Downer Ending / The DCU

WARNING: As an ending trope, every example listed here are spoilers and will be unmarked. You have been warned!

The DCU is known to have a bleak ending or two.

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Comic Books

Comic Books

• Watchmen: Veidt has killed half the population of New York City in order to force everyone into world peace, and the rest of the heroes have to agree to keep their silence or otherwise risk kick-starting World War Three. Rorschach is the only one who doesn't agree to the scheme, and to make sure he doesn't tattle, Dr. Manhattan turns him into a smear on the Antarctic snow. Turned into a Bolivian Army Ending because Rorschach also wrote his knowledge of the truth into his diary, which he sent off to a radical newspaper. The comic ends with someone from the newspaper reaching for their pile of "junk" material, which they use for filler. The diary is in the pile.
• The "Going Sane" Batman arc, in which the Joker has been sane for six months while Batman has been recovering in a small town two hundred miles from Gotham. As soon as Batman reappears, Joseph Kerr runs out on the love of his life, sinks into the water, and emerges with a maniacal grin...
• Batman: A Death in the Family: The Joker and his gang dwliver a brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Jason Todd (Robin), reducing him to a bloody pulp after Jason gets one lick in on the Joker. Then they tie up Jason's mother and leave a bomb to blow up the warehouse into which Jason and his mother have been lured. Miraculously, Jason is still alive - but he's far too weak to disarm the bomb, so instead he unties his mother and they attempt to make their getaway. It looks like they will just barely escape...but, just to make absolutely sure of things, that grinning, white-faced bastard had locked the door! Jason and his mother are both blown up, with Jason being killed instantly and his mother lingering just long enough to implicate the Joker in their murders to Batman. Following Jason's funeral (which is attended by only four people), Batman is pushed nearly to the brink and seriously considers violating his most sacred principle by "terminating the Joker's vile existence" - which he indeed ends up indirectly doing when he chases the villain onto a helicopter and another criminal with a gun panics and fires wildly, shooting the Joker in the chest. Batman escapes the copter just before it explodes, but he can only reflect bitterly that, somehow, he knows that the Joker isn't really dead.
• Batman: War Games: Spoiler dies after being tortured by Black Mask. Batman alienates himself from the rest of the Batfamily, from the police and from the Gothamites. Orpheus is dead, and Leslie Thompkins - who is Batman's mother figure - is disgusted, and tries to teach him a lesson about using teenagers. Several hundred people were killed and The Bad Guy Wins. Black Mask becomes the leader of the unified gangs of Gotham. Afterwards, Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Oracle all leave Gotham. It is practically a tragedy, and the lowest ebb for Batman since at least Knightfall or A Death in the Family. Perhaps even the Darkest Hour for Gotham, since things cannot get any worse, except then there are the Red Hood and Infinite Crisis storylines. Although the level of fan hostility eventually caused DC to retcon some of the worst elements out.
• Joker: Poor Jonny's already been through a Trauma Conga Line, but the final drop comes after Joker shoots him in the mouth in a fit of rage; finally realizing how little he, and human life in general, matters to the Clown Prince, Jonny concludes that Joker represents an incurable disease older than civilization and will always exist in some form or another, and dies while Joker is fighting Batman. Neither of them even notice. Batman: Damned reveals that the body seen falling off the bridge at the end is the Joker himself after Batman refuses to save him.
• Secret Six ends with the entire team being taken down by an army of superheroes during their epic Last Stand. Deadshot and King Shark would later appear in Suicide Squad, but the fates of their teammates are (likely deliberately) left unstated, though everyone appears to at least be alive when last seen. This was the result of a Continuity Reboot of the whole DC Universe, and conversely, the fact that it even got an ending should be considered upbeat and a testament to the series's fanbase.
• Superman
  • Lex Luthor: Man of Steel: Lex carries out his latest evil plot against all sense and reason, destroying some of his greatest achievements and killing many innocents in a vain attempt to destroy Superman's reputation. The story ends with Lex sitting alone and miserable in his office after being called out for the monster he is by his nemesis, having driven away or murdered any friends and clearly struggling to keep up his delusional fantasy of being the hero.
  • In 2008 storyline Way of the World, Supergirl attempts to save a little boy who is dying of cancer. Ultimately, five-year-old Thomas Price passes away, and Supergirl cannot do anything about it other than accepting her powers cannot do everything,¡ and death is a part of life.
• Tales from the Dark Multiverse: None of the stories end well, either. The heroes all lose and die, or become evil, leaving the universes doomed with absolutely no hope. Except the Dark Nights: Metal one, where Duke Thomas wins, and seems to dedicate himself to defending the Dark Multiverse as its hero.
• Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia: Tired of living in fear and ashamed for the trouble she feels she brought Diana, Danielle commits suicide by jumping off a bridge but not before releasing Diana of her ritual obligation towards her so as she won't be punished by The Erinyes for failing to protect her. Bruce and Diana part ways with neither proud they had to come to fisticuffs with one another. Diana ends the story commenting on the coldness and harshness of Man's World compared to life growing up on Themyscira.

