared to Marvel?

I've always been Marvel over DC, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy DC. I thought I'd ask about this, considering that to me, one of the biggest draws for Marvel is the shared universe.

One of the things I've always liked about Marvel is just how connected everything felt, where heroes meet and possibly team up with each other on the regular while going about their own lives, fight villains normally associated with someone else while still having their own rogues, have supporting casts migrate between different characters (such as Iron Man getting key Spider-Man character Mary Jane Watson as a PA for Stark Industries), and that many worldbuilding elements are present throughout all the books. Events that happened somewhere else can be relevant to a different story, and it's common for books to reference each other (often with captions to tell you where to look).

Just how much of this is true for DC?

I've been told in the past that modern DC is super connected, and isn't nearly as walled-off from each other as I think it is. I've long held the belief that DC is a bunch of small settings making up one large setting, and that Marvel is one large setting making up a bunch of smaller settings. What do you think overall? What are the best examples of the shared universe connection in DC, and how does it compare to Marvel?

Please, by all means, educate me on this.

Thank you.

I think the big reason is DC does not have all their characters crammed into one place. Really the Marvel U seem very small because almost every book is centered around New York and wherever the X-Men are these days. To Marvel most of the rest of the world doesn't really exist most of the time. With DC almost every hero is in their own city so them running into each other is not as frequent. That may make it seem like it is less connected but really it is just better for storytelling. In a marvel book it kind of gets hard to ignore that if say Spider Man is fighting someone in some big battle where the hell is everyone else you know is probably only a few blocks away and why are they now coming to help? In most DC books if something big is going down the nearest backup could be hundreds of miles away not just a few streets over.

[DrNewGod]

The biggest difference between the two was summed up to me like this: Marvel is primarily the work of two creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Those two created the characters that formed the “core” of the MU, and there was a fairly consistent tone running throughout all of them, because they were mostly written and drawn by the same guys. DC meanwhile is primarily built upon two characters, Superman and Batman. Those two were created as being completely isolated in their own “worlds” so to speak and had completely different tones they were going for. DC has a much wider range of tones imo than Marvel does because of that. Ever since Post-Crisis DC has made sure to show that yes, the characters all exist in one universe, and tore down the fiefdoms that had existed Pre-Crisis.

I think the big reason is DC does not have all their characters crammed into one place. Really the Marvel U seem very small because almost every book is centered around New York and wherever the X-Men are these days. To Marvel most of the rest of the world doesn't really exist most of the time. With DC almost every hero is in their own city so them running into each other is not as frequent. That may make it seem like it is less connected but really it is just better for storytelling. In a marvel book it kind of gets hard to ignore that if say Spider Man is fighting someone in some big battle where the hell is everyone else you know is probably only a few blocks away and why are they now coming to help? In most DC books if something big is going down the nearest backup could be hundreds of miles away not just a few streets over.

The focus on New York does have something to do with it, but Vordan is correct in saying all the character and situational "infrastructure" of Marvel came from a very limited number of people, who were all working on multiple books. Three other factors that helped create the connectivity:

• Marvel would occasionally use established villains in other heroes' comics so the bullpen wasn't constantly having to gin up new menaces.
• Marvel would frequently use well-selling characters to generate interest in weaker titles (Thor in Dr. Strange's feature, The FF/The Avengers/Spider-Man in X-Men); DC did crossovers too, but usually between already successful properties
• Marvel made an interesting choice to use multi-title guest-antagonist gigs to build up several characters for titles of their own (Adam Warlock, The Hulk, The Silver Surfer, and the Sub-Mariner)

[Lee Stone]

I'm not saying that there isn't any interconnectedness for DC. But I think there is a definite difference in degree between DC and Marvel here. How large it is, I don't know, but I've read plenty stories of DC writers lamenting the hassle of getting the use of other characters for cameos or guest-starring.

And no, I didn't forget Justice League. I omitted it because I view a difference of degree for Wonder Woman's importance in that title compared to her role in Justice League Dark, and because I don't regularly follow it and thus couldn't say anything about how JL-JLD-WW tied to each other.

