Originally founded as National Allied Publications in 1934, DC Comics is one of the most successful and giant American comics company. The publishing division of DC Entertainment Inc.; DC Comics, is owned by Warner Bros. DC Comics is widely known for its comic books presentingworld famous super heroes such as; Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, Hawkman, Captain Marvel, Green Arrow, Robin, Plasticman, Supergirl, Teen Titans, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, Justice League, etc and villains like; Lex Luthor, Catwoman, Ra's al Ghul, The Joker, and so on.
The name DC Comics is derived from a popular publication of this company; Detective Comics. The official headquarters of DC Comics is in New York at 1700 Broadway, Midtown Manhattan. Random House Distributers and Diamond Comics Distributors are the major distributers of DC Comics. DC Comics along with Marvel Comics shares over 80% of American comic book market.

In February of 1935, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson published the first comic; ‘New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1’. In the December of same year second title appeared; ‘New Comics #1’. Then ‘Adventure Comics’ was published, which continued till 1983, issue number 503 being the last one.

In 1936 Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson came up with his final title, ‘Detective Comics’ which got published in March 1937.
Wheeler-Nicholson was in debt by 1937 so he had to make Donenfeld and Jack S. Liebowitz his partners and thus Detective Comics Inc. was formed. Wheeler-Nicholson later left the company because of economical problems and soon at a bankruptcy auction Detective Comics Inc. purchased the remains of Nicholson Publishing i.e. National Allied. After this, the forth title ‘Action Comics’ was launched in which Superman was introduced and this comics was a great success. Later other superheroes Batman, Wonder Woman and Sandman were also launched.

Golden Age
National Allied Publications, Detective Comics, Inc. and All-American Publications merged together and formed ‘National Comics’, which later became ‘National Periodical Publications’. They used ‘Superman-DC’ as their logo because of which people started knowing the company by the name of DC Comics. After some years, the company officially adopted this name. Other comics companies started copying the superhero theme of DC Comics. For example, Captain Marvel of Fawcett Comics was a copy of Superman. DC Comics gave a good judicial fight and finally purchased Captain Marvel who was later revived as Shazam. By 1940s, superhero theme started becoming less popular so DC Comics started writing on science fiction, crime, horror, humor, romance and westerns.

Silver Age
In mid 1950s, new super heroes Green Lantern, Supergirl, Brainiac, Bizarro, Batwoman, Batgirl, Bat-Mite, and Justice League of America were introduced. Old characters, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman were developed more. Irwin Donenfeld, Julius Schwartz, Robert Kanigher, John Broome, Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, Mort Weisinger, Jordan Stewart were the heads working behind these superheroes. DC Universe and DC Multiverse later appeared in which most of the superheroes stories were published with golden age heroes living on Earth 1 and silver age heroes living on Earth 2. Gradually, T.V. series were produced based on heroes like Batman, Superman and heroines like Wonder Woman which helped in the increase of DC Comics sale. But later number one position of DC Comics was threatened by Marvel Comics. So DC Comics refined their team of editors, writers, artists and they decided to write for older teens and college students as well. Infantino, Steve Ditko, Neal Adams, Dennis O'Neil were the people working for DC Comics during this period. Silver age did not prove to be that good for DC Comics.
New series and concepts like New Gods, The Forever People, Mister Miracle, Darkseid, Apokolips, Kamandi, talking animals were introduced in The Forth World.

The Bronze Age
1970s and 1980s was the Bronze Age when darker and more naturalized themes like Illegal drug use were presented in the comics through the characters like Green Lantern, Speedy and Green Arrow. In one story, Green Arrow is depicted as a heroin addict. DC Comics took up a new strategy ‘DC Explosion’ to rule the comics market by flooding it with comics. Firestorm, Shade, the Changing Man and other non superhero characters were introduced. Number of titles, story pages and even the price was increased. This move was not very successful and there was ‘DC Implosion’; reducing titles, story pages and price. DC Comics changed its policies; they started offering royalties, created a concept of limited series of comic books and made the publishing format more flexible. In 1980s a new series; ‘The New Teen Titans’ was introduced which earned good sales.

Late 1980s
‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ is a 12-issue limited series of Wolfman/Pérez in which DC Comics corrected their past mistakes and errors and revised and updated the major famous characters like Superman and Wonder Woman. ‘The History of the DC Universe’ was published in two issues in which history of all major characters was presented in brief. ‘Batman: The Dark Knight Returns’ and ‘Watchmen’ were the two limited series of DC Comics during 1980s. They were based on dark psychological issues which grabbed the attention of grown up public as well. Many DC titles and war comics came to an end during this period, which included; Sgt. Rock, The Unknown Soldier, Weird War Tales and G.I. Combat. The first Batman movie released in 1989 so, DC Comics started publishing DC Archive Editions of Batman.

1990s and 2000s
During this period Superman died, Batman faced a ‘knight fall’ and Green Lantern turned into Parallax, a super villain which increased sales dramatically. When the sales again dropped off, DC introduced mature reading series like; ‘Piranha Press’, ‘Helix’ and ‘Vertigo’. Collections of individual comics, trade paperback and graphic novels were increased by DC Comics. ‘Paradox Press’ was established and ‘Wildstorm Comics’ was purchased. In 2003, DC acquired the rights of long running series ‘Elfquest’. ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ and ‘DC Universe’ were reshuffled in 2004 and in 2005 a limited series ‘Infinite Crisis’, a new “All Star’ line, ‘All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder’, ‘All-Star Superman’ and a weekly series’ 52’ were launched. In 2006 ‘All Star Wonder Woman’ and ‘All Star Bat Girl’ were announced. In September 2009, DC Comics was made a subsidiary to DC Entertainment Inc.

The logo of DC Comics contains only two letters; ‘DC’ which stand for Detective Comics.