Jump to content
Existing user? Sign In

Sign In



Sign Up

Recommended Posts

The age-old question of:

MARVEL

VS.

DC

So, today, I went to see Spiderman: Homecoming (great movie, 9/10, go watch it it's fucking great) and it once again sparked the rebbel inside of me who just wants to talk about the 2 comic jougernaughts: Marvel and DC. Now, I like DC, I really do, and I can appreciate what they do, but, I LOVE Marvel: the comics, the movies, the characters...

 

So, here are my reasons. Disagree? That's okay! Tell me in the responses so I can tell you how wrong you are ;p

 

Yeah, but, DC was first!

True, but does that really count for anything? Is every platformer inferior to the original Super Mario Bros? No, it isn't, so this doesn't influence my oppinion.

 

Marvel stole DCs characters!

This is just a thing that happens. Of course some characters are eerily similair, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing! Sure, some are complete copy-pastes (DC created Nuclear skull in response to Ghost rider, Marvel created Black cat in response to Catwoman), but most of the times characters are completely diffrent (Hulk =/= Grundy, Quicksilver =/= Flash, Deadpool =/= Deathstroke). It's just something that happens in the business.

 

What about Marvel's villains?!

Sure, some of the are complete flops, but at least they are (mostly) original. Example: the Flash! What is an enemy of the flash? Reverse Flash! Another? Zoom! Another? Bizarro Flash! Hell, even within the universe they copy-paste villains: Captain Cold and Doctor Freeze? Really? They are so similair they are literally an alternate skin in Injustice 2! And what's next? Mister Arctic? Luitenant Nippy? Major Breezy?

Sure, some of Marvel's villains are...less than specteculair; taking a look at Thor: The dark world will tell you as much. Though I have to applaus Marvel for turning a weird, kinda uncool and uninteresting villain, the vulture, into an amazing, guininely terrifying force to be recconed with in Homecoming! And hey, at least Marvel never created a villain that has no use apart from being "the creature that killed Superman" and only got a backstory as an afterthought, and a shitty one at that! *cough*Doomsday*Cough*

 

What about the characters?!

Same as the villains: Superman? Cool! Supergirl? Yeah, sure! Batgirl? Umm... Batwoman? Ok stop. Robin? Which one, the one that became Nightwing? The one that died? Too many Robins! Superdog?

Super...
dog?

Superdog...

The only comparison I can find in the Marvel universe is Throg (a Thor frog, Loki turned Thor into a frog and then one thing led to another and...yeah) and that was played as a joke and was befitting of something a god of mischief would do

Fucking superdog wtf DC

 

What about the movies?!

HahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaSuicideSquadhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

No, ok, Dark Knight trilogy? Awesome! Wonder Woman? Kinda cool! Everything else?

...

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

DC is way more groundbreaking with black heroes, female heroes, etc!

Yeah...no. Sure, Marvel had female heroes later, but again, it's less old, so that's logical. And it's not like Marvel is lacking when it comes to non-white-male heroes: Storm, Rogue, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Miles Morales, K'Thala, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Warmachine, Iron Fist, Blade...the list goes on and on.

 

Final thoughts

I think it comes down to one thing, one specific diffrence that seperates the two so immensly:

Fun

DC tries to create characters that question themselves, that wonder what is best for the world, what they truly are adding to their surroundings and whether they are actually helping people and not hurting them. Characters restrain themselves and make grave sacrifices. I can see the value in this. It creates the question of "how would the world react if people like this showed up?", and I don't see this as a "wrong" or even "worse" way to handel such godlike characters like Superman.

Marvel, though it also deals with heavy subjects (PTSD in Ironman 3, collatoral damage and infighting in Civil War), it leaves more room for fun. If you watch Iron Man you know Tony is having a blast flying around, Spiderman whoops and cheers as he swings around, it gives more of a sense of childlike wonder about these awesome powers and stimulates the fantasy: what would you do? How would you help people? How would you handle the praise?

Just compare Supermans first flight and Ironmans first flight:

One is unsure, and finally shoots off looking determined as he arrives at his destination in seconds.

One simply "hopes this works", takes off and is having a blast stunting and preforming in the air with a "holy shit I am flying" attitude.

Now tell me...

Which one sounds like more fun?

