Ages of Characters

[GreyFox]

If it was up to me, I would probably deal with Jon's age issues by using Time Travel. Lois and Clark were tossed into the past and had no ticket back for some plot reason. It actually somewhat fits the original miniseries. Or peahps they were tossed into another reality, but then came back. I think it has been established that there is a 'New 52' style earth out there.

Lian was raised from the dead and then aged up for mysterious reason that would get revealed in some story.

This sort of thing just strikes me as less disruptive that trying to age up all of the older characters instead.

[marhawkman]

Wasn't stephanie and harper in that run? How come there bot 6 or 7 years older also.

Roy or Lian Harper?

'cause Lian yeah... kinda did get aged up.

[Restingvoice]

Nah, I wasn't folowinmg closely. But wasn't Burnside Babs published at the same time as Abnett's Titans Hunt? I think the Titans people were a little older there.

(God, I miss pre and post Crisis. **** was simpler to calculate then)

The later part of Burnside ran at the same time but Titans Hunt and Superman & Lois are part of Road to Rebirth books
They're already using Rebirth continuity though they didn't reveal it at the time
Donna Troy for example is in Wonder Woman and Titans Hunt but in Wonder Woman she's using New 52 origin where she was recently created to be a weapon, taught to be evil and redeem herself
Whereas Abnett is writing a story where Donna was in TT with Dick since they're 16, using her Rebirth origin revealed later in the Titans Rebirth run, that she was born years ago then raised alongside Diana as sisters

[Restingvoice]

Wasn't stephanie and harper in that run? How come there bot 6 or 7 years older also.

The New 52 Burnside Babs has Steph and Harper
They used the New 52 age
21 and 16
Babs stayed in Burnside in Rebirth too but during the first half of Rebirth, Tim, Steph and Cass were still figuring out their continuity. Tim just found out about Conner. Steph and Cass just found out they're supposed to be Batgirl
After Superman Reborn where continuity change so now Clark, Lois and Jon are native to Earth-0, the timeline expanded to accommodate Jon's age and Superman history
This is when everyone automatically got aged up

[bat39]

The New 52 Burnside Babs has Steph and Harper
They used the New 52 age
21 and 16
Babs stayed in Burnside in Rebirth too but during the first half of Rebirth, Tim, Steph and Cass were still figuring out their continuity. Tim just found out about Conner. Steph and Cass just found out they're supposed to be Batgirl
After Superman Reborn where continuity change so now Clark, Lois and Jon are native to Earth-0, the timeline expanded to accommodate Jon's age and Superman history
This is when everyone automatically got aged up

I'd argue the timeline had already expanded even before Reborn, and the 5-6 year timescale had been tossed out the window. After all, Jon was 10 and he was an infant when Clark and Lois came to the then-New 52 reality during the events of Justice League Origin. So we were already on a 10 year timeline in the lead-up to the Rebirth era. If anything, Superman Reborn would have then expanded the timeline to 15-20 years because it retroactively inserted Jon's birth into the timeline at a point after the Death/Return of Superman.

During Rebirth, Wally talked about '10 years' being stolen...something that's never really been elaborated upon, like a lot of things involving Rebirth. But I always took it to mean that the DC timeline was actually over 20 years, and had been compressed to a 10 year timeline before Rebirth. And as for the New 52's 5 years, I think Convergence might have expanded that to 10 years...perhaps as a consequence of Post-Crisis Lois and Clark's presence?

[Digifiend]

That's moot. In Priest's brief Justice League run, it was stated that Cyborg was a founder and that was five years ago... an issue later (due to blatant editorial meddling), suddenly it was 15 years ago and he wasn't a founder. No Justice, the event which followed, re-established Martian Manhunter being a founder instead, and that is was 15 years ago. Batman and Green Arrow have likely been active several years longer than the team though, and probably Superman and Wonder Woman too. Of course, if comics published in 1960 are set 15 years ago, then comics published in 1990 (a few years before Death of Superman and the marriage), should be about eight years ago in-universe.

One thing is certain - the mathematics doesn't work out.

[Restingvoice]

I'd argue the timeline had already expanded even before Reborn, and the 5-6 year timescale had been tossed out the window. After all, Jon was 10 and he was an infant when Clark and Lois came to the then-New 52 reality during the events of Justice League Origin. So we were already on a 10 year timeline in the lead-up to the Rebirth era. If anything, Superman Reborn would have then expanded the timeline to 15-20 years because it retroactively inserted Jon's birth into the timeline at a point after the Death/Return of Superman.

During Rebirth, Wally talked about '10 years' being stolen...something that's never really been elaborated upon, like a lot of things involving Rebirth. But I always took it to mean that the DC timeline was actually over 20 years, and had been compressed to a 10 year timeline before Rebirth. And as for the New 52's 5 years, I think Convergence might have expanded that to 10 years...perhaps as a consequence of Post-Crisis Lois and Clark's presence?

