DC has been making comics for a long time. In their over eighty years of history, they've created some of the most respected heroes ever and their stories have captured the imaginations of countless fans. They've also introduced a lot of new concepts to comics, including the multiverse. DC didn't create the multiverse but they've perfected it, creating scores of alternate Earths.
Over the years, the DC Multiverse has taken readers to all kinds of new and interesting worlds. Some of them are reflections of the familiar DC Universe and yet others are quite different, strange new worlds full of wonders and terrors unlike anything readers knew before.
10 The Worlds Of The Dark Multiverse Are A Terrible Inverse Of The Multiverse
The Dark Multiverse was introduced in Dark Knights: Metal and since then has become an interesting part of the DC Multiverse. Twisted worlds where everything went wrong, these worlds have given readers glimpses of DC Universes where the familiar was flipped upside down. These broken worlds are full of terrors and provide a dark mirror for the Multiverse above.
These worlds represent paths not taken, worlds where one little change created something completely different from the world that everyone is used to. They give readers a unique look into a mirror darkly.
9 The Earth One Books Have Their Own World
The Earth One series of graphic novels was a back-to-basics approach for some of the DC's biggest characters, clean slates for characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and more. While that doesn't seem so strange, it is when one looks at the list of worlds in The Multiversity Guidebook and sees that all of those books share one world.
What makes this weird is that these books have no narrative cohesion whatsoever. Each one is basically its own world, so the fact that they all supposedly exist on one Earth makes the whole thing extremely out of the ordinary.
8 The World Of Gotham By Gaslight Was Victorian Steampunk At Its Finest
Gotham By Gaslight, by writer Brian Augustyn and artist Mike Mignola, is one of the best alternate takes on Batman out there. Starring Batman hunting down Jack The Ripper in a Victorian Gotham, it grabbed readers immediately with its steampunk stylings and intriguing story. Putting Batman in a Victorian setting was a novel idea, one that paid dividends.
DC would eventually add even more classic heroes to this world, creating a great new world for the superheroes of its universe. Its Victorian steampunk sensibilities are something that is rare in the mainstream comic industry and worth exploring.
7 Batman: Red Rain's Vampire Infested World Was An Intriguing Counterpoint To The DC Universe
Batman: Red Rain, by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones, is an Elseworlds classic. With Gotham under attack by Dracula, Batman does the unthinkable and becomes a vampire to fight against his new dark foe. This leads him to some terrible places, as the Dark Knight proves unable to control his bloodlust and terrorizes those he once protected.
Red Rain would go on to have a few sequels and played up the darkness inherent to Batman in ways that heretofore had been unseen. A world with a vampire Batman is an intriguing counterpoint, a strange place fans would love to revisit.
6 Earth-3 Is The World Where Evil Wins
The heroes of the DC Universe as known as paragons of virtue, setting the standard for every hero in comics. The Multiverse is a big place, though, and there are Earths where anything is possible and that's where Earth-3 comes in. Earth-3 is the world where evil always wins, where the familiar heroes of the Justice League have become the depraved villains of the Crime Syndicate.
Earth-3 is one of the most well-known alternate Earths, but that makes its existence no less strange. A world where Superman and so many familiar heroes, the purest of the pure, are evil is always going to be a bizarre place.
5 Earth-8 Is Basically The Marvel Universe
The Multiverse is full of worlds that seem strange to readers but there's one that is very familiar. The heroes and villains of Earth-8, known to its inhabitants as the world Angor, are all quite marvelous and share similarities with DC's competition, Marvel Comics. From Machinehead and the Retaliators to Lord Havok and the Extremists, this world is a pastiche of the Marvel Universe.
It gets even more fun when one realizes that Earth-7, destroyed by the Gentry in Multiversity, is basically the Ultimate Marvel Universe. DC putting not one but two Marvel-based Earths in its Multiverse is great.
4 Earth-13 Is Home To The League Of Shadows
Earth-13 is a very different DC Earth. Instead of being protected by the Justice League or a similar analogue, it's the home to the League of Shadows. This League is composed of magic-based versions of the heroes of the DC Universe and is led by Superdemon, a combination of Superman and Etrigan the demon.
DC's magic-using characters are some of the best in comics and giving them a whole Earth was a great idea. While it has only been glimpsed so far, it looks to be playing a bigger role in the DC Omniverse in the future.
3 Earth-10 Is The Nazi Earth
Earth-10 takes the villains always win aspects of Earth-3 and goes to the Nth degree. Earth-10 is a world where Kal-El landed in Germany and became Overman, the Third Reich's greatest weapon. The superheroes of the world would join him as the New Reichsmen, battling the American heroes of the Freedom Fighters.
In the old pre-Crisis Multiverse, Earth-10 was known as Earth-X and lacked the New Reichsmen. This new version brings something new to the concept, making it more interesting.
2 Earth-5 Is The Thunderworld, Home Of The Marvel Family
Shazam is one of the most powerful heroes in the DC Universe but he also has his own Multiversal world. Earth-5, known as Earth-S in the pre-Crisis Multiverse and also called Thunderworld, is home to the characters of Fawcett Comics that DC bought in the Golden Age, including Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family. Shazam still goes by his old name on Thunderworld and it's a throwback to a more optimistic time.
Thunderworld feels like a '50s comic, full of upright smiling superheroes battling sci-fi villains of all stripes. Eschewing the gritty realism that has pervaded comics for years, it's a world of high adventure and fun stories for readers of all ages.
1 JLA: The Nail Presented A Very Different DC Universe
JLA: The Nail and its sequel Another Nail, by writer/artist Alan Davis, are Elseworlds classics and represent one of the best alternate universe DC stories. The key difference between this universe and the one readers know is that the Kents got a flat tire and never found baby Kal-El. This sequence of events changed the DC Universe forever.
JLA: The Nail showed a Silver Age DC Universe that had a lot of key differences between it and the main world. When readers finally see Superman, he's very different than anything they imagined and the sequel plays perfectly off background plot threads left by Davis in the first. This weird alternate take on the DC Universe is worth a visit.