Fictional Mutants - DC Comics

DC Comics

Mutants play a smaller, but still substantial role in DC Comics, where they form part of the population known as metahumans. DC Comics does not make a semantic or an abstract distinction between humans (or superheroes/villains) born with mutations making them different from humans mutated by outside sources. All humans with powers are simply referred to, and treated as, one group collectively known as metahumans. The term mutant does still exist for humans born with actual powers instead of attaining them. For instance, a select group of minor characters from Team Titans, Justice Society and Infinity Inc. are seldom referred to as mutants, not metahumans.

Those who gain powers after their birth may be called metahumans, but in the Justice League cartoon, the Royal Flush Gang were called mutants by the Joker because they were born with superpowers. Likewise, the mid-1950s DC superhero Captain Comet was born with his powers and was described as a mutant. Killer Croc, an enemy of Batman, has also been called a mutant.

Usually writers tend to use the term for parodying purposes. Doom Force, a mutant group which mimics the Marvel Universe at the time, toils with the fact that X-Force is a revamped Doom Patrol. Another group of Mutants are the Outcasts. Much like the X-Men, Outcasts are a group of mutants in a dystopian future struggling to survive.

Also characters who were transformed through radiation or a mutagenic gas are sometimes identified as mutants instead of Marvel's term, 'mutates'. In the Static Shock animated series Virgil Hawkins was first described as one before introducing the term metahuman.

Mutants in the DC Universe use the traditional terminology of there being a genetic deformity. One particular example of a mutant in the DC Universe is Captain Comet.