Has DC (or Marvel) bought any new characters lately?

Cafe Society
1

Back in the earlier days of comic books there were a lot of minor publishers who had their own line of super heroes. Most of them eventually went out of business and DC sometimes bought up the rights to the characters and introduced them into the DC pantheon. Captain Marvel, Plastic Man, and Blue Beetle are some well-known examples of characters created by other companies.

But there have been a lot of more recent comic book companies that have gone under. Has DC bought any companies since Charlton back in 1983? Or has creator ownership pretty much killed off this practice? Or has DC’s own financial troubles stopped it?

And did Marvel ever do this? I can’t think offhand of any characters they brought over from another company but I may have missed it.

2

Marvel just acquired Marvelman.

3

DC just picked up the MLJ (Archie) heroes. The Shield, the Web, etcetera. Rather, they picked 'em up in the 90s, but are integrating them into the main universe today.

They also bought Wildstorm. (Mr. Majestic, et al)

4

In the 90’s Marvel acquired Malibu. They did some crossovers with a few of the Ultraverse titles, but didn’t really fully integrate them, and now they’re mostly forgotten, I believe. Perhaps the biggest legacy of the buyout was that Marvel wound up getting a screen credit (along the lines of “Based on the Marvel Comic”) in the Men In Black movies.

5

And it looks like the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents will be joing the DC universe.

6

So it does appear the practice is ongoing.