History ComicBookTime / TheDCU

** Pre-Crisis, ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'s time-era was originally shown as being either vaguely defined or taking place at the time of publication (a 1952 story shows Lana Lang competing to become "Miss Smallville of 1952" for instance). Starting in the late 50s, the writers corrected this and set Superboy as taking place in TheThirties (before Superman's 1938 debut date in the comics). By the late 1960s, this was clearly becoming unfeasible, and Superboy was then placed firmly on a sliding timescale 13-15 years behind the present-day Superman, moving his time-era up to TheFifties and then [[TheSixties the late 1960s]] / [[TheSeventies the early 1970s]] by the time ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' hit. This resulted in such things as the classic early 60s story "Superman's Mission For President Kennedy" being retold in the early 80s as "Super'''boy''''s Mission For President Kennedy".

*** As of ''Adventure Comics'' #2, the time between ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'s death in ''Infinite Crisis'' and his return in ''Final Crisis'' (i.e. ''52'' + ''Countdown'') is said to be slightly over a year.
*** The confusion was caused by, of course, Countdown to Final Crisis. Because of DC's original stance that ''Countdown'' was going to be in real time like ''52'', Geoff Johns initially believed that ComicBook/FinalCrisis was going to occur "two years" after ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis (a panel in an early issue of ComicBook/BoosterGold stated "Week 104, The Final Crisis"). But since ''Countdown'' was shunted into "vague what-ever time" status... yeah. Or maybe Geoff doesn't know ''how'' long it's been since Infinite Crisis... no one can say.
** After ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'', DC released an in-universe ''[[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Newsweek]]'' equivalent that had, at one point, short quotes from various real and fictional people about Superman, his life, his death, etc. One was from Creator/WilliamShatner, describing how he wore a towel around his neck and jumped off his garage roof when he was six. This makes William Shatner roughly 16 in the DC universe.
** This trope is taken advantage of in the ''ComicBook/BatmanHush'' storyline, where a flashback has Bruce Wayne, age 8 or so (before his parents' murder), watching the original Franchise/GreenLantern Alan Scott fight his enemy the Icicle. Originally, both superheroes were active at the same time (Batman's even "older" in terms of publication history!), but because the issue of Comic-Book Time was handled differently for each of them, Alan Scott was active as Green Lantern when Batman was a kid.
** Pre-Crisis, ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'s time-era was originally shown as being either vaguely defined or taking place at the time of publication (a 1952 story shows Lana Lang competing to become "Miss Smallville of 1952" for instance). Starting in the late 50s, the writers corrected this and set Superboy as taking place in TheThirties (before Superman's 1938 debut date in the comics). By the late 1960s, this was clearly becoming unfeasible, and Superboy was then placed firmly on a sliding timescale 13-15 years behind the present-day Superman, moving his time-era up to TheFifties and then [[TheSixties the late 1960s]] / [[TheSeventies the early 1970s]] by the time ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' hit. This resulted in such things as the classic early 60s story "Superman's Mission For President Kennedy" being retold in the early 80s as "Super'''boy''''s Mission For President Kennedy".
*** [[http://www.hembeck.com/More/Datelinesuperjfk.htm This early 80s cartoon]] by Creator/FredHembeck pondered the situation of Superman ''and'' Superboy having met UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy (and posited that by the late 80s, it'd be Super''baby'' having met JFK).[[note]]The actual ''Superman'' #458 [[https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Adventures_of_Superman_Vol_1_458 was released]] a month later than he expected. Of course, it was a story about ComicBook/ElongatedMan, not Superbaby visiting JFK.[[/note]]
** Surprisingly and interestingly enough, with the advent of ''ComicBook/InfiniteFrontier'' and ''ComicBook/DawnOfDC'', the DCU has now largely shaken off the worst of this trope or at least made it a smidge more manageable. This is accomplished by effectively [[CanonDiscontinuity ignoring]] the New 52 reboot aside from a few BroadStrokes elements in favor of returning to the Post-Crisis timeline and from there taking a much more relaxed "everything is canon" approach. This all seems to boil down to "things have passed in very roughly real time since ''Crisis On Infinite Earths''" meaning the characters have been mostly aging normally since 1986 onwards. It's not a perfect solution by any means and there are still cracks if one knows where to look, but on the whole, it's significantly less of an issue than in Pre-Crisis or the New 52. The most striking results of this are on Batman, who is now written and drawn as being visibly middle aged, complete with greying hair, and has his advancing age, the problems it represents for his crimefighting, and the knowledge that almost ''all'' of his children (adopted or not) are well into adulthood by now as major themes of his comics.
*** Also of note is how back in ''ComicBook/EmeraldTwilight'' in the early 90s, Hal Jordan was depicted with grey hair as if he were old which was retconned as [[DemonicPossession a sign of Parallax possessing him]] to keep the sliding timescale -- which said Hal was young -- intact. Fast-forward to 2023 and [[ComicBook/GreenLantern2023 Jeremy Adams' run on Green Lantern]] has Hal's hair turning grey ''naturally'' because canon now dictates that he's been Green Lantern for several decades now!
*** A 30th Anniversary special for the Return of Superman establishes that ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'' and subsequent storylines occurred only a few years ago InUniverse. Four flashback stories focussing on each of the successor Supermen show people with smartphones, widespread internet access and social media; but UsefulNotes/BillClinton is president and everyone is dressed and [[TotallyRadical talking]] like it's UsefulNotes/TheNineties.
* Franchise/{{Batman}} has been protecting Gotham City for about a decade. Batman has ''always'' been protecting Gotham City for about a decade.