Ah yes I remember about the 10 years but I don't remember who said it
So yes starting in Road to Rebirth they added 5 years to New 52 5 years backstory to accommodate Jon arriving and growing up
Then Superman Reborn expand it further

Tim stayed 16-17 at the beginning of Rebirth though and I assume Steph and Cass as well, since the extra 5 years only pulled back Dick's backstory further to the past


Dick is now, at the beginning of Rebirth and up to Death Metal, adopted as a child and became Robin as a preteen or middle schooler instead of 16


He and Babs are now older in present day, but Tim remains 16, but with A Lonely Place of Dying backstory, while Steph and Cass backstory stayed New 52 until at least Bendis run

That's moot. In Priest's brief Justice League run, it was stated that Cyborg was a founder and that was five years ago... an issue later (due to blatant editorial meddling), suddenly it was 15 years ago and he wasn't a founder. No Justice, the event which followed, re-established Martian Manhunter being a founder instead, and that is was 15 years ago. Batman and Green Arrow have likely been active several years longer than the team though, and probably Superman and Wonder Woman too. Of course, if comics published in 1960 are set 15 years ago, then comics published in 1990 (a few years before Death of Superman and the marriage), should be about eight years ago in-universe.

One thing is certain - the mathematics doesn't work out.

No Justice happened after Superman Reborn
By that point the timeline had expanded to accommodate the whole super family


Cyborg corrected backstory was he became a JL member 5 years ago, when Darkseid attack looking for Grail, but he first was NTT member


By Snyder's JL, and the accompanying Abnett Titans, the NTT history have been restored somewhat and Raven, and Beast Boy have been aged up accordingly

[Lal]

Tom Taylor confirmed in an interview that the Titans are now mid to late twenties -
"Yeah, it's because they're sort of all mid- to late-20s, and they're dealing with the world now. They're not these big, established characters who are in their late 30s and 40s."

https://screenrant.com/new-titans-dc...-nicola-scott/

[Dred]

No one will ever have a good answer for how old characters are in DC.

[bat39]

Moving beyond ages of characters (which will vary sometimes from issue to issue ), I thought it might be interesting to take a step back and look at the history of the DC timeline as a whole. Or, in other words, the history of "how long it's been since the DCU started" in-universe!

1. The Golden Age was pretty episodic so there was no real concept of a passage of time. I guess there might have been the odd reference to a hero having been around for "years" but nothing concrete. Dick's age was a bit ambiguous - he may have been anywhere between 10-12 in his first story, and could even have aged into his early teens over the years, but there was no way of knowing for sure. The first concrete reference to a passage of time that I can think of was in the classic 1951 story "The Man Behind the Red Hood". In that story, Batman mentions that his encounter with the Red Hood (and thus the Joker's origin) occurred "ten years ago" (which is pretty close to how much time had passed in real life). This meant that by the end of the Golden Age Batman was at least 10 years into his crime-fighting career. No mention is made of how this affects Robin though - he stayed roughly the same ambiguous age he always was.

2. Nothing much changed in the Silver Age. Stories continued to remain largely episodic. One story worth noting was Wally West's debut in late 1959, where Barry reminisces on how its been "two years" since he got struck by lightning and became the Flash (again, just a little less than the 3-plus years it was in real life). The general idea was that the heroes had vaguely been around a few years, but no significant passage of time had taken place. Donna Troy's origin does suggest that Wonder Woman had to have been around at least a decade, but that doesn't prove anything with regards to the other heroes.

3. Things started changing in the Bronze Age, with Dick going to college. He had to be at least 17 to do that. And given that he became Robin when he was anywhere between 10-12 years old (there are sources that suggest eight but that's an outlier!), it means that he'd been Robin for around 5-7 years, and that Batman had been around at least as long. Around this time, Batman and Superman's ages were explicitly stated to be around 29 - if you assume they started out in their early-to-mid 20's, it meant they'd been doing this for 5-7 years, or maybe a little more. So that part lined up. Closer to the time of COIE, Supergirl was a college graduate in her early 20's - since it was later established that she was 15 when she came to earth, that meant it had been 5-7 years since her debut (at which point Superman had been around at least a few years). Also, Batman Special # 1 pegged the Wayne murders as being '25 years ago' (as opposed to 21 years ago at the start of the Bronze Age), suggesting that Bruce was now around 33. The general idea that emerges is that by the time COIE hit, it had been around 10 years since Superman and Batman started out - which broadly fits in with everyone's ageing.