Is there a way to quantify this? One way is to look at cameos and appearances in other books (numbers via the marvel/DC fandom wikis). On one side I take Harley Quinn, on the other Kamala Khan (Ms Marvel). Both are relatively new characters and have seen considerable push from their respective publishers. They also have somewhat similar number of total apperances.

Total apperances for Harley during New 52/Rebirth was 383. Of these 140 was in her own titles (her name in the title), 135 in team books as a member and crossovers (Suicide Squad, Heroes in Crisis), and 108 in other titles. So Harley Quinn's appearances is roughly one-third own books, one-third team books as a member, and one-third in other titles, with a slant towards the first two.

Kamala Kham looks noticably different. Total apperances since her start was 307. Of these 48 was in her own titles (her name in the title), 89 in teams books and crossovers (Secret Warriors, Champions, Marvel Team-up, and various Avengers), and 170 in other titles. So her appearances is one-sixth in her own book, one-third in team books, and more than half in other titles.

While not conclusive, I do think it is quite illustrative.

True.

Even looking at characters like She-Hulk, you see this pattern develop over their first several years.
She-Hulk had her own title, briefly, but it wasn't until she got picked up in the Avengers and then in the FF that her popularity exploded.

Looking at DC, we've seen characters from failed titles join the League and gain in popularity (such as Firestorm, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold), but DC is slower to run with that new popularity.

Marvel also has a cross-pollination of villains. If a villain doesn't catch on with Hero A's readers, try them with Hero B. Maybe the villain will become Hero B's major nemesis.
DC has done this, but it's often after the villain's source title (where they first appeared) had been cancelled, leaving them with no regular book to appear in.

I remember in the '80s there was some intermixing of villains between Blue Devil, Firestorm, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold and Flash.
Of course, many of these villains would find their way into Suicide Squad, which was like a melting pot of DC franchises.

DC also had DC Comics Presents and The Brave and the Bold, two team-up titles much like Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One.
These two books allowed for more interconnected stories.
Unfortunately, team-up titles no longer exist.

[Tec15]

DC started becoming more and more interconnected in the 70's after Weisinger was forced out and new younger generation of creators started working. Key world building elements such as S.T.A.R labs were created, which started recurring in different books (S.T.A.R debuted in the Superman books became intimately involved in Cyborg's origin in Titans, then carried over to Flash and now they're everywhere). It all accelerated even more post-crisis, with the establishment of teams like the Suicide Squad (Which united villains from different franchises who would normally never interact with each other), common fictional countries like Qurac that would recur along different titles and regular crossovers.

By the 90's for example, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner had love interests that had originated in different franchises and recurred as supporting characters in his book. Donna Troy was a Titan's and Wonder Woman character while Jade originated in Infinity Inc which itself was a spin-off from the golden age JSA. This shows how interconnected DC had become and how far the shared universe concept had come.

I'd say that DC are up to par with Marvel in this area by now.

[Jim Kelly]

If you think about it, in the 1960s the only Marvels that were interconnected were the super-hero books edited by Stan Lee. Since Marvel had a very small output (thanks to its distribution deal with DC), there weren't that many titles and Stan edited most of them (although there migh have been some that he didn't). Over at DC in the same time period, Julius Schwartz was editing a lot of the super-hero books and those were all interconnected, too (THE FLASH, GREEN LANTERN, Adam Strange in MYSTERY IN SPACE, HAWKMAN, THE ATOM, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, BATMAN, DETECTIVE COMICS). So when you compare the 1960s super-hero comics edited by Stan Lee with those edited by Julie Schwartz, it probably comes out about even.

It's just that DC had a much much bigger output and in all genres, not merely super-hero. So Julie's corner of DC was proportionately smaller than Stan's corner of Marvel. Once new editors took over titles in the 1970s and with younger writers coming into the biz--the Schwartz-verse of DC was extended by them to a lot of other titles, including war and horror. Meanwhile, at Marvel, Stan had cut back on his involvement and it fell to other writers and editors to make the Marvel books fall in line. And with their licensed books, there were more Marvel titles that didn't belong to the Marvel Universe proper. And because Marvel was no longer constrained by the distribution deal they had had before with DC, they were able to expand outward--both with in-universe books and non universe books.