Taking its name from Detective Comics, the longest-running title in comic book history (it began in 1937 and is still around today), DC Comics made its mark in the late 1930s as a publisher of exciting, four-color adventures full of larger-than-life heroes and villains. Today, as part of Time-Warner’s publishing arm, it is still a dominant force in the industry. The company only trails rival Marvel Comics in terms of market share (22.4% to 20.58% of the dollar value of all products), according to the latest figures from Diamond Comics, the industry’s largest distribution channel.

Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, a colorful character himself, started DC in 1935 with little more than a shoestring budget and a desire to make his mark in the nascent medium called comic books. Unlike other publishers of that age, Wheeler-Nicholson decided to print original stories rather than repackage newspaper comic strips. By 1938, however, he was deep in debt, so he agreed to a buy-out from businessmen Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz.

Detective Comics was one of the three titles included in the buy-out, and soon Donenfeld and Liebowitz added a fourth, Action Comics. Strapped for original stories, they contacted a friend at a newspaper syndicate and asked for copies of comic strips that had been rejected. One of them was the story of a hero called Superman, the brainchild of artist Joe Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel. He made his debut in Action Comics #1, which was published in June 1938 with a striking cover that featured Superman lifting a car over his head.

The character was a hit, and within a year sales of Action Comics hit one million copies per issue, a number that defined typical circulation during what’s now known as comic books’ Golden Age (1938-1954). Today, the top books sell around 250,000 copies. During the last boom period, which ended in the mid 1990s, sales numbers were comparable to Golden Age numbers, but they were inflated by speculators who bought multiple copies of comic books in the hope that they would increase in value. Ironically, DC Comics’ highly publicized death of Superman storyline, which climaxed in late 1992, is widely considered the beginning of a bust that still reverberates today. Once speculators realized their purchases would be almost worthless against other hoarders, they left the industry in droves.

As war broke out in Europe in 1939, however, very few people considered collecting comic books for their possible monetary value. Instead, kids bought them for their entertainment value, and that year DC gave them another hero to worship in the form of Bob Kane’s Batman, who first appeared in Detective Comics #27. In many ways a yin to Superman’s yang, Batman is a brooding hero driven to destroy evil because of his parents’ untimely death at the hands of a street thug. (There are only a handful of near-mint copies of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 in existence today, and they fetch six-figure sums at auctions.)

As DC grew and superheroes became increasingly popular, the company introduced many more characters who still survive to this day, including Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Arrow. Batman and Superman continued to top the sales charts, and the company gave them eponymous series and expanded their supporting cast of characters.

Through the late 1960s, Superman and Batman were presented as wholesome heroes who always conquered the bad guys and stood up for truth, justice, and the American way. Both characters appeared in several theatrical serials during that time, and in 1953 Superman received his own weekly TV series. In 1966, Batman became the star of a TV show that’s still known today for its cornball kitsch.

As the first generation of comic book readers became adults, though, the industry matured with them. During the 1970s, Batman became a brooding loner as Robin went off to college and DC made the character more tragic. This movement culminated in the 1986 publication of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, which features an aging Batman who fights his last battle with the villainous Joker and later takes on Superman, who went to work for the government after superheroes were outlawed.

The same year, DC published Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons seminal work Watchmen, which used a new set of superheroes to tell a tale that was light-years beyond the corny silliness of the earlier comic books. DC even created a new slogan --“Comics aren’t just for kids”-- during this period as the company tried to attract adults to its publications. This angle worked to a certain degree, but comic books in the US have never attracted adult audiences as they do in the rest of the world.

DC kept trying, though, as acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman reinvented one of the company’s oldest characters for the comic book The Sandman, which debuted in 1989. Instead of relying on superhero clichés, Gaiman crafted stories infused with a mix of minor characters from the DC pantheon, bits and pieces of ancient world mythologies, and works of classic literature such as Shakespeare’s plays. The result was a popular series that defied conventions and finally lured some adventurous adults into the industry. DC even created an imprint called Vertigo that soon featured an entire line of comic books aimed squarely at what they called “mature readers.”

Superheroes are the bread and butter of the US comic book industry for the foreseeable future, though, and DC will always be defined by Batman and Superman. The two have starred in eight major motion pictures since 1979 and continue to be major sources of licensing revenue for parent company Time Warner. While the Warner Bros. film studio did manage to run both film franchises into the ground, hopes continue to run high among comic book fandom that the oft-rumored new Batman and Superman films, including one starring both of them, will begin production soon. Rival Marvel scored a financial windfall with the first entries in its Spider-Man and X-Men film series, and DC would like to show the world that the industry’s two oldest superheroes still have some life in them.

After all, Superman was able to return from the dead.

Brad Cook is a freelance writer based in Sunnyvale, CA. He has published over 120 articles in a variety of print and online media since 1995.