Earn Your Happy Ending / The DCU

The DCU

Comic Books

Comic Books

• Convergence:
  • The writers have stated that many of the previous status quos will receive closure. Examples:
    • Superman and Lois Lane have their first baby and name him after Clark's father.
    • Both Stephanie Brown and Barbara Gordon finally get their Happily Ever After with Tim and Dick. We see Babs and Dick's wedding day and Tim and Steph almost have Their First Time before injuries force them to decide to wait a while. In an alternate universe, Dick ends up patching things up with Starfire instead, being a different happy ending.
    • Dreamslayer pulls a Nice Job Fixing It, Villain that allows Roy Harper to finally have his daughter, Lian, Back from the Dead. Lian has no idea what Roy has been through since she died, but the happiness one can feel for the character is unreal.
  • The series as a whole has an overtly happy ending: the Crisis on Infinite Earths is averted, the original Multiverse is reborn, Telos' prisoners are freed, the Earth-2 survivors find a new planet to call home and Brainiac and Telos attain some measure of redemption.
• From The Flash:
  • The The Trial of the Flash storyline ran for over two years and had the Flash's life being completely wrecked several times, but in the end Barry and Iris are married happily together in the future.
  • Geoff Johns' run on the title when it starred Wally West also counts. Under Johns, Wally had to deal with the birth of the new Zoom, a former friend of his he failed to save and resolved to make Wally a better hero by forcing him to experience tragedy. Zoom would go on to cause his Wally's wife Linda to miscarry their twin children. After that, Wally learned that his mentor Barry was not the squeaky clean, white knight hero Wally thought he was, and in fact dipped into some very morally grey territory. After that, Wally had to deal with the reformed Rogues turning back to their villainous ways but upping it to eleven. Then, he had to deal with a war between various groups all calling themselves the Rogues. And finally, Zoom would return, with Professor Zoom in tow, and force Wally to relive his attack on Wally's wife repeatedly before Wally eventually beat him. At the end of all this, Wally got a second chance at being a father, with his twins being saved, Zoom admitting he was wrong in what he did before disappearing (he got better) and Wally coming to the conclusion that being the Flash is never about tragedy, but about always moving forward.
• Kingdom Come. After going to hell and back, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (despite having major differences) manage to get along, save the day and restore the world population's faith in the heroes by basically acting like heroes, leading to a CMoH in the epilogue shared by Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.
• After helping to defeat The Batman Who Laughs by being the only one that was actually able to hurt him, Superboy Prime was rewarded with this. He was transported back to his own Earth where everything was how he remembered. He has his girlfriend Laurie Lemmon who loves him, his home, his parents, and he has a dog now too. He also has his powers too which he used to save a kid from being run over in a homage to Action Comics #1.
• Neil Gaiman's Batman epilogue "Whatever Happened to The Caped Crusader?" (Batman #686; Detective Comics # 853). Batman eventually realizes that he's having a near-death experience at the end of his life, and comes to accept that even though any telling of the story of Batman has to inevitably end with his death, what defines him is that he will have never given up or stopped fighting to protect Gotham City or to save even one life, and that having the opportunity to do that as Batman has been its own reward.
• Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?: As the Grand Finale to Silver Age Superman, this counts. He defeats all of his famous villains, loses four of his closest friends, breaks his oath not to kill and loses his power in penance for the act. However because he beat all the villains, he can FINALLY retire in peace.
• Wonder Woman: In WW 600 after being tortured, brainwashed and turned into the Silver Swan against her will Vanessa Kapatelis has been able to return to and finish school and made class Valedictorian.

