Publishers
First appearances by publisher
Every character in the archive, organized by the publisher that launched them. Pick a house.
Marvel
The House of Ideas
Timely to Atlas to Marvel. The publisher that redefined superhero storytelling in the Silver Age with Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men, and that has set the pace of the medium across every era since.
DC
Home of the Trinity
National Allied Publications, Detective Comics Inc., DC Comics. The publisher that invented the superhero with Superman in 1938 and has been the steward of Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Justice League ever since.
Image
Creator-owned
Founded in 1992 by a group of Marvel superstars who wanted ownership of their creations. Home of Spawn, Savage Dragon, Invincible, Saga, and the modern creator-owned tradition.
Indies
Mirage, IDW, Dynamite, 2000 AD & more
The rollup of every publisher outside the Big Two and the dedicated imprint hubs. Mirage and IDW (TMNT), Dynamite (The Boys), 2000 AD (Judge Dredd), Caliber (The Crow), Cartoon Books (Bone), and decades of smaller independent publishers that produced some of the medium’s most distinctive creator-owned works. Dark Horse, Vertigo, and Archie have their own hubs; this hub catches everything else.
Dark Horse
Indie heavyweight since 1986
Founded by Mike Richardson in 1986. Home of Hellboy, Sin City, The Mask, Concrete, and decades of creator-owned independent publishing. Held the licensed Star Wars comics catalogue from 1991 to 2014. One of the largest independent American comics publishers and the launching pad for properties that became foundational films, television series, and video games.
Archie
Riverdale, since 1941
Founded in 1941 as MLJ Magazines and renamed Archie Comics in 1946 after the breakout success of its teenage-everyman feature. Eight decades of continuous publishing centered on Archie Andrews, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and the broader Riverdale ensemble. Sabrina the Teenage Witch debuted in Archie’s Mad House #22 (1962). Modern reframings include the 2013 Afterlife with Archie horror line and the prestige-television Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina adaptations.
Vertigo
Mature-readers DC imprint
DC’s mature-readers imprint, founded in 1993 under Karen Berger. Home of Sandman, Preacher, Hellblazer, Y: The Last Man, Lucifer, and a generation of creator-driven prestige comics that redefined what mainstream-publisher books could be. Vertigo characters also appear under DC since the imprint is a DC subsidiary; the two terms are used interchangeably in collector vocabulary.