** Lampshaded in Creator/NeilGaiman's ''ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheCapedCrusader''.

*** Pre-ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}} and the ComicBook/{{New 52}} reboot, Batman and Superman debuted in the same year. Circa the start of ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'', Bats, Supes, and the in-universe [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] of Superheroes is around 13-14 years old.

** The rebooted ComicBook/{{New 52}} timeline has Batman's career condensed to five years. This has caused a major continuity snarl, in that Bruce's son Damian is still established as being around 10 years old, and yet flashbacks show that Bruce was already Batman when he first met Damian's mother Talia. It was later retconned that Damian was artificially aged up.

** In the very first issue of ''[[Comicbook/HarleyQuinn Harley's Little Black Book]]'', it's said that Harley Quinn is a closet Franchise/WonderWoman fan, and a {{Flashback}} shows that she owned an officially licensed Wonder Woman costume (which also had a picture of Batgirl on the box) when she was a little girl. Such a revelation already would have been pushing things in the pre-New 52 continuity, but post-New 52 and with the revelation that Wonder Woman only came to America around five years ago, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Given that ''Harley Quinn'' generally runs on RuleOfFunny, that might be the point. Ironically, it made more sense after the ''next'' retcon, with ''Wonder Woman'' #750 establishing that ''Comicbook/DCRebirth'' Diana made her debut in 1941.
*** The same series indicates that the ''Franchise/{{Superman}} vs. Usefulnotes/MuhammadAli'' crossover from the 1970's is somehow still canon, despite Ali having been retired for decades. This is even jokingly referenced in the solicitation for the issue:
---->(Mumble-mumble) years ago, the alien race known as the Scrubb forced Superman into a boxing match for the ages, against Earth's greatest heavyweight champion, (mumble-mumble)!
** As pointed out [[http://www.oafe.net/yo/dcdbatinc1kni.php here]], Batman has been the same general age as '''three full generations''' of a LegacyCharacter.
** A negative review of ''ComicBook/TheBraveAndTheBold'' #33 cited the fact that the issue (which is a [[WholeEpisodeFlashback Whole Issue Flashback]] set just before ''Comicbook/TheKillingJoke'') features a scene where Comicbook/{{Batgirl}}, Franchise/WonderWoman and ComicBook/{{Zatanna}} sing "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by Music/{{Beyonce}}. The song came out in 2008, while the issue was published in 2010, meaning that the story is essentially implying that Barbara Gordon's entire history as Comicbook/{{Oracle}} took place in under two years.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

** ComicBook/JimmyOlsen is a unique case in the Superman cast. While most of the supporting characters are old enough that aging or deaging a few years doesn't noticeably affect how they look or their station in life, Jimmy ages between his mid to late teens where he's a "cub photographer" into his early 20s where he's usually a novice reporter and then snaps back into his late teens and being a photographer multiple times over the decades.
** A somewhat similar thing happened to ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}. When she first appeared in 1959, she was 15 (and explicitly celebrated her sixteenth birthday in 1960) and aged at a slightly slower than real time rate throughout the Silver Age. She graduated high school in 1965 and graduated college in 1971, after which she became more or less 'fixed' as a young adult woman in her early 20s... until the start of the 1980s when she was inexplicably de-aged to about 19 so she could star in a college setting again.
** Like Batman, Superman is now largely averting this rather dramatically as of ''Infinite Frontier''. Clark is now written as being roughly middle-aged, in his forties or fifties which fits with him being in his twenties or so at the start of Post-Crisis, and has worries about his advancing age and legacy as recurring themes hanging over his head. By extension, the above-mentioned Supergirl is written as if she's in her late twenties at youngest and clearly isn't a teenager anymore.
* In one ''Comicbook/GreenLantern'' storyline published during ''Comicbook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', it was speculated that John Stewart was about 12-years-old back when Abin Sur's ring first first chose Hal Jordan as Abin's successor (and Guy Gardner as Jordan's backup). This suggested that Hal had been Earth's Green Lantern for quite some time, which was further supported by the gray temples he began sporting in the 90s. This would later be supported by Creator/KevinSmith's ''Comicbook/GreenArrow'' run in 2001, which claimed that the "Hard Travelling Heroes" era where Hal and Ollie trekked across America (first published in 1970) took place a decade ago. Creator/GeoffJohns' run tried to compress Hal's career and deage the character, even retconning his gray hair to be a sign of Parallax's possession rather than a natural consequence of growing older. The later "Secret Origin" storyline would show that Hal and John first met back when they were both part of the military while in their early 20s, removing the implication that Hal was many years John's senior.

