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Happily Adopted / The DCU

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The DCU

  • The Authority: Jenny Quantum loves her daddies. And leads them, too.
  • Batman:
    • Sort-of present with Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl. She and James Gordon always have a deep and emotional father/daughter bond that has even been seen to help her knock out Brainiac, but over the years the different writers can never seem to remember whether she is his biological daughter, his niece who he has raised since childhood, or an adopted daughter. Their relationship is largely the same no matter which way it is written, but sometimes it fits with the trope and sometimes it has nothing to do with the trope at all.
    • The Barbara/Jim relationship confusion is played with a bit: at one point, Barbara discovers that Jim may have had an affair with her mother (his brother's wife) around the time that she was conceived. When she has the chance to find out whether or not she's his biological daughter, she turns it down—not because she's ashamed of him for cheating, but because she wants it to be true.
    • More consistent is both Bruce's "sons" relationship with him, and Bruce's own relationship with Alfred (which results in some truly touching moments as Alfred hears Bruce call him dad in Bruce's farewell message when he's believed to be dead). Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, and Jason may often have problems with Bruce, but they consider each other brothers and are proud to officially be his sons, except Jason after his return from the dead. Cassandra Cain too, as the one daughter of the group, even though she doesn't hang out with her bros too much.
  • Another case was Gar Logan (Beast Boy). His parents died in a tragic accident, and his uncle turned out to be a nasty sort just using him to get at the money his parents left behind. He ran away and found the Doom Patrol. At the end of the arc, Rita Farr (Elasti-Girl) and Steve Dayton (Mento) adopted him. While Steve turned out to be too mentally unstable to be a decent parent, Gar and Rita adored one another, to the point where Gar even went into acting to follow in her footsteps.
  • A somewhat weird variant of this happens in The Books of Magic, in that Tim's true parentage is extremely convoluted and at times blatantly self-contradicting, but the trope is played fairly straight in the early issues of the book, after the first time he discovers that the people he thought were his parents may not have been: He laments it for a bit, but in the end he still acknowledges that "they did make me brush my teeth and wear clean socks all those years. Never once called me a changeling. They may not have been my parents but — bloody hell, they were my parents." It's later revealed that his father was never really sure whether Tim was really his (Tim's mother was pregnant when the two married), but never thought it mattered if he was or not.
  • DC Comics has the New Gods title, which features Orion, the biological son of Darkseid, who was traded to the Highfather of New Genesis as part of a peace treaty. Despite his parentage, Orion grew up a good warrior ferociously dedicated to defending the ideals of his adopted family.
  • Red Tornado's adopted daughter, Traya, a Middle Eastern war orphan, seems very happy with him, even knowing he's an android.
  • Relative Heroes: Cameron and Tyson were loved and very happy with their adoptive parents and siblings and when their parents died they joined with the Weinberg's biological children on a trip across the US to prevent Social Services from splitting up what remained of their family while seeking a moral way to revive their parents.
  • Shazam!:
    • Billy Batson is sent to (depending on the version) an Evil Uncle or at least one abusive foster home, only to get kicked out/run away and wind up living alone on the streets. However, he eventually meets his long-lost twin sister, Mary, who was adopted by the kindly Bromfield family, and gets taken in as well.
    • In Shazam! (2012), Billy gets taken in by a different kindly family, the Vasquezes, who already have five happy children (Mary, Freddy Freeman and three new characters)...except that in this version it's Billy who's a jerkass before eventually warming up to them.
  • Superman:
    • Superman is possibly the ur-example: Clark loves Ma and Pa Kent, and they him.
    • Also Superboy Connor Kent, who knows his biological parents are technically Superman and Lex Luthor, but also is quite happy with Ma and Pa Kent as his parental figures.
    • Supergirl's foster parents usually have a good relationship with their adopted alien daughter.
      • Pre-Crisis Kara was adopted by Fred and Edna Danvers in The Unknown Supergirl. They loved her and she them, even after she found out that her biological parents were still alive in The Untold Story of Argo City. When she revealed she was Superman's cousin they took it in stride. And they got heart-broken when she died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
      • Pa and Ma Kent also kind of adopted Post-Crisis Kara. They were the only parental figures she established a rapport with, and she regarded them as family.
      • New 52 Kara's foster parents are Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers who first appeared in Supergirl (Rebirth). Although they are technically her DEO-appointed handlers, they established a strong rapport after a few weeks.
        Jeremiah: What did I miss?
        Eliza: Just the launch, Jeremiah. But the new uniform sure fits.
        Cameron: Years since I let you two get married and you still find ways to help me question that decision.
        Supergirl: Comms are live. I can hear you two.
        Eliza: We're your parents, Kara. We're not dead.
    • Post-Crisis Superman and Lois Lane adopted Lor-Zod -Superman's enemies Zod and Ursa's biological son-, renamed him Chris Kent and raised him in Last Son. He loved them more than he ever loved Zod. Moreover, he fought Zod to protect Superman in the New Krypton.
    • Power Girl was adopted by Earth-2 Superman and Lois Lane when she arrived on Earth, and they treated her like their daughter.
      Power Girl: [tearfully] You took me in! You treated me like I was your daughter!
      Earth 2 Lois Lane: Oh, honey... as far as we were concerned, you were our daughter.
    • Superman & Batman: Generations: Bruce Wayne Jr. marries the widowed Mei-Lai Kent and adopts her son Clark as his own, in order to spare him the turmoil that his birth father Joel Kent suffered from being Superman's powerless son. Clark eventually figures it out (by learning Vietnamese so he can understand his parents' "secret" conversations), but when he reveals this to Bruce he makes it very clear that "you've been all the father I could ever have wished for", and keeps the Wayne name even in later storylines when he takes up the mantle of Superman.
    • Superman (Phillip Kennedy Johnson): Superman and Lois take in the twins Otho- and Osul-Ra, from a species of Kryptonian offshoots.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Girl Donna Troy is quite happy with her adoptive family with the Amazons, though she was still curious about where she came from before she and Dick managed to track down her past in Who Is Donna Troy?. This history was erased by Crisis on Infinite Earths, but may be back in play as of DC Rebirth as it's the history that matches up with Wally's memories of Donna and his memories are some of the only unaltered and known to be true ones in the 'verse. note 
    • Wonder Woman (1942): In "Who'll Adopt Teasy?" the titular trouble making orphan ends up very happy with the ridiculously easy going family that adopts him. Wonder Woman pointed him out to his soon to be mother as she, correctly, felt that they'd be a good fit.

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