Films

Films

• Joker (2019): Arthur snaps and becomes the Joker, killing several people before confessing to his first three murders and then killing Murray Franklin on his own talk show. His actions subsequently spark a riot that leads to the death of Bruce Wayne's parents, which of course puts the boy down his fated path. Arthur is then arrested and gets locked up in Arkham, having completely lost his mind. And since he is in Arkham, he is last seen running from an orderly after apparently killing his therapist and presumably escaping to cause more chaos. The only silver lining is that Gotham may be at its breaking point now, but one day, a protector will rise up when the city needs it most.
• Watchmen: Adrian Veidt detonates a nuclear deterrent that kills half of New York, forcing them into world peace. Dr. Manhattan had a stake in the construction of the bomb without knowing what it was being used for. The heroes are forced to keep their silence, or World War III will start. Rorschach disagrees, and Dr. Manhattan kills him before disappearing to another galaxy. Worse yet, Rorschach has been keeping a journal of his findings and suspicions, which he drops off at a newspaper office. At the very end of the film, the journal has ended up in the paper's "crank file" and a staff member is close to reaching for it, meaning that WWIII may start anyway if it gets published.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• Smallville
  • "Ryan", where despite all his fantastic powers, and even conquering his fear of heights, Clark Kent still fails to save his adoptive little brother Ryan from a brain tumor.
  • While Ryan dies, Clark has given him peace and friendship. "Pariah" on the other hand, with the death of Alicia certainly counts as a downer ending.
• Wonder Woman: "The Girl from Islandia" finished with Bleeker escaping and Tina, the titular Girl, being trapped and unable to return to her home. "The Man Who Could Not Die" ended with Diana and "The Man" himself, Bryce Candle, bemoaning how terrible their lives are.