* ''Comicbook/{{Naomi}} Season 2'' #1 claims that the time between Naomi getting her powers (''Naomi'' #5, July 2019) and joining the Justice League (''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueInfiniteFrontier'' #63, August 2021) was ''three weeks''. This doesn't just affect her; her first series was tied to ''Comicbook/BrianMichaelBendisSuperman'' and ''Comicbook/YoungJustice2019''. Most of ''Comicbook/DCYearOfTheVillain'' must have taken place during those three weeks, plus ''Comicbook/DarkNightsDeathMetal''.
* ''[[ComicBook/{{Aztek}} Aztek: The Ultimate Man]]'' has a character named Curtis Falconer who is forced to resume his supervillain persona the Piper. He is said to have been active as the Piper in the 1960s and to have fought Elongated Man and the Atom, neither hero showing any signs of aging at the time.

* The ''Generations'' miniseries appears to star characters from multiple different eras in DC’s history, i.e. the Golden Age Batman, the Silver Age Superboy, the post-Crisis Starfire and also characters from possible futures like Kamandi. It’s revealed at the end that they are all from the same universe known as the “Linearverse”, where people age extremely slowly, so the Batman who began his career in 1939 is the same Batman operating in the modern day.

** Pre-Crisis, Superman was always, officially, 29 years old. It actually became a plot point in one story where a hippie had gained supernatural powers and magically barred everyone over thirty from entering Metropolis. Superman could enter because he was 29.

*** A 30th Anniversary special for the Return of Superman establishes that the ''ComicBook/DeathOfSuperman'' and subsequent storylines occurred only a few years ago InUniverse. Four flashback stories focussing in each of the successor Supermen show people with smartphones, widespread internet access and social media; but UsefulNotes/BillClinton is president and everyone is dressed and [[TotallyRadical talking]] like it's UsefulNotes/TheNineties.

** This isn't even consistent among all writers. Brad Meltzer, for example, had Elongated Man muse that he'd been a hero for almost ''two'' decades in the opening pages of ''Comicbook/IdentityCrisis''.

** Averted in John Byrne's ''ComicBook/SupermanAndBatmanGenerations'' series, which operated under the premise of "what if comic books followed real time from the beginning." Kal-El and Bruce Wayne make their heroic debuts in the 1930s, as in real life, but then proceed to age and have families, with their children taking up their respective heroic legacies. Eventually, the heroic lineage intersects when Kara Kent (Supergirl) and Bruce Wayne Jr. (Robin II/Batman III) are married.

* The ''Generations'' series appears to star characters from multiple different eras in DC’s history, i.e. the Golden Age Batman, the Silver Age Superboy, the post-Crisis Starfire and also characters from possible futures like Kamandi. It’s revealed at the end that they are all from the same universe known as the “Linearverse”, where people age extremely slowly, so the Batman who began his career in 1939 is the same Batman operating in the modern day.

** This trope is taken advantage of in the ''ComicBook/BatmanHush'' storyline, where a flashback has Bruce Wayne, age 8 or so (before his parents' murder), watching the original Franchise/GreenLantern fight a supervillain. Originally, both superheroes were active at the same time (Batman's even "older" in terms of publication history!), but because the issue of Comic-Book Time was handled differently for each of them, Green Lantern was active when Batman was a kid.

* ''Comicbook/{{Naomi}} Season 2'' #1 claims that the time between Naomi getting her powers (''Naomi'' #5, July 2019) and joining the Justice League (''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueInfiniteFrontier'' #63, August 2021) was ''three weeks''. This doesn't just affect her; her first series was tied to ''Comicbook/BrianMichaelBendisSuperman'' and ''Comicbook/YoungJustice2019''. Most of ''Comicbook/DCYearOfTheVillain'' must have taken place during those three weeks, plus ''Comicbook/DarkNightsDeathMetal''.

