Breaking The Fourth Wall / The DCU

The DCU

Comic Books

Comic Books

• Ambush Bug: Ambush Bug does this frequently, and has also interacted with his own writer and editors. He can also actually see the speech bubbles that come out of character's mouths, and once asked Zatanna why the text in hers is backwards.
  • In the Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer, he even uses his suit's teleportation ability to travel back several pages.
  • The DC Heroes tabletop RPG from Mayfair Games had an adventure centered around Ambush Bug (Don't ask!) Of course he is completely aware that he is in a roleplaying game scenario and that the player characters are just that.
• Animal Man: Buddy Baker found out near the end of his Grant Morrison run in a rare completely serious fourth wall breach that he was a comic book character. He didn't take it well.
• Batman:
  • In an early example Batman #1, to be precise, Batman sics Robin on some disarmed crooks, and then turns to the kids reading the comic book, saying that criminals are cowards without their weapons and if Robin could take them down, anyone could stand up to them.
  • The Joker breaks the fourth wall occasionally. For example, he has referenced an out-of-continuity Batman / Spider-Man, addressed the artist of the story, and sometimes seems perfectly aware of his status as a comic book villain. He also displays a certain amount of Medium Awareness, by handling his own speech bubbles, or, in the animated series, talking to the camera. This is likely part of the idea his insanity has allowed him to become aware of things other people don't realize.
    • He even turns the page for the reader in Emperor Joker, where he breaks not just the fourth wall, but the other three as well.
    • In the miniseries Joker's Asylum, Joker plays a modern take on the Cryptkeeper. At one point, in Two-Face's issue, he turns to the reader and tells him to find a coin, with such intensity that it probably sent a few comic book fans scrambling for their wallets.
    • It wasn't just that point. The implication in several of the stories in Joker's Asylum is that he is indeed talking and narrating the stories directly to the audience. Cue lots of looking directly at the Fourth Wall.
    • In another story, Joker is being psychoanalyzed by a prominent pop psychologist (in-universe, anyway). At one point, the psychologist asks who Joker is talking to while in isolation. The Joker says he's entertaining the audience ("the Bat's not the only one with fans, you know!"), and the psychologist replies that he is entertaining nobody because they aren't real. Joker then counters with a question of his own: what if it's he and the psychologist who aren't real? At the end we see Joker back in his cell at Arkham, narrating about how he really is crazy and how the audience isn't real, before turning to the reader and asking, "Are you?"
• Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Psycho-Pirate hasn't seen the fourth wall since the crisis, and knows when attention is focused on him. He even calls the readers "perverts" for watching him. When the remnants of the Infinite Earths start being revived through him, he tries to get the revived characters to break the fourth wall down completely and kill everyone who is reading the comic, so they won't have to be controlled by writers anymore.
  • And it gets worse: when he has faded away almost completely (apparently a side effect of conjuring up all these characters) he remarks that the readers - that's us - "aren't real either."
  • Actually it makes sense, because the people who read their books are still in-universe. Earth Prime, anyone? The only character that can break our wall is Superboy-Prime.
• Eternity Girl: In the opening, protagonist Caroline interrupts the narration trying to recount her history to address the reader directly, deriding the narration's attempts to make sense of her convoluted backstory by pointing out that she's not a real person, she's just an intellectual property that the publisher doesn't really want but that they also don't want to lose.
• Fables: The spinoff Jack of Fables does this in every single issue to some extent — originally, it tended to just be throwaway gags, such as Jack giving fancifully ludicrous descriptions of what (allegedly, but in reality never) would happen in the next issue, in the little box at the bottom of the last page. However, pick up the "Turning Pages" collection (aka volume 5), and you'll run across a new character, a Literal called "Eliza Wall"... a temporary narrator who addresses the audience directly, deconstructs Jack's crazy fake teaser texts, acknowledges that certain things will happen in say, "seven pages" (acknowledging the medium itself), talks about the story in actual story terms (both blatantly and slyly: "that's why no one really likes [fellow Literal character] Deux Ex Machina"), and even warns the reader that she'll have to step in shortly in order to prevent an unpleasant outcome... on top of having three (identical) brothers who are shown circling her at a picnic and failing to understand "who she's talking to" as she looks over her shoulder at the reader. In short, she's not just a fourth-wall breaker, but is, perhaps true to form, the personification of the very act of breaking the fourth wall. Talk about your Postmodernism...
• Green Lantern: Guy Gardner sometimes broke the Fourth Wall by making ironic comments to the reader.
• Hellblazer: John Constantine does this from time to time. The "Son of Man" arc has John Constantine speaking to the reader where narration boxes or thought bubbles would more typically be used.
