Need a distraction from all the madness surrounding Henry Cavill and the DCEU? Then head on over and sign up for DC Universe!

If you were to look through my article list here on Hypable or casually peruse my Twitter account at any given moment, it would become pretty clear, pretty quickly that I am absolutely ride or die for DC Comics and the DCEU.

With that said, let’s all admit that the rumblings over at WB and regarding the DCEU have been a little bit messy as of late. And that, in general, what’s gone on over at WB regarding the decision-making around the DCEU has been a lot messy.

And I don’t mean the movies themselves. Obviously I loved Wonder Woman like the rest of the known universe, but both Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice remain two of my favorite movies of all time and are heads and tails above most comic book movies that have ever been released. And I was even one of the rare few DCEU fans that genuinely enjoyed Justice League, even if I regretted not being able to see it in its uncut, purest form.

But I’ve also obviously seen that there have been huge mismanagement issues when it comes to marketing, publicity, and creative control. I have had to weather not only huge amounts of unrelenting negativity from the general public and press about something that I love dearly, but wave after wave of general incompetence and messiness from the execs and higher ups at Warner Bros.

Which is why I’m more than happy to report that DC Universe, DC’s new streaming service app, is decidedly much less messy than the general behind-the-scenes drama that goes down every other month or so with the DCEU. In fact, it’s a nice palette cleanser in terms of efficiency and competence, giving us DC fans unlimited access to a variety of comics, movies and tv shows on a slick and easy-to-navigate app.

For $7.99 a month, or $75 annually, you get the following:

Comics

One thing that sets the streaming service apart from other sites is its comics library. Available to download and read both online and offline, the app gives you quite a large selection of comic books from DC’s 80-year-old archive. The navigation is easy to use and incredibly clear, especially on TVs, as you can see from the video below:


The downside, though, is that while there’s a wide selection of titles to choose from, for many of the newer runs and most popular characters, you’ll only get one or two issues each. There are a few comic runs that give you six to 13 issues — at least enough for a full arc — and some comics, like Batman Eternal, have their entire (52 issue) run up. Still, the majority give you only a couple of issues — enough to give you a taste of the story, but not enough to give you an actual storyline.

This might change as time goes on and more people subscribe, which I’m guessing would give DC more motivation and money to add to their library. I’d certainly love that, since the interface is so crisp and clear and easy to use.

So for now, I’d give this part of the site a three out of five stars. The usability is awesome and there are some really awesome comic runs available. But if you subscribed to the platform for its comics library, you’re likely to be disappointed.

Movies and TV shows

In case you didn’t already know — the DCCW shows aren’t on DC Universe. And, as far as I know, they aren’t likely to be added any time soon.

This isn’t a huge deal for me, since I’m mostly indifferent to all of those shows except for Black Lightning (which is phenomenal and everyone should watch). But if that’s something that you’re into, then I wouldn’t cancel your Netflix account just yet.

However, if you’ve been wanting to rewatch Young Justice prior to the season 3 (!!) premiere, have missed watching Batman: The Animated Series or have been thinking of checking out the underrated gem that is the early 90s version of The Flash TV show, then DC Universe has got you covered.

DC Universe has all the great DC Animated Universe shows that were part of the Timmverse, including a remastered Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League and Justice League: Unlimited, Batman Beyond and my underrated fave of Static Shock.

Honestly, having all of those shows on there is enough to make DC Universe worth the annual price for me. But, add on to that the fact that it also has many of the DC Animated movies — including newer ones like The Death of Superman and Gotham by Gaslight — along with the original Superman movies, and I honestly feel like I got a pretty sweet deal.

However, as with the comics portion of the site, there are some downsides. None of the DCEU films are on the site, probably for licensing issues. This isn’t a huge loss for me since I already own all of those movies anyway, but it’d be nice to have all my DC stuff housed in one place. I’d also love to see Watchmen on there, as well as the DC Vertigo properties of Lucifer and Preacher.

Still, it’s a pretty substantial amount of TV shows and movies as it is, so I’d give this part of the site four out of five stars.

Original content

Ok, so I’m a huge DC fan and would’ve bought the streaming site just for the comics and TV shows/movies portion of it (and also because I just like to positively reinforce DC when I feel like they’ve done something good). However, it’s this section — the original content — that I’m so incredibly excited for.

We know that we have the following series already confirmed for the 2018-2019 slate for DC Universe:

Titans will debut on the platform on October 12, with its world premiere taking place at New York Comic Con on October 3. The review embargo drops on October 4, so make sure to check back here at Hypable for our coverage of the show!

Then, we get the long-awaited and super hyped third season of Young Justice: Outsiders, with 26 full episodes set to drop on the platform in 2019. We had the chance to attend the panel at SDCC and sit down with some of the voice actors this year and honestly, even if everything else on this platform sucked (which, thank God, it does not), I would buy DC Universe just for this one season of Young Justice by itself.

Then, we’ll be getting a live action Swamp Thing, which is being described by its creative team as being straight up horror and “as hard R as we could make it,” as well as a live action Doom Patrol, a lesser known property that already looks amazing.

Finally, we’ll have two new animated series — one about Stargirl and written by Geoff Johns — and another about Harley Quinn, which we don’t know too much about right now.

And while we either don’t really know how these shows might shake out — or, in the case of Titans, can’t say much of anything right now — all this original content sounds and seems absolutely amazing for my DC-loving self. With what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard, I’m going to go ahead and give this part of DC Universe five out of five stars.

DC Universe launches today! Head on over to DCUniverse.com to sign up!