8 Oldest DC Characters

Martian Manhunter is a lot older than you may think...

Martian Manhunter DC Comics
DC Comics

DC Comics may not be as famed for their cosmic stories as Marvel is these days, but the company is by no means short of historic figures.

Much like the House of Ideas, DC boasts a varied cast of characters with some figures even being centuries, millennia or even millions of years old. Unlike Marvel, however, most of DC's oldest figures actually play a recurring role in the publisher's stories, fighting on the side of both good and evil with the kind of wisdom that would make even the sagest of superhero mentors green with envy.

In some instances, it's even downright surprising that these characters are as old as they are, with it becoming apparent that writers and artists have only touched upon a fragment of their lives in the comics.

Unfortunately, DC don't tend to really telegraph the ages of their characters as well as their rivals, so there are likely to be a whole load of figures who are older that won't make it onto the list. However, one thing there's no denying is that the following figures are both old AF and are tremendously iconic, having featured in some of the most famous and impactful DC stories of the modern age.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.