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Which do you prefer? This is suppose to be superhero month or some crud, and nothing is going on! So let us discuss which of the two mainstream titles are better. What world and which characters float your boat better than the other? Base your judgments on comics, movies or internet porn for all I care. What say you?
If you have a title you like better than DC and Marvel that is fine too. DC and Marvel are for sure the biggest two though.
I coulda sworn I put a poll on this..
Haha, it's true that the Superhero stuff has taken a back seat to some of the things going on this month, what with the Ciddies and Christmas and some other things. We are hoping to do some movie showings soon and some tasks will be issued near the end of the month for prizes!
The Batman universe is enough for me to love DC :jess: Watchmen and Wonder Woman are an added bonus. And I'm not really sure where in the mix Zatanna belongs, but I love her as well. I will fully admit, though, that I think the Justice League all look like a bunch of dweebs when stood up against The Avengers.
DC for me. I don't own many comics though, so the majority of my basis comes from the animated films and cartoons. I've tried to sit and watch a few Marvel animated films and they all were pretty bad except for the Dr. Strange movie. DC's animated films on the other hand hit right out of the park. I've seen something like ten of those now and the only one I found boring was Superman Unbound. When it comes to animated films DC is high quality production. I'd like to see the teams for these movies make a full-feature film, but I know that would never happen because animated films are automatically looked upon as for children.
When it comes to cartoons DC still has the upper hand. Young Justice, Justice League, JL Unlimited, Batman the Animated Series, Batman Beyond and Static Shock are so good. From Marvel I sort of liked Black Panther before it got canceled, the 90's Spider-man, loved X-Men, liked what I saw of the first Silver Surfer cartoon episode, FF4 and the Hulk were cheese, X-Men Evolution was aiight, really liked Wolverine and the X-Men, disliked the 90s Avengers cartoon, Earth's Mightiest heroes was good.
Marvel tends to put out more cartoons than DC, but DCs were overall much better than Marvels and as for films I think it would be unfair to judge them on that right now considering DC hasn't put out that much in recent years.
I'll fully admit that I'm not that fond of a lot of DC when compared to Marvel, but I do love Batman and all of his stuff. I grew up on X-MEN and Batman so that probably has a lot to do with it, but oddly enough I never much cared for either of DC or Marvel's poster boys Spiderman and Superman. In the end I'm a definite bigger Marvel fan, but I will buy and watch whatever DC stuff comes out if it draws my attention. I'm a victim of the Avengers' movie poison though..it took me a long time to get into them and I blame the film adaptions for I never really cared enough to read their comics unless there was an X-Men crossover. That is good though because the movies do serve more of a purpose than a 2 hour viewing entertainment. What I have read on them since I have really gotten into and really enjoy.
If we're talking the actual comic book universes then I have to give it to Marvel over DC. I grew up on both, but as much as I love characters like Superman, Batman, and the Flash, and as much as I think some of DC's current stable of writers are excellent, they're tendency to reboot their continuity every few years and the unbelievable amount of editor interference that goes on there just renders their ongoing stuff unreadable to me. As soon as you get attached to a character, they'll reboot everything and nothing that you read matters anymore. I'm fin with the occasional retcon, but stuff like the level of the Flashpoint reboot are awful.
Plus I just really like characters like the X-Men and the Avengers, and Marvel has really been on their game for the last ten years or more with a lot of excellent writers and story lines, although yearly events get a bit old. I still read some DC, but I usually either stick to self contained miniseries, or stuff by writers I like like Grant Morrison.
DCs old Vertigo stuff is great though. Obviously Watchmen is great, but Sandman may be the greatest comic book series I've ever read.
In terms of animated series stuff, I'd say they are about even. However, from what I've read of the comics, I'd give the edge to Marvel. Really, I think Marvel has the better characters overall, and from what I know of some of the stories, I'd say they have better continuous stories in general. I could be wrong though as I haven't read very many comics in my time.
I do think DC probably has some of the better stuff in smaller, more contained stories. Kingdom Come is excellent. Batman Year One is excellent. Red Son is excellent. Also, DC has Batman.
I was introduced to Marvel through Spider-Man and the X-Men and DC with Batman and Superman. For a long time now I just preferred Marvel in general with my only DC exposure being Superman and Batman with Supergirl and Batgirl being some more favorites.
Over times I've grown to love both universes equally and would probably be reading more comics if I had the spare change. However my exposure to the actual comic books are limited to the four I mentioned above with perhaps one Hulk comic in-between and some Spawn comics from Image. So Marvel wins by default since I had a lot more fun reading Spider-Man and X-Men things than I did the others.