• Infinite Crisis: In another serious moment out of DC Comics, Alexander Luthor, a separate entity from the classic Lex Luthor, is looking for a preferred reality out of uncountable thousands that lie spread before him. He finds it...ours. He turns straight towards the reader, gazing up and out of the comic page and...GRABS FOR THE READER. Alexander's plans are stopped.
• Justice Society of America: Averted by Executive Meddling in one issue. Time traveler Per Degaton has been harassing the JSA, apparently just to mess with them. At the end, standing alone, he remarks that he enjoys watching the heroes suffer. The last page, which was cut by the editors, had him turning to the reader and saying "Just like you."
• The Multiversity: From Thunderworld #1:
  Shazam: Hmm, it's you again. I was just practicing my omniscient narrator voice. Come closer, please.
• The Sandman: The series ends with a funeral. The actual funeral is not pictured, because you've already seen it: it took place in the Dreaming, and everyone was there, including you.
• Shazam!: The origin of Captain Marvel Junior featured some Fourth Wall breaking. In the title Master Comics, the villain Captain Nazi beat up veteran Fawcett hero Bulletman, leaving a note to Captain Marvel warning him to "Stay in 'Whiz Comics'," and not get in his way. In the following month's "Whiz Comics", Freddie Freeman's father rescued a drowning Captain Nazi who immediately killed him and crippled Freddie. Captain Marvel then rescued Freddie, brought him to the Rock of Eternity and, with the wizard Shazam's help, gave Freddie powers identical to his own. He then told the newly-minted Captain Marvel Jr, "I'm sending you back to 'Master Comics' to take on Captain Nazi."
• Superman:
  • Mr. Mxyzptlk is also able to do this, one time even telling the Joker straight up that no one remembers that the Joker had 5th dimension Reality Warping powers because a) Mxy didn't want anyone to remember and b) they hadn't collected those issues into a trade paperback yet. In Superman (Brian Michael Bendis) while he's ranting about Superman seemingly forgetting about him he mentions appearing on "the cartoon show", puzzling Supes' son Jon.
    Mxyzptlk: You've gotta think outside the third dimension, Junior. This thing between me and your pop, it spans realities. Superman and Mr. Mxyzptlk, Mxyzptlk, Mixelplik... infinite variations. What's life and death in this world are pages in a coloring book one dimension over. I'm the only one who sees the big picture. The only one who can pop from world to world.
  • Superboy-Prime does this constantly, coming from an Earth where The DCU's characters are actual comic-book characters. In Blackest Night, he even buys one issue of the comic you are reading, in an effort to figure out the ending and avert his own demise. When he realises that the next issue is not out yet, he tries to murder the writers at DC Comics.
  • Superman and Supergirl would do it from time to time during the Silver and Bronze ages by winking at the readers, especially after succeeding to protect their secret identities (an example would be the final panel in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?).
  • "Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny Special": When Brainiac 5 builds a second Computo, Timber Wolf remembers him that they are not supposed to recycle subplots. Likewise, the Legionnaires sometimes complain about the story's unsubtle homages (Superman holding Supergirl's body in his arms, Superbugs imitating the cover of the first Action Comics...)
• Tales Of The Unexpected: In a backup story, Doctor 13 leads a group of washed-up DC characters who are about to be deleted from continuity. A group of DC comics writers appear in the form of the "Architects" who are rewriting the universe. They challenge the characters to prove they are interesting enough to be included in the new universe, and only have an interest in including "the hot girl" (13's daughter Traci). In the last panel, Doctor 13 realizes he exists in a comic book and begs the reader not to turn the page, as finishing the book implies the end of their existence.
• Watchmen: A Show Within a Show example is cited in the "Treasure Island Treasury of Comics" excerpt. In Tales of the Black Freighter #7, a rhyming monologue by Blackbeard concludes with the pirate looking directly at the reader, and taunting them that their world may be no nobler than his.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• In The Adventures of Superman George Reeves as Clark Kent would wink to the audience at the end of most episodes.
• Batman (1966) episodes:
  • In one episode, Batman and Robin are climbing up the Batrope, when Santa Claus sticks his head out of the window. Santa offers to bring them a present, if they'll tell him the location of the Batcave. Batman looks at the camera and says, "If you can't trust Santa Claus, who can you trust?"
  • "King Tut's Coup". Commissioner Gordon calls Bruce Wayne and they realize that King Tut has returned. When Gordon calls Batman, Batman tells him that he knows that Tut has returned even before Gordon can tell him. Gordon looks into the camera and says "You'd think the man could read my mind!"
  • "That Darn Catwoman". After Batman realizes that Robin is under Catwoman's control, he turns to the audience and says "What a dastardly development this is!"
• Smallville did this in the final season when the alternate universe Lionel Luthor escapes to the main universe
  Lionel: [looking directly into the camera] Guess I'm back in the nick of time. Wouldn't want to miss how it all turns out.

