The DCU
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Comic Books
Comic Books
The following have their own pages:
- Aztek: The Ultimate Man:
- Bloodtype and Death-Doll are established to have once been the superheroes Mr. America and Liberty Lass, who didn't exist prior to the publication of Aztek but are implied to have been around for a while.
- The series starts with Dr. Curtis Falconer (who ends up dying so Aztek can usurp his identity to get a civilian identity and a job) forced to resume his supervillain persona the Piper, who is said to have been active in the 1960s and to have fought Elongated Man and the Atom, but had no indication of existing prior to debuting in this comic's first issue.
- Happened twice to DC Comics' Black Lightning. Judd Winick created an adult daughter for him called Thunder, with her existence handwaved away with a line saying that she'd mostly lived with her mother after her parents' divorce. Then, a few years later, Geoff Johns introduced a second daughter, Lightning, and this time there wasn't much effort put into reconciling the fact that she'd never been seen or mentioned before this.
- Green Arrow (Jeff Lemire): Despite having never been mentioned before, Diggle worked Ollie and Roy during their very early days as Green Arrow and Speedy, before leaving after a disastrous encounter with Richard Dragon.
- In DC's second Hawk and Dove series, Dawn Granger (the second Dove) was stated to be an only child. Flash forward to 2005: After Dawn was retconned to have actually been alive after her supposed death in Armageddon 2001 (a long story), she showed up in the pages of Teen Titans with a bratty younger sister named Holly Granger, who was apparently away living in England all this time. What made it stranger is that they tried to rectify this by explaining Dawn's parents were divorced to provide a Parent Trap-like story, when in the Hawk and Dove series they were shown to be happily married with no issues in their relationship. To make things even MORE confusing: Holly's personality, appearance, speech patterns (does she speak British slang or not?), and her age wound up being cases of Depending on the Writer and Depending on the Artist. It's no wonder they eventually killed her off. Shame they never gave her a solid backstory. DC did have several Crisis Crossovers since Dawn's "death" which rebooted history, including one her erstwhile partner, Hawk/Monarch/Extant was a major player in.
- General Glory, a Captain America parody from Justice League International. Justified since knowledge of his existence was actively suppressed by the government, leading most people to assume he was just a comic book character.
- Skyrocket of Power Company was introduced as a heroine from what would've been about the Silver Age that you simply hadn't heard about. Josiah Power hired her into the Power Company for "credibility"— Meaning that her being around brought the respect of guys like the Green Lantern.
- DC Comics had several heroes that were created in the 1970s and '80s, but were established as having been active during the '40s. Among them were Amazing-Man (chronologically, one of the earliest black superheroes) and Commander Steel, both of whom were established as having fought alongside the members of the JSA on the All-Star Squadron.
- DC Rebirth establishes that the New 52 Wally West is not a Race Lifted version of the original Wally West. The original Wally immediately recognizes Wally II and states that the boy is his cousin, implying that he (and by extension, his father, Daniel West) existed in the previous continuity as well. At no point in any of the decades worth of prior Flash stories did Wally ever mention having a cousin who was also named Wally. However, this is actually addressed when Eobard Thawne regains all of his true memories of the pre-Flashpoint universe and states that Wally II is "New." Later issues confirmed that Wally II did not exist at all in the pre-Flashpoint universe, and was explicitly created thanks to the revisions done by Dr. Manhattan.
- John Byrne's run on Doom Patrol introduces some heretofore unmentioned enemies of the Doom Patrol breaking out of their cells at the heroes' base named Megalith, Rubber Maid and Barrage, who are given little to no detail regarding the circumstances of the Doom Patrol's original encounters and battles with them, even with the fact that Byrne's run chose to start continuity anew and disregard the events of the comic's preceding runs.
- JSA Classified: Johnny Mimic was first introduced in 2007, but treated as an old Golden Age foe of Green Lantern and the JSA with a long history with Lantern in particular.
- Done both in and out of universe with Judy "The Boom" Garrick. Her first appearance is in 2023, but she is credited as appearing in Jay Garrick's run as the Flash in the 1940s. In universe she was Retgoned in as a result of tampering with the time line, and just recently restored, causing the JSA's memories of her to be restored.
- Sideways has the titular character meet Tempus Fuginaut, a being who claims to be The Watcher of DC's multiverse who's been doing it for years — despite not once appearing in the various Earth-One/Earth-Two pre-Crisis stories, Crisis on Infinite Earths itself, Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, JLA: Earth-2, Infinite Crisis, 52, Final Crisis, Flashpoint, Forever Evil (2013), Convergence, The Multiversity, and Dark Nights: Metal.
- Superman:
- When Mongul was introduced in the War World storyline, Martian Manhunter was already well aware of him and had foiled one of his plots before - in fact, Mongul only coerced Superman into helping him as insurance against'' Manhunter. This prior adventure was destined to be left to the imaginations of readers, as Mongul soon became strictly a Superman foe.
