Congratulations! You’ve been hired by the Justice League. Your title is “Hero,” your qualifications are “showed up,” and your first assignment is standing in Metropolis next to Superman while a stranger in a very small cape asks you where the good loot is. Welcome to DC Universe Online, the game where you can create your own superhero and then spend the entire first hour in the character creator, agonizing over the exact shade of your cape and a name that isn’t already taken by eleven thousand other guys who thought “Night-something” was original.
The premise is gloriously simple: you get to live in the same world as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of DC’s heavy hitters, and the heavy hitters are weirdly cool about it. Nobody asks for a résumé. Nobody questions why a hero named “SteelGhostFlash7” is suddenly on the Watchtower. The Joker is out there being the Joker, Lex Luthor is out there being smug, and you are out there trying to figure out whether you’re a legend in the making or just a guy in tights who’s very good at following the glowing arrow on the map.
Leaping into the DC playground with us is David Gallaher, writer of some of your favorite video games and comics, which means he’s spent years inventing heroes and villains on purpose, a luxury the rest of us only get in a character creator. David has been on both sides of the page, so he’s perfect for the question at the heart of this episode: when you drop yourself into a universe where the icons were already established decades ago, do you feel like a hero, or a very enthusiastic extra with a better costume?
So grab your most dramatic cape, practice your brooding stare in the mirror, and settle in. Somewhere out there a hero is saving the city, and he’s definitely using a username he regrets.
Learn such things as:
- How weird do character names get when you can’t have repeats even after 15+ years of a game existing?
- Is it really that important to pick a good mentor?
- What happens if there’s a big giant threat and they need everyone to come help defeat it and you just… don’t?
- And so much more!
You can find David on BlueSky @DavidGallaher or on LinkedIn @dgallaher.
If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in.
If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store.
Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix.
Play Comics is also part of Art Comedy Pop-Culture Network, which is a long-standing creative organization spawning from a love of Adult Swim. Be sure to check them out for all sorts of entertainment news, commentary, and just plain fun stuff.
You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website.
If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out.
A big thanks to Across the Whoniverse and The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective for the promos today.
Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who is already a hero in my eyes.