* ''Comicbook/{{Naomi}} Season 2'' #1 claims that the time between Naoimi getting her powers (''Naomi'' #5, July 2019) and joining the Justice League (''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueInfiniteFrontier'' #63, August 2021) was ''three weeks''. This doesn't just affect her; her first series was tied to ''Comicbook/BrianMichaelBendisSuperman'' and ''Comicbook/YoungJustice2019''. Most of ''Comicbook/DCYearOfTheVillain'' must have taken place during those three weeks, plus ''Comicbook/DarkNightsDeathMetal''.

* In the original Silver Age ''Comicbook/SuicideSquad'' stories from ''Comicbook/TheBraveAndTheBold'', the leader of the team was Rick Flag, a Usefulnotes/WorldWar2 veteran. When Flag was revived for the Comicbook/PostCrisis ''Suicide Squad'' relaunch by Creator/JohnOstrander decades later, he was kept young by having his [=WW2=] backstory retroactively given to Rick Flag Sr., his [[DecompositeCharacter newly created father]].

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in Creator/NeilGaiman's ''ComicBook/TheSandman''. During the Wake, we see Clark Kent, Franchise/{{Batman}}, and J'onn J'onzz discussing their dreams. Clark mentions that he has a recurring dream where he gets infected with a virus that forces him to only move one direction through time.

* This causes some hiccups when the character's backstory is closely tied to an certain aspect of society only to have social change happen. Take Maggie Sawyer, DCU's first openly gay character: Being in her 30s when she was outed back in 1987 it made sense for her to have an angst-filled failed marriage and a daughter whose father was given full custody in her backstory. As society moves forward she then in 2012 makes references to having been pretty much out to her self her entire life and her decision to hide in a straight marriage seems quite odd. (The original story mentioned her having been raised Catholic, but no writer has run with this.) For comparison her girlfriend [[Comicbook/{{Batwoman}} Kate Kane]] is approximately her age but was introduced in 2006 and has been out to herself her entire life without much angsting, her big thing being that she was thrown out of West Point under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - which will subject her to this before long (it was abolished in 2011).

* This causes some hiccups when the character's backstory is closely tied to an certain aspect of society only to have social change happen. Take Maggie Sawyer, DCU's first openly gay character: Being in her 30s when she was outed back in 1987 it made sense for her to have an angst-filled failed marriage and a daughter whose father was given full custody in her backstory. As society moves forward she then in 2012 makes references to having been pretty much out to her self her entire life and her decision to hide in a straight marriage seems quite odd. (The original story mentioned her having been raised Catholic, but no writer has run with this.) For comparison her girlfriend [[Comicbook/{{Batwoman}} Kate Kane]] is approximately her age but was introduced in 2006 and has been out to herself her entire life without much angsting, her big thing being that she was thrown out of West Point under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - which will subject her to this before long.

* ''Comicbook/{{Naomi}} Season 2'' #1 claims that the time between Naoimi getting her powers (''Naomi'' #5, July 2019) and joining the Justice League (''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueInfiniteFrontier'' #63, August 2021) was ''three weeks''. This doesn't just affect her; her first series was tied to ''Comicbook/BrianMichaelBendisSuperman'' and ''Comicbook/YoungJustice2019''. Most of ''Comicbook/DCYearOfTheVillain'' must have taken part during those three weeks, plus ''Comicbook/DarkNightsDeathMetal''.

* The ''Generations'' series appears to star characters from multiple different eras in DC’s history, i.e. the Golden Age Batman, the Silver Age Superboy, the post-Crisis Starfire and also characters from possible futures like Kamandi. It’s revealed at the end that they are all from the same universe known as the “Linearverse”, where people age extremely slowly, so the Batman who began his career in 1939 is the same Batman operating in the modern day.

* In the final issue of Creator/GrantMorrison's ''Comicbook/AnimalMan'' run, Grant Morrison himself has a conversation with the main character and justifies Comic-Book Time by implying that, in order to get from point A to point B, a comic book character moves instantly from panel to panel instead of actually walking there, saving a lot of time.

* The first arc of the ComicBook/{{New 52}} ''Franchise/{{Justice League|OfAmerica}}'' title occurred five years ago, after which the title is set in the present day - but in the first issue after it, none of the subplots or characterisations appear to have changed at all despite '''five years''' elapsing between issues.