Video Games

Video Games

• Season 2 of Batman: The Telltale Series ends with Alfred cracking under the stress of not knowing if Bruce will come home at night in addition to the trauma of having been kidnapped and tortured by Lady Arkham at the end of the previous season, and making the decision to leave Gotham and Bruce unless Bruce agrees to stop being Batman. The final choice of the game involves you either hanging up the cape and allowing evil to reign in Gotham once more, or answering the Bat-Signal and losing yet another father. The ending can be potentially even sadder if you kept up your relationship with Catwoman but failed to save her from being an unwilling member of the Suicide Squad.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series had a couple of these:
  • At the end of the episode “Mudslide”, Matt "Clayface" Hagen's structural integrity is slowly slipping away and his girlfriend and scientist Stella has almost completed a procedure that will allow him to stay in his human state whenever he wishes...until Batman appears and turns off the machine in a rather cold, unheroic moment. Admittedly Hagen had to hurt several people and steal the technology and Batman originally offered to help Hagen himself, as well as claiming "the lab boys will take it from here", from which we can assume they would continue and finish the procedure. The two fight it out of the laboratory and Clayface is doused in rain, further loosening his integrity until the pair are hanging from a cliff. Batman loses his grip of Hagen and he falls into the water before dissolving completely (although later episodes reveal he was, of course, Not Quite Dead). The episode ends on a wide shot of the cliff, Batman climbing up and helping Stella who is now in tears. The tragedy of it all is somewhat dampened by the fact that this is a Shout-Out episode: Dr. STEELLLAAAAAA!!! hid her Frankenstein's lab in the Bates Motel, while Clayface himself resembles an Oscar statue.
  • In the sequel to that episode “Growing Pains”, the new Robin meets and becomes smitten with a cute girl who turns out to be an "extension" of the newly re-formed Clayface that accidentally developed a mind of her own. At the end of the episode she's forced to re-merge with her "father", and after Robin goes berserk on him demanding that he bring her back, Clayface can only inform him that "she" is simply gone. Later when the police are listing what to charge Clayface with, Robin bitterly says "Murder."
    • Batman even solemnly tells Robin at the end, "Sometimes, there are no happy endings".
  • The Movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm ends on quite a low note as well. After it is revealed that Andrea Beaumont is actually the Phantasm and she attempts to murder the Joker (as he was originally the hitman who killed her father), the theme park they are in is blown up and both Andrea and the Joker vanish in a cloud of smoke. Batman is left tending his wounds in the Batcave until he finds Andrea's locket, which she had left for him in the cave. The second-last shot of the movie is of Andrea standing on a cruise liner, alone. At the same time, Bruce Wayne accepts that he will always be alone and never have a normal life, accepting that he will always be Batman.
  • You expect a Downer Ending from "Mad Love", but it's still harsh seeing Harley easily forgive the Joker again after he nearly kills her.
  • Come to think of it, lots of episodes end on a sad note in the earlier seasons and quite a few in later ones. Some prime examples include "Tyger, Tyger", "Baby-Doll" (and its sequel episode, "Love is a Croc"), and the series' final episode, "Judgement Day".
  • The episode "His Silicon Soul", which was a follow-up to a previous episodes "Heart of Steel: Part 1" and "Heart of Steel: Part 2". A sentient computer called H.A.R.D.A.C. created robots to act as replicants to better help his creator's lab (by money i.e. robbery, etc.) before eventually taking over the city and then the world. When Batman shows up, a replicant of Batman is made in secret, but was hidden before it could be activated. Months later, it is activated by chance and unlike its predecessors was sentient in that it thought it was the real Bruce/Batman, but couldn't deal when he found out he was a robot. During the fight, the real Batman looks like he died (for a while) and the robot is so utterly horrified by this (remember it is based on Batman), it then goes and kills itself.
  • "Heart of Ice", which is considered to be the series' best episode. It won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program AND made people feel sorry for Mr. Freeze!
    Mr. Freeze: I have failed you. I wish there was another way I could say it. I cannot...I can only beg your forgiveness, and hope that you can hear me somehow...someplace...where a warm hand waits for mine...
• Batman Beyond in general could be considered depressing when looking at Bruce Wayne's character.
  • "Rebirth" was the first blow where it appears that he ultimately loses in his personal battle against crime. Alfred's dead. Most of his sidekicks had left him on bad terms. Not even his Rogues Gallery is around. He just lives alone with a dog and a bunch of old memories. Possibly worst of all, he Did Not Get the Girl even though he was a Chick Magnet in his youth.
  • Any episode involving Mr. Freeze is going to be tragic, but his apparent ending in "Meltdown" involves him finally gaining a human body and a girlfriend, both of which betray him in the end. He takes out a high-tech exosuit, is foiled by Batman, joins forces with Batman when Big Bad Derek Powers/Blight goes berserk, and sacrifices himself to save the new Batman. His last words are uttered in a completely heart wrenching, fatalistic manner, to boot:
    Batman (Terry): You've got to get out of here, Freeze! The whole place is gonna go!
    Freeze: Believe me... you're the only one who cares.
  • Other ignominious ends: Bane is comatose, wheelchair-bound, and permanently hooked up to the Venom drug just to keep his body functioning; original Batman and Batgirl had an affair that ended badly; Kairi Tanaga, the karate teacher's apprentice from Batman: TAS is killed by snake-worshipping cultists; and Return of the Joker with the aforementioned new Robin, the Joker, and the Kill Sat.
    • That last one, at least, ends on a positive note for everyone... except the Joker, of course. Bruce finally gets around to repairing his relationship with the new Robin, Terry faces the future with pride and determination, and Harley Quinn is shown to have turned over a new leaf, and is now living as a law-abiding old lady.
  • The episode "Heroes" also ended on a low note. The Terrific Trio are betrayed by the law enforcement forces, discover that there is no cure for their powers (and their conditions are actually getting worse), and that their co-worker (who more than likely may be Doctor Doom's analogue) knew all along what would happen and that he set the whole thing up to get the Ben Grimm analogue out of the way in order to have the Sue Storm analogue all to himself. All three of the trio members are implied to die horrible deaths and only the co-worker is confirmed to be left alive, with great remorse on his part. This is shown in the exchange between Terry and the co-worker:
    Terry: Satisfied?
    Co-worker: No, you don't understand, I was their friend...
    Terry: Right...
• Green Lantern: The Animated Series episode "Loss" is a definite downer. Razer, who seems to be overcoming the death of his wife and ready to start a life with Aya, can only watch as Aya get blasted by the Anti-Monitor's anti-matter Wave-Motion Gun after she pushes him out of it's path. He's then forced to watch her die in his arms as he tearfully begs her to live, and that he loves her. Fixed after Aya turns up alive (in a Man-hunter body) in "Cold Fury" only to bond with Anti-Monitor's body at the end and continue what he started after Razer reconsiders what he said.
• In Superman: The Animated Series, pretty much any episode with Darkseid was liable to end on one of these notes. In "Apokolips Now!", Darkseid's initial invasion of Earth is foiled, but he shockingly kills Jack Kirby Expy Dan Turpin before leaving. Worse, the major pwning that Darkseid delivered to Superman implies that the Man of Steel will be powerless to stop him next time. In the series finale "Legacy", Darkseid brainwashes Superman into conquering Earth for him, destroying his reputation with the entire human race. When Supes finally defeats Darkseid in battle, Darkseid is rescued by his own slaves, who worship him as a god, leading us to conclude that real victory over Darkseid is impossible (at least until Justice League).
• Batman: Under the Red Hood ends on an almost nihilistic note. Batman has been betrayed by Jason Todd, the Robin he believed dead, and had it rubbed in his face that his war on crime is unwinnable, that the Joker will keep escaping his cardboard prison to kill and maim until the day he dies, and that untouchable crime lords will continually hold Gotham in their grip. Any promise of a brighter tomorrow will be destroyed by the scourge of time.
• Despite its reputation as being more child-friendly than its predecessors, The Batman has a few:
  • Meltdown ends on a very crushing note. Not only does Ethan "Clayface" Bennett get sent back to prison, efforts at readjusting to society a total failure, but he sees his old partner in the police, Detective Ellen Yin, replace him with Batman. While most supervillain rehabilitation efforts fail for obvious reasons, most end with at least a shred of optimism (or otherwise feature villains who never really made an effort). But not this one.
  • A Fistful of Felt ends with Arnold Wesker's rehabilitation being sabotaged by his psychiatrist Hugo Strange For Science!. He gets sent back to prison while Strange gets nothing more than a warning from Batman, which he no doubt forgets by the time he turns back to the paddy-wagons.
  • Seconds revolves around time-controlling villain Francis Gray who is attempting to gas Gotham's New Years Eve party (where millions will be in a small area) for throwing him in prison for 17 years for a minor crime. Batman realizes he can't stop him since he can just rewind all of his mistakes, so he sends Batgirl to get his son to try and talk him down. Except she's late, so not only does Gray successfully kill millions but he watches his son die in front of him. It gets cosmic retconned, but still.
• My Adventures with Superman episode "You Will Believe a Man Can Lie" ends on a negative note. Superman learns that he's being hunted down by the government since he's considered a threat, and finds out Lois deduced he's Superman. When Lois calls out Clark for keeping such a big secret from her, he responds that it's because she made it a point to publicly reveal his secret to the world, and she snaps back that she hates people keeping secrets from her, and wouldn't specifically reveal that he's Superman, and subtly declares that she no longer has romantic feelings towards him. Meanwhile, Jimmy who had been looking towards a camping trip to look for evidence of Bigfoot, realizes that Steve, whose more popular social media pages debunking Jimmy's conspiracy theory videos, had a point about how people drift apart from their close friends since Clark and Lois were too busy dealing their drama, and Clark fighting off Task Force-X, to notice Jimmy had been calling to get him away from Steve and to remind them of their trip. After Jimmy goes off into the woods alone, he gets captured by a gorilla, and the credits roll on a somber version of the theme, and the final shot shows a picture of Clark, Lois, and Jimmy being ripped apart.
• The Teen Titans (2003) animated series ended with "Things Change", an episode that saw long-lost ex-Titan Terra, who had previously become a stone statue at the end of her story arc, alive and living a life of mundanity. The stage seems set for a joyful reunion, but after repeated claims that she doesn't know him, "The Schoolgirl" admits that "Things were never the way you remember," and rejects Beast Boy's pleas to get her to return to the team. The team never did defeat the monster they had been fighting the whole episode either.
• Young Justice (2010) has quite a few:
  • "Failsafe" ends with Miss Martian sobbing uncontrollably and the team left shaken after a training exercise goes horribly wrong. We're also left with the unsettling implication that Miss Martian may not be able to control her immense mental abilities.
  • The final sequence of "Misplaced" juxtaposes a shot of Zatanna sobbing over the loss of her father with another of Klarion laughing maniacally as he and his fellow villains move one step closer to completing their master plan.
  • The ending of "Insecurity" sees Artemis berated by her teammates for being immature and selfish, only to then be offered a chance to betray the team by her father.

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