DC Comics was born from a debt-ridden publisher's unpaid printing bills
The DC in DC Comics stands for Detective Comics, a title its founder could barely afford to print. Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson owed so much to his distributor that he had to take him on as a partner, then was pushed out within a year, just before Superman and Batman turned the firm into a giant.
Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in 1935. Its first comic, New Fun, carried a February 1935 cover date and, unusually for the time, printed original stories rather than reprinted newspaper strips. The early mix was funnies, Westerns and adventure, though issue six introduced Doctor Occult by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the oldest DC superhero still in use. Detective Comics, advertised for December 1936, finally appeared with a March 1937 cover date.
By then he was deep in debt to Harry Donenfeld, a printer and magazine distributor. To publish Detective Comics, he formed Detective Comics, Inc. with Donenfeld's side, listing Donenfeld's accountant Jack Liebowitz as co-owner. Cash kept running short, Wheeler-Nicholson was forced out after about a year, and the new company bought his old firm's remains at a bankruptcy auction.
Then came the boom. Action Comics, with a June 1938 cover date, introduced Superman and is regarded as the first superhero comic, launching what fans call the Golden Age. Batman, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, debuted in Detective Comics in 1939. A sister firm run by Max Gaines, All-American Publications, merged in 1946 to form National Comics Publications. DC also fought imitators hard, suing Fawcett over Captain Marvel, then the best-selling comic character; Fawcett gave up and quit comics in 1953.
When superheroes faded in the late 1940s, DC turned to science fiction, Westerns, humour and romance. Editor Julius Schwartz revived the genre in 1956 by inventing a new Flash, Barry Allen, in Showcase issue four. Today the company, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and based in Burbank since 2015, ranks second to Marvel in comic shops.
Source: DC Comics