- World's Finest (1941) #173, Superman had a one-page flashback to a battle with Kralik the Conqueror, who he claims is the one foe that he fears most. This is Kralik's first and only appearance - not only did he never appear again, but he didn't even appear again in the story that introduced him, despite seemingly still being alive! His only influence to the plot is that Superman is given a potion that makes him look and act like Kralik by a completely unrelated villain.
- All-Star Superman: The cast is completely familiar with Leo Quintum, but he's one of the few characters created specifically for this comic. Likewise for Samson and Atlas. There were characters with those names in comics before (a new incarnation of the previous Atlas would even be introduced after this story), but this Samson and this Atlas are brand-new. Even so, Superman treats them as old acquaintances.
- Man of Steel (2018): Discussed in-universe when Superman wonders why he hasn't heard of Rogol Zaar when memorizing Krypton's history.
- Superman (2023): The Order of Mad Scientists. Justified, as they are a secret society (and it's also implied that Lex has been kneecapping the group for years).
- Superman's Pal: Jimmy Olsen (2019): Jimmy's siblings have never been mentioned before.
- Peer Pressure: Kenny. Childhood Friends with the hero - check. Been here all along - check. Becomes a Big Bad (Conduit) - check. Drives our hero to the brink of madness - check. Tries to kill our hero - check. He was introduced during DC's first Zero Month, which was all about either retconning or introducing new aspects to the characters' pasts.
- Wonder Woman:
- Volume 1:
- Suddendly Diana has a beloved adopted little sister Donna that she rescued from a fire years ago and brought home to Paradise Island, who has had enough time acting as a teen superhero to be a integral part of the founding Teen Titans team. This retcon helped smooth out the wrinkles in having Wonder Girl around after the "impossible tales" with Diana as Wonder Woman had already been retgonned.
- The storyline Judgment In Infinity presents a Multiverse version when it treats Earth-I, specifically created to that story arc, as if it was one of the most important Earths, which had been always around.
- Volume 2: When Ferdinand showed up he was purported to be one of Diana's oldest friends despite never having a mention in the prior decades worth of Wondy stories. This was universally forgiven though since the sweetheart vegetarian master chef minotaur was a beloved addition to her supporting cast.
- Volume 1:
- Taken to an extreme degree with The New Golden Age #1, which introduces nearly a dozen brand new characters connected with DC's Golden Age heroes that were apparently pulled out of time and erased from everyone's memories, with their official bios even attributing their debut appearances as occurring in comic book issues that are either A) non-existent, or B) did exist, but they clearly never appeared in at all. This includes:
- The Golden Age Red Lantern, a superhero created by the Soviet Union as their answer to Green Lantern Alan Scott, and the Harlequin's Son, the biological child of Molly Mayne the original Harlequin.
- The Golden Age Aquaman, who is essentially the original Aquaman from Earth-2 (experimented on by scientist parents to survive underwater) made into a Decomposite Character and operating decades before Arthur Curry was born.
- Multiple sidekicks and kid heroes from the 40s and 50s, such as Betsy Ross and Molly Pitcher (sidekicks to Miss America), Cherry Bomb (sidekick to the Human Bomb), Ladybug (the sidekick to the Red Bee), Quiz Kid (sidekick to the original Mr. Terrific), Salem the Witch Girl (sidekick to the original Dr. Fate with elements of Klarion the Witch Boy), John Henry Jr. (the teen successor to the vigilante John Henry from DC: The New Frontier, now melded into the main DCU as a relative of Steel), and most glaring of all, Judy Garrick (the daughter of Jay and Joan Garrick, who were previously stated to be incapable of having children).
- A mysterious "Golden Age Legionnaire," whose profile is entirely blacked out implying they are a preexisting character. He's later revealed in Justice Society of America (2022) #9 to be none other than a time-displaced Mordru, much younger and years before he ever became a villain, hoping to circumvent his eventual transformation into Mordru the Merciless.
- The one exception to this is Thaddeus Brown, the Golden Age Mister Miracle. Thaddeus was a preexisting character for decades who acted as a mentor to Scott Free and Shilo Norman, only now he's been said to have directly acted as a superhero and was an associate of a never before mentioned "Justice Society Dark."