Video Games

Video Games

• In Batman: Arkham Asylum, the audience participates in "Scarecrow" sequences in which Scarecrow injects Batman with terror gas that makes him see things. In one of these sequences, the audience is confronted with the screen that appears upon an in-game death, only to find out that it is part of the Scarecrow sequence. Hell, it looks like the game crashes. Scarecrow went from screwing with Batman to screwing with the player.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series The episode "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich". Robin trips a thug on a table by yanking the tablecloth. He then says "I love that trick, but I can never get it to work" unmistakably to the camera.
  • Another episode had Gotham City being rampaged by a Godzilla sized cow. Robin reacts to the destruction by saying "Holy cow!" Batgirl turns to the audience and says "He had to say it."
  • This gag was used very early in the show's history, in 1992's "Christmas With the Joker." The Joker is airing a pirated TV broadcast from some unknown location, and the viewer often sees him via a TV screen. About two-thirds of the way through the show, he tells all the Gothamites who are watching that his Christmas special will return after "a word from our sponsor." Both the fictional program and the episode itself then cut to a commercial break in our own world. (The gag is ruined on DVD, where there are no commercial interruptions.)
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Most apparent in the episodes with Bat-Mite. Its comparatively minor, maybe subtle even, until the series finale. The plot of which centers on Bat-Mite trying to force the show to Jump the Shark to get it cancelled and make room for a Darker and Edgier Batman show. Everybody breaks the fourth wall in that one. Aquaman's temporary new voice actor even breaks character.
• The New Adventures of Superman. At the end of every episode Clark Kent would make some kind of lame pun based on the events in the episode and wink while looking at the audience.
• The Trapped in TV Land episode of Teen Titans (2003) has this in spades, with Cyborg referencing the particular episode and season they're in, and Robin giving quizzical glances out the TV screen and then later running up and grabbing the camera, yelling at the audience "Do not watch this program! It will liquify your brain!" (The In-Universe explanation for this action is that Control Freak has tampered with the broadcast.)
  • Another time, the HIVE Five appeared over the theme song and spray-painted their logo on the screen. The leader, Jinx, steps forward and says "We're the HIVE Five and this is our show now." (If you look closely, you can see Gizmo in the background, using some device to hijack the broadcast.)
• Young Justice (2010) version of the Joker is not the most well received version of the character, however he, like his comic iteration knows he is in an entertainment media. Episode 14, features not one, but two instances of fourth wall shattering. In the first he actually Lampshades his very appearance by letting the viewer know he is aware of just how surprised they are at his appearance, he then does a Screen Tap to make sure everyone is paying attention when the Injustice League gives their demands.

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