For superheroes to be characters who are meant to inspire hope, the future seems like it always turns out terribly for them. In fairness, that’s largely because dystopian timelines offer so much more story potential. It offers a chance to see how the hero handles things when everything they’ve ever fought for has gone wrong, and pushes them into battles with even greater odds they have to try to overcome...if they can overcome them at all.
But not every future is a complete mess. Sometimes everything the heroes have fought for isn’t in vain, and we get to see a world where all the hard work has paid off. For this list, we’re looking at both sides of the coin, and getting a glimpse at five of the best (and worst) alternate timelines for DC Comics.
10 WORST: DARK KNIGHT RETURNS
Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns takes an old version of Bruce Wayne and drags him out of retirement to try and bring some peace to Gotham once and for all. In the time since he’s been gone, the world has deteriorated massively. The Cold War is at its height, and Gotham itself is under the control of a large gang known as the Mutants. Even superheroes and their work have been outlawed as vigilantism, leaving only the “government sanctioned” Superman remaining. It’s a grim world, but Batman is willing to do whatever it takes to put fear back into the hearts of the superstitious and cowardly.
9 BEST: KINGDOM COME
When Superman realizes that humanity wants a more bloodthirsty hero than he’s willing to be, the Kryptonian steps aside for the next few years before he’s finally forced to make a return. While this timeline has its moments of being absolutely horrible, in the end things actually trend for the better. Superman and the Justice League gather all the knucklehead villains and heroes getting into meaningless fights and they get transported to Themyscira. Meanwhile, the Justice League is back at full power, Superman and Wonder Woman are married and having a child, and everyone lives happily ever after.
8 WORST: TITANS TOMORROW
In the early 2000s, Geoff Johns played a major role in bringing the Teen Titans back to prominence with his run on the team, which mixed the classic Wolfman/Perez team with the core of the Young Justice roster. One of the more memorable stories of that timeline was “Titans Tomorrow”, a story where our Titans wound up shot forward a few years in the future. There they would meet their older selves, only to find out they had become much darker, killing villains rather than imprisoning them. This future world has a divided United States, with one half being ruled over by the Titans while the other is constantly battling with them.
7 BEST: BATMAN BEYOND
It’s easy to look at some parts of Batman Beyond and view it as a pretty terrible future. But all things considered, this universe isn’t all that bad. It has a Batman watching over it in Terry McGinnis, and while Gotham has gotten worse it’s not unsalvageable.
In fact, just a few years at the job and Gotham slowly claws back to being what it was when Bruce was protecting it. If all that is hard to believe, we should also remember that this timeline has a Justice League as well, meaning there’s still plenty of heroes available to defend tomorrow.
6 WORST: NEW 52: FUTURES END
As if the New 52 wasn’t depressing enough. With the New 52 properly established as the current canon, DC decided to show us what its future would look like through the weekly series The New 52: Futures End. Five years into the future, the planet is reeling after taking in a number of refugees from Earth 2, their next door multiversal neighbor. They’ve just narrowly survived a war with Darkseid, with many heroes either dead or missing in the aftermath. Worse yet? Thirty more years into the future, Brother Eye has enslaved all of mankind, roboticizing all of the heroes who could free them.
5 SUPERMAN AND BATMAN: GENERATIONS
In the late 90’s and early 2000’s DC gave legendary creator John Byrne an opportunity to tell his own Elseworlds story. To his credit, he didn’t go for the usual “and then all the horrible things happen” once he had freedom to write the characters as he pleased. Instead, Superman & Batman: Generations sees the story of Bruce and Clark unfold throughout decades, stretching out ito centuries. Bruce becomes ageless thanks to a Lazarus Pit, and between both of their lineages they’re able to turn the entire galaxy into a utopia.
4 WORST: DAMIAN WAYNE BATMAN
We never really get to see any of the world of Damian Wayne’s future outside of Gotham. It wouldn’t be the first time the rest of the world left Gotham to its weirdness. But a closer look reveals the rest of the planet is being torn apart by climate change and terrorism. As usual, though, Gotham is even worse, as the city is constantly dealing with much more dangerous versions of existing Batman villains. Fortunately, Damian has complete control of the city, booby-trapping Gotham to work for him. A future where everyone believes the original Batman is dead, Damian becomes the Dark Knight for a much darker tomorrow.
3 BEST: LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
In the 31st century, the Justice League is no more. But in its place stands the Legion of Super-Heroes, a group of teenagers from different worlds across the galaxy that work together to keep the ideas and optimism of heroes alive. This is often viewed as the “canon” future of the DC Universe, so maybe the heroes of that era didn’t do a bad job for once?
Especially since the Legion frequently goes back in time to grab Superman and show him how awesome things are in their time period. Admittedly, things eventually go wrong in most versions of the Legion (5 Year Later...Legion Lost...whatever it was that happened to the New 52 Legion), but they always manage to bounce back.
2 WORST: ROCK OF AGES
Grant Morrison gave us a version of the JLA that felt more like gods than superheroes, but even gods can fall. Especially when they’re confronted with even more powerful gods, like in this Rock of Ages story. The League has yet another confrontation with Lex Luthor and the Injustice Gang, but when the group makes a mistake and destroy the Philosopher’s Stone, it leaves Darkseid able to swoop in and conquer Earth. Rock of Ages is so dark, we see most of it unfold over a single issue narrated by the Black Racer, the New God of death. The Racer shows the last few hours of the DC Universe before the entire realm is reset.
1 BEST: DC ONE MILLION
DC One Million was Grant Morrison’s idea for a major event while he was working on JLA. Inspired by the Legion of Super-Heroes, we would be introduced to the Justice Legion A, a group of heroes from the 853rd century (approximately one million months from the release of Action Comics #1). In this timeline, humanity has basically reshaped the Milky Way system, colonizing all of its planets and creating unique societies based on whatever planet they live on. All of these planets are protected by futuristic versions of the heroes from today, with powers and abilities capable of handling the fantastic problems of tomorrow. There’s no superhero timeline anywhere better than this one.