Films
Films
- In Batman Returns (1992), Max Shreck has apparently been one of Gotham City's most famous residents for quite some time ("Here's a man who needs no introduction, he's given so much"), having been around long enough to have established the town's most successful department store, become more wealthy than anyone except Bruce Wayne himself, gotten a mayoral candidate elected, and gained enough influence to propose the construction of a new electrical power plant. So it's strange in retrospect that he apparently didn't exist at the time of the 1989 film, particularly since Gotham's 200th anniversary festival budget was seriously short on funds and he would probably have been the most philanthropic contributor. Shreck's Department Store is arguably an even more blatant New Guy: if we are to assume that the cathedral entrance on the opposite side of the city square, which we see behind the Penguin as he escapes on his helicopter umbrella, is to the same cathedral in which the Joker hid out at the climax of the previous film (and, at least according to Fanon, it is), the store is so big and so gaudy that it wouldn't previously have been missed. This cannot be explained as Batman Returns taking place many years after the original film, either, as all the returning cast members look to be about the same age as before.note
- DC Extended Universe: Black Adam (2022) introduces the Justice Society of America, a team of superheroes who predate Superman and the Justice League and have a preexisting relationship with Amanda Waller. While the JSA's lack of appearances in prior films could be explained as the result of them having disbanded in the past, they were never mentioned or even alluded to before this. In fact, previous movies made it seem like the Justice League were the first publicly known superheroes in the DCEU.
Live-Action TV
Live-Action
- Batman (1966): In season 3, Calamity Jan is established as Shame's long-term girlfriend even though, in his previous appearance, he had a different female accomplice and implied lover, who is never mentioned in season 3.
Video Games
Video Games
- Prior to his appearance in Batman: Arkham Knight, Jason Todd was absolutely unmentioned in the first two games and companion media, not even mentioned in the database entries and the Batcave DLC we see in City was missing the iconic Robin display monument. About the only reference was an oblique comment ("Didn't I Kill You Already?") in the Joker's Funland challenge DLC. Knight has several flashbacks dealing with Todd before The Reveal. Why is this prominent? It's because Jason Todd is the very same Arkham Knight who serves as the titular Dragon to Scarecrow.
Western Animation
Western Animation
- The Batman does this to both Commissioner Gordon and Lucius Fox when they make their debuts. While according to
producer Jeff Matsuda, Gordon was the young officer in the flashback in "Traction", Gordon hadn't appeared in the present until "Night and the City", where it's revealed that he'd had his alliance with Batman for a while before that episode, despite Ellen Yin filling that role in the show before he appeared. Likewise, Lucius is used in a similar manner to his The Dark Knight Trilogy counterpart, though while his debut episode, "The Joining, Part 1" does present him as being present behind the scenes, it did show him meeting Dick Grayson for the first time. - DC Animated Universe:
- Batman: The Animated Series:
- While "Christmas with the Joker" and "I've Got Batman in My Basement" marked the debuts of the Joker and the Penguin respectively in the series. Unlike with Catwoman, the Riddler, or the other rogues, where their debuts marked the first time Bruce ran into them, those episodes were treated as just the most recent encounters with their respective villains - indeed, "Christmas with the Joker" starts with the Joker breaking out of Arkham, presuming that Batman had already put him there after a previous crime. This was a stipulation in the show's bible, as audiences, even if they weren't particularly big on actually reading the comics, were expected to already be familiar with two of Batman's most well-known and notorious arch-enemies thanks to the 1966 show and Tim Burton's movies.
- The New Batman Adventures era had "The Demon Within", which saw the debut of Etrigan and likewise clearly displayed Bruce and Jason Blood having a history. That said, the crew did do an annual for The Batman Adventures that did detail Bruce's first meeting with Jason and his other half.
- The Superman: The Animated Series episode "The Hand of Fate" presents Dr. Fate has having been active and worked with Superman prior to the episode despite being his debut.
- Batman Beyond:
- Max Gibson appears in the second season as one of Terry's closer friends, despite not appearing or being mentioned at all in the first season.
- Mad Stan's onscreen debut in "Rats" was not the first time Terry had encountered him.
- The Royal Flush Gang is supposed to have a history with Batman, since King only returns to Gotham to settle some grudge, but the Royal Flush Gang never appeared before in Batman the Animated Series. And when an actual Royal Flush Gang shows up in Justice League, they have no connection to Beyond's Royal Flush Gang. (the former are child soldiers as a result of Cadmus experiments, while the latter are career criminals and a Villainous Legacy.)
- Justice League:
- Of the original seven members, Shayera Hol (formerly Hawkgirl) was a blatant example of this. She'd never shown up anywhere onscreen in the DC Animated Universe continuity prior to her first appearance in the three-part premiere episode "Secret Origins," but the other main characters evidently already knew who she was. "Starcrossed" mentions that she's been on Earth for 5 years now. Highly doubtful that the first two seasons went on for 5 years in-universe.
- John Stewart, the Green Lantern, also counts, though his example isn't as obvious because the Green Lantern Corps and their individual members had already been shown in the earlier Superman: The Animated Series episode "In Brightest Day" (where new recruit Kyle Rayner was the focus character). Season 2 at least explains this, revealing that after Kyle was recruited, he was sent to Oa for training and the Guardians recalled John, an experienced Lantern who'd been off in deep space at the time, to take over as the sector's official Green Lantern.
- Batman: The Animated Series:
