Marvel vs DC

Why do people read exclusively from one company or the other, when both are doing similar superhero stories, and often enough the same writers and artists are working for both? Is it brand loyalty gone mad? Keep in mind, though, it’s not so much like someone announcing they only read Charles Dickens; more like saying they only read books published by Random House.

But it’s not that simple. What if every fourth chapter of your new favourite book was being published in a completely different novel? Or what if the conclusion of Kafka’s mutant bug story (which was always a little X-Men at heart, right?) was only available in an epilogue written by Ken Kesey in a dream sequence during One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest? It means that a full narrative understanding of your favourite book would encourage you – or, thanks to a particular brand of commercial blackmail, actually require you – to read the rest of that same publisher’s back catalogue. You can see how you might limit yourself to one publisher, and to their universe of interlocking characters, stories, and history. See? It’s complicated.

My problem with DC isn’t that it’s all about icons. I can appreciate heroes that are relatable and heroes that are icons. That’s fine. The problem with DC is that I can’t take how they have to beat you over the head nonstop with all the iconic talk. […] If they were really that inspiring, they wouldn’t have to keep beating us over the head with it, we’d be able to see for ourselves. – Johnny Triangles

When I asked which hero says everything you need to know about DC, the answer was obvious: Superman. Part circus strongman, part Jesus, the character is often accused of being an Aryan power-fantasy. Created by two Jewish kids who were wonderfully naïve enough to believe that if an enormously powerful alien landed on Earth, he’d just want to help, Superman is more a plea for assimilation: “I don’t come from here,” he says, “but look at how I can help if you’ll let me.”

DC’s heroes are often seen as lacking in depth or humanity but they compensate with this iconic power. The best part about Batman is that he’s two-dimensional in such a thoroughly three-dimensionally way. It means that the character can be slotted successfully into any number of genres: detective stories, action stories, melodrama, kung fu, horror, and more. The fundamentals don’t change. The costume, the origin, the logo combine to stabilise the character through hundreds of writers, artists and storylines.

The reason I like Marvel is that it always seemed to be more realistic to me. Not in the sense that their powers are more believable or anything, but that they tried to answer the question “What would really happen if people were granted powers and they started to fight crime?” Now obviously, they could only answer that question within the confines of the Comics Code… – Lobok

Marvel, on the other hand, is generally a little more down to earth. After you pause for a moment to consider I’ve just used the phrase ‘down to earth’ to describe unstable molecules, psychic mutants, and radioactive spiders, consider this: Iron Man’s a recovering alcoholic, Spider-Man can’t pay his rent, and the X-Men are always persecuted for being different. They’re not the gaudy gods of DC. They’re read as being more human, more fallible, and their lives are filled with more soap opera for it.

The X-Men illustrate the best of Marvel. They possessed social resonance right from the beginning, as the persecution of mutants could stand in for almost any oppressed group – beginning with racism, but widening to overtly include homophobia and more in later years. The interpersonal relationships between the characters were often more important than the villain of the month: a favourite tradition was issues where the team just stayed in, playing cards or basketball, and let soap opera run rampant. Add some powerful, pre-Buffy metaphors for adolescence, too. Cyclops has permanently restrained eye-beams that keep him from ever really looking at the woman he loves; Rogue cannot be touched without sucking the life from those closest to her… the X-Men have it all.

I like DC more than Marvel because at least when DC rapes my childhood, they wear a condom. – adamcasey

Including, unfortunately, the bad stuff. As they became more popular, more and more X-Men were introduced. Writers buried the soap opera with plot threads that they had no intention of ever following up, and the back story became so complicated that it remains a joke even within comic book circles. It’s impossible to follow, and believe me, many have tried.

Then the X-Men became… ahem… “X-Treme.” The 1990s weren’t kind to comics, but some of the worst of it was here. Suddenly everyone had attitude, permanent scowls, and too many pouches on their uniforms. In a forgettable Batman/Spider-Man crossover special, the Joker pointed out that he’s always thought of himself as the Orson Welles of crime, whereas the self-consciously edgy Marvel villain (so typical of the 90s) was nothing more than a Hasselhoff. Marvel seems to take more risks with its characters, riding the zeitgeist, constantly rejigging and rebooting… whereas DC has a reputation of being more respectful to its characters, but more dull and stagnant, too. God knows that hints of a Batman/Wonder Woman romance seemed a little too much like watching your parents make out.

Marvel got caught up in downplaying the over-the-top elements of the superhero genre which was understandable following 9/11, but frankly, it’s time to go back to some of the craziness that created such a great universe and cast of characters. – Bytor-Snowdog

Both fans and writers often compare DC’s most famous heroes to the pantheon of Greek gods. Larger than life, enormously powerful, floating round in their satellite headquarters and interfering with human affairs. Marvel’s heroes are more concerned with conflict suitable for street-level, New York vigilantes (who, admittedly, occasionally go into space for some zany cosmic madness). The companies wrote these generalisations into the long-awaited intercompany crossover JLA/Avengers in 2003. Superman, on first seeing the crime and chaos of the Marvel universe, says: “… there are heroes here too, from what we’ve discovered. How can they allow this? How can they stand for it? Don’t they care?” Whereas Captain America is equally appalled by the power wielded by the heroes in the DC universe: “Look around – this is their city. It wasn’t built by men. They must own this world, like little tin gods – demanding the public’s adoration instead of protecting their freedoms!” But fear not, true believers: it’s all firm handshakes and mutual respect between the two by the time they’ve saved their worlds.

DC smokes cigars. Marvel smokes cigarettes. – InsaneGenis

Right now, Marvel Comics is poaching writers from film and TV, hoping to finally steal some sales out there in the mainstream; DC is drawing on its years of continuity to produce stories that reward careful reading over the last 20 years. Of course, as always, the two companies are constantly stealing from one another. Even when they’re not explicitly letting their heroes meet, they produce their own versions of each other’s blockbusters and obvious, in-joke stand-ins for their competitor’s best characters. I’ll leave the final word to the fans, who were allowed to vote on the results of a crossover way back in 1996. What else matters? In Marvel Vs DC, we saw Superman defeat the Hulk, the Silver Surfer best Green Lantern, and Storm of the X-Men lightning-fry Wonder Woman, but… I mean… hold on. Seriously. She’s an Amazon princess! Jeez. That’s just ridiculous…