Link to comment
6 hours ago, Misteriousmr said:

Deadpool =/= Deathstroke)

Please explain to me how the hell Wade Wilson is NOT a copy-paste-change-it-so-the-teacher-doesn't-know version of Slade Wilson, lol! Like, they both are nearly identical, use of swords and guns, they were injected with super sirum, both have healing factors (deadpool's being WAY better than Deathstrokes), and they're both mercenaries.

Link to comment
17 hours ago, MsFortune-Take said:

Please explain to me how the hell Wade Wilson is NOT a copy-paste-change-it-so-the-teacher-doesn't-know version of Slade Wilson, lol! Like, they both are nearly identical, use of swords and guns, they were injected with super sirum, both have healing factors (deadpool's being WAY better than Deathstrokes), and they're both mercenaries.

- Deadpool has both eyes
- Deadpool isn't a full-on villain
- Deadpool has a completely diffrent suit
And, oh, THEIR ENTIRE PERSONALITY?

Deadpool is a wisecracking, 4-th-wall-breaking, violent, psychopathic, oversexed, gory mercenairy with voices in his head that he talks with regulairly. He has a timetraveling cyborg soldier that he takes the piss out of at every corner. There's an entire series of comics literally called "Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe" where, well, he LITERALLY KILLS EVERY SINGLE MARVEL CHARACTER, AND THEN THE WRITERS OF THE COMIC...AND THEN HE THREATENS THE READERS THAT HE'S COMING FOR THEM NEXT.

D'you see your bland, one-eyed, gruff-tuff mercenairy do that?

Case-fuckin'-closed

*Mic drop*

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

First off, OP, you really need to fix a couple of words. Misspelling things like "juggernaut" and "T'Challa" is an easy way to undermine your credibility.


Seriously, though, this is the type of discussion that is never going to end. These two companies are yin and yang. Neither would exist without the other. They each have advantages and disadvantages.

  • Marvel has waaaay more good characters. DC has trouble coming up with a seven member Justice League without a couple of them feeling like they got thrown in just because.
  • DC's core five, particularly the Trinity, are probably more iconic to the average person than any Marvel character outside of Spider-Man. Oh, and Punisher if you're a Marine I guess.
  • Many of DC's best stories are non-canon Elseworlds stories.
  • Most of Marvel's best stories are essentially in canon, but their best stories generally aren't as good, because writers usually are forced to maintain continuity.
  • Marvel can't seem to get a clean reboot no matter how hard they try.
  • DC reboots a lot.
  • Marvel is much more topical and diverse. Obviously lately they've been cranking it up even more, but consider this: Northstar was openly gay in 1992! Black Panther existed in 1966!
  • Over the years, DC has bought tons of other comic companies like Charlton and Fawcett, and has set up different imprints like Milestone, Vertigo, and Wildstorm.
  • Marvel as far as I know have never bought out any other publisher, and generally keep their line centralized, save for licensed stuff.
  • For almost fifty years Marvel survived without any wider corporate support of any kind.
  • DC has been owned by Warner since 1967.

This is most of what I could think of at the moment.

But seriously, if you aren't paying attention to both, you don't deserve to call yourself a nerd.

Also, don't forget about the other guys. Valiant, Dark Horse, Image, IDW all make pretty good books.

Link to comment
33 minutes ago, Mr.Angry-eyes said:

So.......you just admitted that DC is better?

Not necessarily.

One has more good stories, the other has the best of the best. It's hard to say which one is better.

Sonic, I would say, has my favorite platformer.

Mario has far more good platformers.

From those two sentences, one cannot infer immediately which is better. I'd stick with Mario overall because I'd rather have a lot of really good games than one EXTREMELY good game and a bunch of other titles that are overall less good than the Mario series.

Link to comment
On 7/19/2017 at 9:47 AM, LOLC2k said:

Not necessarily.

One has more good stories, the other has the best of the best. It's hard to say which one is better.

Exactly. In DC, you've got awesome individual stories, but they don't necessarily form a cohesive whole that you'd ever want to read. I freaking love Batman, but if I were to try to read every Batman comic ever I'd probably gouge my eyes out first, both because it's difficult to know where to start (well, obviously you'd begin with D.C. #27, but you know what I mean), and because a decent amount of them are just bad or ridiculously goofy by today's standards. By contrast, I've read probably like 500 Avengers books and they're mostly good and form a relatively cohesive whole from at least the '60s to the '90s.

And to an extent, this is how it's always been, even in-universe. DC does a bunch of different stuff and Marvel is much more close-knit.

I cbf to look it up, but I seem to remember that Batman and Superman didn't officially meet until, like, several years after their creation. And until the '80s, as far as teams went, the JLA/JSA were mostly it when it came to teams, and even then, prior to the first Crisis it doesn't seem to me like a lot of thought was given to how the group actually would bounce off one another... the Justice League was just all their most popular characters, and with the exception of the JLI era this has pretty much always been the case.

Contrast this with Marvel, who broke through on the concept of teams and used them pretty much constantly to flesh out their universe. Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, all teams. The only truly great Marvel character in the context of a solo series is pretty much Spider-Man, which is weird considering that the first issue of his solo book was all about him trying to join the F.F.

This difference in their universe makes it especially stupid that Marvel's film rights are still pretty divided. Because, like the Nolan films essentially told us, you don't need Superman to make a good Batman movie. He works well by himself, just like he always says. But, like, the X-Men movies would be a lot more interesting if there were the contrast of powered non-mutants in there. I wish that Fant4stic had been good just so that they could have combined those two. I'm hoping against hope that Fox has the sense to hand them back to Marvel, although that won't really have nearly the same consequences for the MCU that it would've for the X-Men franchise. Like, if they get them back, Disney will make a good FF movie, which will be epic, and they will also get to use awesome characters like Silver Surfer and Galactus later on down the line, although unfortunately by now it's probably too late for any of them to make an appearance before the start of Phase 4.

Link to comment

Okay, I think it's fairly obvious that OP reeks of bias against DC and a lot of his comments on DC also show that he's pretty ignorant about their characters... and it almost feels like he created this thread so he could bash DC. But correct me if I assumed wrongly.

Regardless, I'll remain objective. I like both equally as much, for both have their individual strengths.

Movies:

  • Marvel is doing very well with movies and very consistently.
  • BvS honestly was a good movie, if people stop blindly hating and watched it properly. I'm not saying it doesn't have its flaws, but it's seriously not as bad as people say it is. There're a lot of subplots and hidden meanings that people often miss out. The plot wasn't organized the best way though, I'll give you that, which is why some people find it a bit confusing.
  • Suicide Squad, however, was pretty bad. Not much to say about it.
  • DCEU is rushing too much in my opinion. They've pretty much only had 3 movies? And they try to squeeze in 6 characters so that they could launch a Justice League movie. They don't have to catch up to Marvel, they should do movies at a comfortable slow pace.
  • Nolan's TDK trilogy is pretty unbeatable. But that's just one series.
  • Not a strength or flaw, but just commenting, if Marvel had rights to Fantastic Four, they'd be doing even more amazingly.

Comics:

  • DC has a lot more iconic characters. Especially Batman and Superman, who are basically pop culture icons. Literally no one doesn't know them. Wonder Woman would also be the most frequently mentioned for strong heroines.
  • DC is pretty diverse and creative of its origins for the main characters. Not saying Marvel's isn't, but I choose to give the edge to DC for this one.
  • Marvel has splendid storylines like Civil War and Infinity Gauntlet.
  • DC's best storylines might be Crisis on Infinite Earths or Injustice, which I feel loses to Marvel's bests.
  • However DC's solo hero stories are generally better.
  • While DC's combined stories are usually weaker than Marvel's, I particularly enjoyed the New 52 JL stories.
  • DC made a human with no special powers one of the most popular and famous characters ever. The complexity and character of Batman makes him iconic and his stories amazing, even though he has no superpowers and neither does most of his villains.
  • Marvel has great superhero groups, even outside of the Avengers. X-Men, a great family of mutants bonded together. Fantastic Four, a group of scientists that battles best together. DC's heroes sort of fly better alone.
  • Marvel's cosmic stories are far better than DC's in my opinion.

I'll edit and add on more points when I think of them.

 

Edited by Nephron (see edit history)
Link to comment
On 22-7-2017 at 6:37 PM, Nephron said:

Okay, I think it's fairly obvious that OP reeks of bias against DC and a lot of his comments on DC also show that he's pretty ignorant about their characters... and it almost feels like he created this thread so he could bash DC. But correct me if I assumed wrongly.

Regardless, I'll remain objective. I like both equally as much, for both have their individual strengths.

Movies:

  • Marvel is doing very well with movies and very consistently.
  • BvS honestly was a good movie, if people stop blindly hating and watched it properly. I'm not saying it doesn't have its flaws, but it's seriously not as bad as people say it is. There're a lot of subplots and hidden meanings that people often miss out. The plot wasn't organized the best way though, I'll give you that, which is why some people find it a bit confusing.
  • Suicide Squad, however, was pretty bad. Not much to say about it.
  • DCEU is rushing too much in my opinion. They've pretty much only had 3 movies? And they try to squeeze in 6 characters so that they could launch a Justice League movie. They don't have to catch up to Marvel, they should do movies at a comfortable slow pace.
  • Nolan's TDK trilogy is pretty unbeatable. But that's just one series.
  • Not a strength or flaw, but just commenting, if Marvel had rights to Fantastic Four, they'd be doing even more amazingly.

Comics:

  • DC has a lot more iconic characters. Especially Batman and Superman, who are basically pop culture icons. Literally no one doesn't know them. Wonder Woman would also be the most frequently mentioned for strong heroines.
  • DC is pretty diverse and creative of its origins for the main characters. Not saying Marvel's isn't, but I choose to give the edge to DC for this one.
  • Marvel has splendid storylines like Civil War and Infinity Gauntlet.
  • DC's best storylines might be Crisis on Infinite Earths or Injustice, which I feel loses to Marvel's bests.
  • However DC's solo hero stories are generally better.
  • While DC's combined stories are usually weaker than Marvel's, I particularly enjoyed the New 52 JL stories.
  • DC made a human with no special powers one of the most popular and famous characters ever. The complexity and character of Batman makes him iconic and his stories amazing, even though he has no superpowers and neither does most of his villains.
  • Marvel has great superhero groups, even outside of the Avengers. X-Men, a great family of mutants bonded together. Fantastic Four, a group of scientists that battles best together. DC's heroes sort of fly better alone.
  • Marvel's cosmic stories are far better than DC's in my opinion.

I'll edit and add on more points when I think of them.

 

You assumed Wrong, pretty much everything you said, I agree with everything you said

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

Although I enjoy both, I would have to say I prefer DC as far as comics are concerned. It comes down to having more interesting characters in my opinion. Also, while both have had their ups and downs, I feel like DC hit higher highs than Marvel with books such as All-Star Superman and The Dark Knight Returns, and Watchmen and The Sandman under their Vertigo line.

In terms of movies, however, Marvel blows DC out of the water. Despite some good movies (Tim Burton's Batman, The Dark Knight Triology, Wonder Woman), DC can't compete with the consistent quality (and release schedule) of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

One last point in DC's favor, however, are their cartoons. DCAU. 'Nuff said.

Finally, as a fan of both, here are some of my favorites.

DC

All-Star Superman

Batman: Year One

The Dark Knight Returns

Harley Quinn (New 52)

The Sandman

Superman: Red Son

Marvel

Daredevil: Born Again

Deadpool: Dead Presidents

Ms Marvel (2014)

Nextwave

Runaways

Spider-man: Kraven's Last Hunt

 

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

I honestly do enjoy both Marvel and DC characters.

For me, it's not so much a question of who is better overall, so much as it's a question of who is better at what.

In the movies, Marvel is winning. No questions about that. Sure, there have been some duds. Thor 2 comes to mind. But overall Marvel movies have been doing better than DC movies.

Wonder Woman bucked the trend, but we still need to see if that carries over to Justice League.

And the older DC movies like the original Christopher Reeves Superman or the 1980s Batman are still excellent films.

As far as TV, I'd give it to DC. While I'm not a fan of Gotham, the Arrow-verse shows are pretty good overall in my opinion, with perhaps Supergirl being the one I care for the least. She's too childish and immature, and the sub-plot about her sister was not written all that well.

Marvel really only has Agents of SHIELD on TV, and that's fluctuated a lot in terms of quality. I still enjoy it, but it's a bit hit or miss.

Marvel makes up for that however by having some truly amazing material on Netflix. The various shows that make up their Nextflix Universe are very well written and well acted. Even Iron Fist, which a lot of people disliked, I thought was better than most people gave it credit for.

DC doesn't really have anything like Marvel's shows on Netflix or any of the other steaming services.

What DC does have is their Direct to DVD animated projects, which have been absolutely excellent. From Serious stuff like Justice League vs Teen Titans to more lighthearted stuff like an animated episode of the 1960s Batman called Return of the Caped Crusaders, the DC Animated stuff that had been released directly to DVD has been excellent.

So in my opinion both companies have things that they're doing incredibly good at, and other areas where they're significantly struggling.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...