4. In the period of time immediately after COIE, they broadly stuck to this vague 10 year timeline, with the likes of Batman and Superman being in their early-to-mid 30's (yes, there was a wrinkle with the Superman reboot and the time-frame of MOS being around 3 years but let's ignore that for now). I think Batman Year Three or A Lonely Place of Dying pegged the Grayson murders as being a little less than a decade ago, so that more or less lined up too. Yes, Oliver Queen turned 40 and Hal Jordan started to show a bit of grey, but that was fine...those two were probably just a few years older than their contemporaries. After Zero Hour, the 10 year timeline was formalized and locked down. Of course, over the years, time did pass during the Modern Age. Tim went from being 12-13 to being closer to 16. In Under the Hood, Bruce mentions that Jason would have turned 18 had he lived...since he was likely around 14 at most when he died, that did mean something like 4 years passing since the immediate Post-COIE period. Officially, I think DC did expand the timeline to 12 years, though it was probably a bit more than that realistically.

5. After IC, there was the One Year Later jump, so even by DC's reckoning we were dealing with a 13 year timeline. But it soon seemed like the timeline was actually a bit longer than that. The introduction of Damian Wayne was a big part of that. Damian was (retroactively) born during the early Bronze Age and 9 when he was introduced (he soon turned 10). This pushed the timeline to at least 15 years, probably closer to 16-17. Then there was also the reveal that Connor Hawke (likely in his early 20's by now) was born shortly before Oliver became the Green Arrow. This expanded Green Arrow's timeline to over 20 years, and while he may well have started out earlier than his contemporaries, he couldn't have started out that much earlier (especially given Roy's age). And then, right at the end of this era you had Black Mirror, introducing James Jr. as a young adult, suggesting it had been at least 18 years, if not more, since Year One. I think it's fair to say that by 2011, the timeline was close to 20 years, even while DC may have 'officially' pretended it was something like 12-13.

6. Flashpoint wrecked the timeline by compressing it to 5 years (well, actually 6 years in the case of Batman, Superman and a few others). Nuff said! But by the end of the New 52 era, we'd already started to move back to a 10 year timeline, given the introduction of Jon Kent and his age. In the Rebirth special, Wally claimed that '10 years' had been stolen...if the Pre-Flashpoint timeline was close to 20 years, and we were at 10 years now, then that more or less fit.

7. The current post-Rebirth timeline fell into place with Superman Reborn, with subsequent events like Death Metal or Doomsday Clock also potentially playing a role. Jon is chronologically around 11, and he was conceived and born after the Death and Return of Superman. This should logically mean that it's been 12 years since the early Post-COIE era, and that we're looking at a timeline of over 20 years now. Which would also fit well with Damian's current age of 14. But DC (or rather Geoff Johns) claims its been a mere 13 years since Year One. Sigh!

To sum up, here's the length of the DC timeline in every era

Golden Age: Negligible (possibly 10 years for Batman by the end)
Silver Age: >2 years (at least 10 years for Wonder Woman)
Bronze Age: 5-7 years
Modern Age/Post-Crisis: 10 years, expanded to 12 years
Modern Age/Post-Infinite Crisis: >15 years (at least 18 years for Batman by the end)
New 52: 6 years, expanded to 10 years post-Convergence
Post-Rebirth: >20 years (officially stated to be 13)

[Rac7d*]

Tom Taylor confirmed in an interview that the Titans are now mid to late twenties -
"Yeah, it's because they're sort of all mid- to late-20s, and they're dealing with the world now. They're not these big, established characters who are in their late 30s and 40s."

https://screenrant.com/new-titans-dc...-nicola-scott/

Confirmed because he’s not currently writting Roy Harper who has a 13 year old daughter?

Then we have Wally who has two 8 year olds (speed aging) can’t be used as an excuse and they go to regular school

Somone has to bite the bulllet and let the Titans be 30 and it all works

[GreyFox]

I think the ages of a few younger characters like Jon or Lian do not take precedence over everything else. These are many ways (or 'tricks' like artificial aging, time travel, or alternate universes) to explain these anomalies without warping the established ages of all of the other characters.

[The Darknight Detective]

I think the ages of a few younger characters like Jon or Lian do not take precedence over everything else. These are many ways (or 'tricks' like artificial aging, time travel, or alternate universes) to explain these anomalies without warping the established ages of all of the other characters.

I would say the same thing regarding the aging of some of the younger characters during the Bronze Age. I think it was less about a progression of time and more about DC's embarrassment about juvenile sidekicks and superheroes.

[marhawkman]

I think the ages of a few younger characters like Jon or Lian do not take precedence over everything else. These are many ways (or 'tricks' like artificial aging, time travel, or alternate universes) to explain these anomalies without warping the established ages of all of the other characters.

I see it more as an acceptance of the passage of time in-universe. How many years has it been since Dick became Nightwing? How long has it been since Roy "met" Jade?

[Will Evans]

How old would Metamorpho’s son be by now?