Films

Films

• In Batman: Assault on Arkham, despite being kidnapped by Amanda Waller and forced to make a black-ops raid on Arkham with a bunch of criminal lunatics, which was only intended to be a decoy so that another member of the team could murder the Riddler, Deadshot gets out alive, unharmed and manages to rescue his daughter, whom Waller was holding hostage to blackmail him into working for her. And, in our final shot of the film, he gets a chance to murder Waller for everything she put him through... he is a Villain Protagonist, after all.
• The Dark Knight Trilogy:
  • Batman Begins: Bruce loses his parents and all sense of purpose in his life other than vengeance against his parents' murder, Joe Chill, then loses that purpose when Joe Chill is murdered by a hitwoman for the Gotham mob. Then Bruce runs away from Gotham to try to understand the darker aspects of life and to find a way to overcome them. Bruce is then presumed dead and Gotham has to suffer for years through an economic depression as well as a corrupt legal system where almost every cop is a Corrupt Cop, the mafia rules the city and crimes like murder are extremely common. As Gotham loses hope, Bruce is trained by Henri Ducard, a Knight Templar who helps Bruce regain hope and find purpose in fighting crime...but Bruce has to betray and leave Ducard to save when he finds out Ducard wants to destroy places filled with crime (like Gotham). Bruce returns to Gotham as Batman, and fights to give the city hope against both normal criminals and Dr. Jonathan Crane...who gives Ducard a fear toxin that Ducard plans to use to destroy the city. Batman then must overcome both his fears and the returning Ducard (AKA Ra's al Ghul) and the League of Shadows to save his city. After much struggle, with Wayne Manor being burnt down and then some of Gotham's slums being driven insane, Batman saves the day and gives Gotham hope for the first time in years. To emphasize this, the Bat-signal triumphantly shines in the night for the first time during the final scene.
  • The Dark Knight: Yes, there are criminals who will do almost anything for money, and unapologetic evil that cannot be bargained with, and the Knight in Shining Armor can fall, hard. But in the end, Batman is able to apprehend The Joker without becoming the monster Joker wants him to be. And the citizens of Gotham pass Joker's "social experiment" (if only barely) by not turning on each other like he predicted.
  • At the end of the final movie in the trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne seems to have finally put his past behind him. He fakes his death — but leaves subtle (or not-so-subtle for some) clues of his survival to his Secret Keepers (giving them their own happy ending rather than leaving them in mourning) — and retires with Selina Kyle who, after helping Bruce save Gotham, has her own criminal past erased to allow her a fresh start as well.
• In the DC Extended Universe —
  • In Man of Steel, while coming from a loving home, Clark has spent most of his life ostracized, Walking the Earth never daring to get close to anyone for fear of them learning his secret, but unable to stop using his powers to help people, causing him to always leave. Eventually he finds some answers about his past in a crashed Kryptonian ship, but that leads to General Zod and his crew arriving on Earth, who want Clark to help them Kill All Humans so they can create a new Krypton, and attempt to kill him when he refuses. Clark is forced to reveal himself to the world to save it, and ultimately is forced to kill Zod. However, he finds people that accept him for who he is, finds his true calling as Superman, and gets a permanent job as an Intrepid Reporter for the Daily Planet.
  • In Suicide Squad (2016), several members of the Squad earn a (somewhat) happy ending. While still incarcerated, the rewards they get for saving the world go a long way to making their lives much better, from Deadshot finally getting to spend time with his daughter to little things like Killer Croc getting a HDTV, and Harley an espresso machine. Subverted with Captain Boomerang, who mouths off to Waller, and ends up in solitary confinement worse off than he started.
  • Zack Snyder's Justice League: After all the strife, conflict and loss throughout Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and this film, our heroes not only emerge victorious over the threat of Apokolips (for now at least) but also as better, stronger individuals.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• With so many downer endings for the DC Animated Universe Batman, the Fully Absorbed Finale for Batman Beyond, "Epilogue", was about as happy an ending as Batman can ever expect but boy, did Bruce, Terry, and the audience have to go through a lot to get it. Terry finds out that Bruce is his biological father and is pissed about it. For most of the episode he's angry and bitter about Bruce, Batman, and fate. But with the help of Amanda Waller (again It Makes Sense in Context), he realizes that he has control over his own life and that he isn't Bruce even if he may be his son. So in the end, Terry is determined to live a happy life and be Batman at the same time while Bruce is left with a protégé he trusts to carry on the/his fight after he's gone and a family he's always been looking for.
  • "The Man Who Killed Batman" sees Sid go to jail after all, but considering he almost killed Batman and made The Joker and Rupert Thorne look stupid, he receives a warm welcome as he's escorted into Blackgate.
• My Adventures with Superman: In episode "My Adventures With Mad Science" , after Brain lost his body and he and Mallah were forced into hiding for 22 years, the two are able to create their wormhole and find a world where they can live in peace. Likewise, after Clark and Lois's relationship has crumbled and their friendship with Jimmy all but wrecked as well, they are able to mend things and come back together stronger than ever, with Clark and Lois holding hands at the end to signify their Relationship Upgrade. The end credits have the same picture from the previous episode, but whereas it was torn into thirds in the previous episode, here it is fully intact to represent the trio's reunion.
• The fourth season of Young Justice (2010) pulled heartache and stress for the heroes when Lor-Zod targeted Superboy and seemingly killed him, instead he got trapped in the Phantom Zone, and then he returned from it molded into loyalty to General Zod. But the Team worked to try to bring him back, with his fiancee Miss Martian restoring his mind, and the Zods are beaten, with Superboy and Miss Martian finally Happily Married in the end.

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