# DC Retroactive

DC Retroactive is a line of one-shot comic book issues published by DC Comics. It revisited periods (grouped by decades) of the company's main characters: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Justice League, and the Flash. These comics were published with cover dates of September and October 2011. The DC Retroactive comic books followed the Flashpoint event and were launched just before The New 52 line wherein DC titles were relaunched starting from #1.

## Publication history

The one-shots featured different characters with a nostalgic version of their most representative decades. DC brought back some of the most relevant creative teams in the history of its main characters. Dennis O'Neil wrote Batman during the 1970s, as well as working with artist Mike Grell on the mid-1970s version of Green Lantern.
The Retroactive line also brought back writers and artists had not worked for DC for many years; some of whom had retired from comics, such as Rich Buckler, who drew one Wonder Woman story. Mike W. Barr, Cary Bates, Norm Breyfogle, Gerry Conway, Tom Mandrake, and Len Wein worked on the characters which they were associated with in the past.
Each comic book was published in a 46-page format, split between 26 pages of new content, plus 20 pages of reprinted tales.
Ben Abernathy, one of the editors of the project, stated: "It's the creators working on the characters that so many fans grew up reading. Readers have a real fondness and love for the material. And the opportunity to revisit that era, with the creators who made it great, is a welcome change from everything else going on in the industry these days". Abernathy also noted that "the mandate given was, basically, we wanted to tell a fun story that was set in the era, whether it be posed as a 'lost story', 'story they always wanted to tell' or maybe something connected to the reprint".
On June 21 2011, DC revealed the covers for the 1970s issues on The Source blog.

## Titles

| Issue | Cover date | Writer(s) | Artist(s) |
| Batman - The '70s | September 2011 | Len Wein | Tom Mandrake |
| Batman - The '80s | October 2011 | Mike W. Barr | Jerry Bingham |
| Batman - The '90s | October 2011 | Alan Grant | Norm Breyfogle |
| The Flash - The '70s | September 2011 | Cary Bates | Benito Gallego and Sal Buscema |
| The Flash - The '80s | October 2011 | William Messner-Loebs | Greg LaRocque |
| The Flash - The '90s | October 2011 | Brian Augustyn | Mike Bowden and Joe Seung |
| Green Lantern - The '70s | September 2011 | Dennis O'Neil | Mike Grell |
| Green Lantern - The '80s | October 2011 | Len Wein | Joe Staton and Andy Owens |
| Green Lantern - The '90s | October 2011 | Ron Marz | Darryl Banks and Terry Austin |
| Justice League - The '70s | September 2011 | Cary Bates | Gordon Purcell and Andy Smith |
| Justice League - The '80s | October 2011 | Gerry Conway | Ron Randall |
| Justice League - The '90s | October 2011 | Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis | Kevin Maguire |
| Superman - The '70s | September 2011 | Martin Pasko | Eduardo Barreto and Christian Duce |
| Superman - The '80s | October 2011 | Marv Wolfman | Sergio Cariello |
| Superman - The '90s | October 2011 | Louise Simonson | Jon Bogdanove |
| Wonder Woman - The '70s | September 2011 | Dennis O'Neil | J. Bone |
| Wonder Woman - The '80s | October 2011 | Roy Thomas | Rich Buckler and Joe Rubinstein |
| Wonder Woman - The '90s | October 2011 | William Messner-Loebs | Lee Moder and Dan Green |

## Collected editions

* Tales of the Batman: Len Wein includes Batman - The '70s, 640 pages, December 2014 (ISBN 978-1401251543)
* Justice League of America: The Detroit Era Omnibus includes Justice League - The '80s, 1,040 pages, December 2017 (ISBN 978-1401276850)
* The DC Universe by Len Wein includes Green Lantern - The '80s, 384 pages, February 2019 (ISBN 978-1401287887)