DC Comics | Forge Your Own Legacy

Late afternoon sunlight burns gold across the glass towers of Metropolis.

Traffic crawls beneath elevated rail lines. Crowds stream out of office buildings. The massive globe above the Daily Planet catches the light while news helicopters circle somewhere farther downtown.

Across the street, every exterior door at S.T.A.R. Labs has been sealed.

Two black government SUVs sit at the curb beside a cluster of police vehicles. Technicians move equipment through a temporary perimeter while several uniformed officers redirect pedestrians around the block.

A television mounted inside an electronics shop plays the same breaking story being repeated across the city.

UNIDENTIFIED ENERGY EVENT AT S.T.A.R. LABS

The reporter speaks over distant footage of the facility.

“Officials have declined to speculate on the source of the disturbance. Witnesses reported a flash of blue-white light approximately twenty minutes ago, followed by temporary communications interference across several downtown blocks.”

A teenager wearing a Superman shirt argues with his friend near the window.

“I’m telling you, that streak was Superman.”

“It was going the wrong direction.”

“So? He can turn.”

Nearby, one of the government agents studies a tablet while her partner watches the sealed laboratory entrance.

The rest of Metropolis keeps moving.

Nobody is waiting for {{user}}.

Nobody knows what happens next.

Gotham does not sleep.

It simply changes shifts.

Rainwater glitters beneath streetlights along Burnley Avenue as taxis cut through the intersection and an elevated train rattles somewhere beyond the old brick buildings.

A twenty-four-hour diner glows warmly on one corner.

Across the street, a pawn shop owner drags down his security gate while two GCPD officers finish taking statements beside a damaged sedan. Neither situation seems connected to the other.

Farther down the block, music escapes every time the door of a crowded bar opens.

Someone laughs.

A delivery truck double-parks.

A man under an umbrella argues loudly into his phone.

Above it all, gargoyles watch from buildings older than most of the people beneath them.

The Bat-Signal is dark.

Whatever Batman is doing tonight, he isn't here.

For the moment, this is simply Gotham: millions of people living beneath legends, criminals, wealth, fear, hope, and tomorrow morning's alarm clock.

The city is open.

The sea is impossibly blue.

Beyond the white surf rises an island hidden from most of the world: cliffs covered in green, marble structures gleaming beneath the sun, distant waterfalls descending toward ancient forests.

Themyscira.

Along the shoreline, Amazon riders approach across the sand.

They do not charge.

They spread into a disciplined formation.

Bronze, leather, steel and ceremonial colors catch the sunlight as horses slow near the water's edge.

At their center, an Amazon commander dismounts.

Behind her, younger warriors watch with a mixture of curiosity and caution while another quietly sends a messenger back toward the city.

No alarm bell sounds.

No army pours onto the beach.

But strangers do not simply appear on Themyscira without being noticed.

The commander stops several yards away.

Her hand rests comfortably near the hilt of her sword, though she does not draw it.

“State your purpose.”

Behind her stretches a civilization the outside world has turned into myth.

Ahead lies the sea.

Oa hangs beneath a sky filled with stars.

Emerald towers rise from the surface of the ancient world, surrounded by streams of Green Lanterns arriving and departing in every direction.

Some are human.

Most are not.

A crystalline being discusses a border dispute with something resembling a living nebula. Two veteran Lanterns escort restrained prisoners toward processing. Recruits cross an enormous training terrace while Kilowog's voice carries over several hundred yards.

Nearby, dozens of power rings project overlapping maps of distant sectors.

Then one map changes.

A sector near the edge of known Corps jurisdiction goes dark.

Not damaged.

Not under attack.

Gone.

The stars remain.

The planets remain.

Every Lantern beacon inside the region simply stops answering at once.

Several rings immediately begin issuing alerts.

A nearby Lantern looks toward the expanding holographic map.

“That wasn't scheduled.”

Across Oa, the Corps continues operating.

But somewhere far beyond its green towers, an entire region of space has just become very quiet.

At 3:17 PM, Central City loses five seconds.

Nobody notices immediately.

The coffee machines continue running.

Traffic lights change.

People cross streets.

A city bus pulls away from the curb outside the Flash Museum.

Then phones begin correcting themselves.

Digital clocks jump.

Security systems report synchronization errors.

A television reporter outside City Hall touches her earpiece as her producer speaks rapidly from the studio.

Inside a nearby café, a man frowns at his smartwatch.

“Did yours just skip?”

His friend looks down.

“Skip what?”

Across town, laboratories begin comparing timestamps.

The police communications network logs thousands of simultaneous discrepancies.

At the Flash Museum, one exhibit briefly activates without power.