* This causes some hiccups when the character's backstory is closely tied to an certain aspect of society only to have social change happen. Take Maggie Sawyer, DCU's first openly gay character: Being in her 30s when she was outed back in 1987 it made sense for her to have an angst-filled failed marriage and a daughter whose father was given full custody in her backstory. As society moves forward she then in 2012 makes references to having been pretty much out to her self her entire life and her decision to hide in a straight marriage seems quite odd. (The original story mentioned her having been RaisedCatholic, but no writer has run with this.) For comparison her girlfriend [[Comicbook/{{Batwoman}} Kate Kane]] is approximately her age but was introduced in 2006 and has been out to herself her entire life without much angsting, her big thing being that she was thrown out of West Point under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - which will subject her to this before long.

* This causes some hiccups when the character's backstory is closely tied to an certain aspect of society only to have [[SocietyMarchesOn social change happen]]. Take Maggie Sawyer, DCU's first openly gay character: Being in her 30s when she was outed back in 1987 it made sense for her to have an angst-filled failed marriage and a daughter whose father was given full custody in her backstory. As society moves forward she then in 2012 makes references to having been pretty much out to her self her entire life and her decision to hide in a straight marriage seems quite odd. (The original story mentioned her having been RaisedCatholic, but no writer has run with this.) For comparison her girlfriend [[Comicbook/{{Batwoman}} Kate Kane]] is approximately her age but was introduced in 2006 and has been out to herself her entire life without much angsting, her big thing being that she was thrown out of West Point under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - which will subject her to this before long.

*** The confusion was caused by, of course, Countdown to Final Crisis. Because of DC's original stance that ''Countdown'' was going to be in real time like ''52'', Geoff Johns initially believed that ComicBook/FinalCrisis was going to occur "two years" after ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis (a panel in an early issue of ComicBook/BoosterGold stated "Week 104, The Final Crisis"). But since ''Countdown'' was shunted into "vague what-ever time" status... yeah. Or maybe Geoff doesn't know ''how'' long it's been since Infinite Crisis... no one can say.

** Pre-Crisis, ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'s time-era was originally shown as being either vaguely defined or taking place at the time of publication (a 1952 story shows Lana Lang competing to become "Miss Smallville of 1952" for instance). Starting in the late 50s, the writers corrected this and set Superboy as taking place in TheThirties (before Superman's 1938 debut date in the comics). By the late 1960s, this was clearly becoming unfeasible, and Superboy was then placed firmly on a sliding timescale 13-15 years behind the present-day Superman, moving his time-era up to TheFifties and then [[TheSixties the late 1960s]] / [[TheSeventies the early 1970s]] by the time ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' hit. This resulted in such things as the classic early 60s story "Superman's Mission For President Kennedy" being retold in the early 80s as "Super'''boy''''s Mission For President Kennedy."

* This causes some hiccups when the character's backstory is closely tied to an certain aspect of society only to have [[SocietyMarchesOn social change happen]]. Take Maggie Sawyer, DCU's first openly gay character: Being in her 30s when she was outed back in 1987 it made sense for her to have an angst-filled failed marriage and a daughter whose father was given full custody in her backstory. As society moves forward she now in 2012 makes references to having been pretty much out to her self her entire life and her decision to hide in a straight marriage seems quite odd. (The original story mentioned her having been RaisedCatholic, but no writer has run with this.) For comparison her girlfriend [[Comicbook/{{Batwoman}} Kate Kane]] is approximately her age but was introduced in 2006 and has been out to herself her entire life without much angsting, her big thing being that she was thrown out of West Point under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - which will subject her to this before long.

* In ''ComicBook/DoomsdayClock'', [[spoiler:Dr. Manhattan actually views this phenomenon in action. He surmises that ComicBookTime is actually caused by the various Crisis hitting the "Metaverse", causing comic book character histories to be pushed up by pushing up Superman's arrival. He causes his own change by allowing Alan Scott to die before he can become the Green Lantern, which causes a ripple effect that results in the JSA having never existed. This was used to explain the lack of the JSA in the New 52 continuity, as well as why superheroes didn't start appearing en masse until the early 21st century.]]

* In one ''Comicbook/GreenLantern'' storyline published during ''Comicbook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', it was speculated that John Stewart was about 12-years-old back when Abin Sur's ring first first chose Hal Jordan as Abin's successor (and Guy Gardner as Jordan's backup). This suggested that Hal had been Earth's Green Lantern for quite some time, which was further supported by the gray temples he began sporting in the 90s. Subsequent retcons tried to compress Jordan's career and age him down a bit, with Creator/GeoffJohns' later "Secret Origin" storyline showing that Hal and John first met back when they were both part of the military while in their early 20s.