Standing tall: The changing definitive height of some DC Comics characters
In the 1980s, both Marvel Comics and DC Comics published encyclopedic guides outlining the superpowers, histories, and other traits of their respective characters. Among those details were official height listings of various heroes and villains, allowing fans to gauge the sizes of their favorite characters. Since then, Marvel and DC continue to license similar encyclopedic publications, but while the listed heights of Marvel’s characters have remained mostly constant, it appears that changes have been made to the height data of multiple DC characters.
Beginning in 1983, Marvel published The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, a 15-issue series serving as an encyclopedia detailing Marvel’s characters. The series’ popularity led to the publication of the updated and expanded The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition in 1985. That same year, DC published Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe. Over the years, both character encyclopedias have been updated and published in various formats, most recently as the licensed books Marvel Encyclopedia and The DC Comics Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Characters of the DC Universe, both published by DK Publishing.
Surveying the various official details provided in both Marvel and DC’s encyclopedias, it is interesting to note that while the respective height data for Marvel’s characters remains similar to the data presented in the 1980s, the modern height data has changed for various DC characters. The author’s random review of 25 Marvel and 25 DC characters listed in 1985’s The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition and Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe found that modern height data for 11 DC characters (44 percent of the review sample) had changed, while the Marvel sample only had two characters (eight percent) with slight changes made to their respective height data.
When comparing the sample characters’ height data as listed in 1985’s Who’s Who to height data provided in the 2016 edition of The DC Comics Encyclopedia, it is notable how many characters have had changes made to their official height listings. Most of the characters with changed height data have increased in height; for example, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, Big Barda, and Mongul have had inches added to their height, while Starfire, Hawkman, and Green Arrow have shrunk by several inches.
In contrast, only two sample Marvel characters (Daredevil and Doctor Strange) have had slight changes — reductions of an inch or less — to their official height listings as presented in 1985’s Official Handbook and the 2019 Marvel Encyclopedia. (For example, Doctor Strange’s height was listed as six feet, two-and-a-half inches in the Handbook, and as six feet, two inches in the Encyclopedia.)
It is unclear why the official height data for some DC characters has changed in modern encyclopedias, but these changes are interesting to note in comparison to the more fixed character height listings provided by Marvel.
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