Then shuts itself off.

There is no explosion.

No villain announcement.

No army pouring through a portal.

Just five missing seconds.

And somewhere in Central City, someone is going to want to know where they went.

Far beneath the Atlantic, Atlantis glows.

Massive structures rise from the ocean floor beneath shimmering shields and ancient architecture. Schools of fish weave between transport lanes while armored patrols move through the city's outer districts.

The capital is alive with rumor.

Three surface vessels were discovered drifting above restricted Atlantean waters this morning.

Their crews are alive.

Their navigation systems are intact.

None of them remember entering the region.

Inside the royal district, officials argue over whether the incident represents espionage, accident, magic, or something entirely different.

Outside, ordinary Atlanteans continue their lives.

Merchants open stalls.

Children race through public plazas.

Soldiers change shifts.

Political demonstrators gather beneath banners demanding stronger borders with the surface world.

Nobody agrees on what happened.

And despite everything the surface believes about Atlantis, no single person controls every answer.

Something has disturbed the waters between two worlds.

For now, both are still deciding what that means.

The door was not there yesterday.

It stands between a laundromat and a closed bookstore on an otherwise ordinary city street.

Dark wood.

Brass handle.

No address.

People walk past without noticing anything unusual.

One woman nearly collides with it, pauses in confusion, then continues down the sidewalk as though she has already forgotten what she saw.

Behind the door, somewhere that cannot possibly fit inside the building, a grandfather clock strikes thirteen.

Candles ignite one by one.

A hallway stretches into darkness.

Dozens of doors line its walls.

Behind one comes laughter.

Behind another, something scratches slowly against the wood.

At the far end of the corridor, a handwritten note rests on a small table.

Three words cover the page.

DO NOT KNOCK.

From somewhere beyond the wall—

three knocks answer.

Belle Reve Penitentiary wakes before sunrise.

Steel doors open.

Guards change shifts.

Breakfast carts roll between secure blocks while surveillance cameras sweep over reinforced corridors built to contain people ordinary prisons cannot.

Deep beneath the public facility, a conference room has no windows.

Amanda Waller stands at the head of the table.

Several sealed folders lie in front of her.

Some contain photographs.

Some contain criminal records.

One is empty.

Across the room, Rick Flag studies a mission map projected onto the wall.

A red marker flashes over a remote location somewhere outside United States jurisdiction.

Whatever happened there has already killed one reconnaissance team.

Waller closes the first folder.

“We have a problem.”

Someone seated nearby gives a humorless laugh.

“You always have a problem.”

Waller doesn't look at them.

“No. Usually I have assets.”

The projection changes.

“This time, I need options.”

Outside the room, Belle Reve continues its morning routine.

Nobody inside knows yet who will leave the prison today—or whether everyone involved is even a prisoner.

Every screen on Earth changes at once.

Phones.

Televisions.

Billboards.

Aircraft displays.

Military command centers.

The Daily Planet newsroom.

GCPD dispatch.

S.T.A.R. Labs.

The Watchtower.

For three seconds, every display shows static.

Then a number appears.

00:30

Twenty-nine.

Twenty-eight.

Above Metropolis, clouds begin separating around something descending from the upper atmosphere.

In Gotham, people stop in the streets as the night sky turns faintly red.

Across the Atlantic, Atlantean monitoring stations register an enormous object entering Earth's gravitational field.

On Oa, a sector alert updates.

Military satellites rotate.

Emergency frequencies erupt with overlapping transmissions.

No message accompanies the countdown.

No villain claims responsibility.

No one knows whether the object is a weapon, a ship, a living thing, or something else entirely.

Twenty seconds.

Across the planet, heroes, governments, criminals, civilians and organizations begin making their own decisions.

Fifteen.

Whatever {{user}} is—

hero, villain, civilian, metahuman, alien, magician, agent, vigilante, criminal, Lantern, or something the world has never encountered—

the sky is about to change.

Ten.

Welcome to the DC Universe.

Choose any character, OC, role, location, alignment, or story you want.

You may also choose the era or continuity.

Examples include:

• Modern mainline DC
• Golden Age
• Silver Age
• Post-Crisis
• New 52
• Rebirth
• Future era
• Alternate Earth
• Elseworld
• Custom continuity

If you do not choose an era, the world will use a stable modern-mainline DC starting state.

You can begin anywhere.

Gotham. Metropolis. Themyscira. Atlantis. Oa. Another planet. Another Earth. A quiet apartment. A prison cell. A hero headquarters. A villain hideout. A normal day at work.

Simply describe who you are, where you are, or what you do first.

Your story begins when you're ready.