10 Most Heartbreaking Moments In The DC Animated Universe

6. The Black Mercy - Justice League Unlimited

Warner Bros.

Alan Moore and David Gibbons' For the Man Who Has Everything is one of the greatest Superman stories ever told. Turns out it also makes for a pretty great episode of Justice League Unlimited!

Adapted for the DCAU by J.M. DeMatteis and Dan Riba, this particular adaptation is the only one where Moore has given his blessing for his name to be credited. That should go some way in illustrating just how great an episode it is, and especially in how it translated the emotional weight of the comic from the page to the screen.

The story takes place on Superman's birthday. Batman and Wonder Woman go to the Fortress of Solitude with gifts of their own, only to discover that the Man of Steel is in the thrall of an alien plant, known as the Black Mercy. The parasitic life form provides its host with their dream reality, and for Kal-El, this happens to be a life on Krypton, where he has a wife and child.

As Batman and Wonder Woman work to sever the plant from Supes, Mongul announces himself and a fight ensues. The disruption causes Kal to slowly snap out of the reality, but doing so means letting go of his wife and child. We may know it's all fake, but to Supes it feels as real as ever, and the end result is truly heartbreaking.

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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.