Scarlet Spider is still my favorite costume of the Spider-Man series >.>
God I miss Ben Reilly. :(
I'll let good ole' Stan Lee explain my stance.
IMAGE COMICS!!!
No re, on comics, Marvel takes it for me, I grew up reading them in the attitude era of the 90s and feel they just had a stronger stable of writers, artists, and IPs back then. I actually had the conclusion to the Ben Reilly story arc and it utterly blew my pre-pubescent mind.
As far as movies I would say DC has them beat, though. As I a grew older I just didnt like the xmen and spiderman movies, even the ones before the dreaded threequels, whereas Christopher Nolan made an amazing trilogy and, having bad taste, I actually really appreciated the things Zack Snyder has done with DC properties even if they are flawed. I do like avengers thor and iron man, just not quite as much. And the Tim Burton bat duology is the zenith of the adaptibe film in my eyes.
I can't call cartoons because although xmen and spiderman did get me into reading the books, the batman series was so critically acclaimed and Mask of the Phantasm is insane with just how good it is
Does Batman carry DC now as the star, or is the DC star still Superman? I'm not sure about their comic book sales, but Batman cartoons, video games and Batman movies (live action and animation) are nearly all done very very well, with a couple bad apples sprinkled here and there.
Batman still carries DC. Look at how many animated series and movies Batman has had compared to Superman. Superman had his last cartoon in the 90s and Batman has had 3 since then.
I've never really been much of a comics fan. My first collection of comics were hand-me-downs. They were a 20-issue series of X-Men comics and the 12-issue Crisis on Infinite Earths DC saga. The latter is by far my favorite and I refer back to it whenever I watch DC shows like The Batman, Justice League and Unlimited, and Young Justice. When I maybe 20 or so, I spent a year or so collecting dual-read comics (one side Runaways, the other side Spiderman/Arana/X-Men). Still no clear victor on which I'd prefer to read between DC and Marvel. All I know is that I won't read anything else in comic form. But manga and graphic novels aren't comics.
I grew up mostly watching X-Men, occasionally Spiderman, but then Batman/Superman debuted which I mostly watched for the rare instances when the two would show up in the same episode. As much as I love the recent slew of Marvel movies (just saw Thor Dark World with my dad, we thought it was awesome), I still want a Justice League movie. I also watched Man of Steel and, while many argue it's kind of slow, I thought it was fantastic. I have admittedly mixed feelings about Green Lantern mostly because I despised the way his mask came all the way down his nose, WTF? But I still hope for another Green Lantern movie.
I liked the darker/edgier path taken by the characters in Flashpoint, but I didn't like the ending, I can't really decide why. I would like to see more stuff like that though.
For a take on the Superman Origin just as good as Red Son - well, almost - I'd suggest Marvel's Supreme Power. Hyperion is a Supes Clone but he and the other heroes in the book have such fascinating beginnings.
But I agree, I also tend to prefer alternate continuities. That way you can rely and depend on one writer whereas with the main stuff, someone else might come in and smurf it all up.
But if I'm honest, I prefer Marvel because of the Mutants. I grew up with X-Men and they have had a far more profound impact on me than any other superhero.
Although I'm still waiting for RacheL Summers to appear in a movie or TV show...
That would be nice, though doing her origin justice would be tricky to say the least, though it would have been nice if she could have shown up in the upcoming movie. Shame it probably won't happen with both Cyclops and Jean Grey dead and childless as far as we know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover
Also, I just realized that 2013 is when the alternate future of Days of Future Past took place. Here's to living in the future! :beer:
Superman is DC, which is enough for me to say Marvel. There is no superhero with a worse design/power/weakness set than Superman.
Just when you were growing on me Spuuky. :p
To be fair I've never read any of the obscure comics which the die-hards insist to me are worthwhile and redeeming, but every "challenge" that can be presented to an essentially omnipotent being is necessarily a contrived challenge. It's much more interesting when powers are minimized.
I guess Marvel suffers from power inflation of its own, though. The Hulk is no longer meaningful as a character when he's going through story arcs where he gets so angry that he can punch beings of pure energy, or Magneto can somehow suddenly control time, or whatever.
Bad writers are always going to be bad writers really, and it's hard to write really powerful characters well I full admit. I mean, the death of Superman in particular stands as a moronic example of Superman and Doomsday just punching eachother to death.
But really powerful characters can be written well. Some of the better known examples being Dr. Manhatten and Morpheus from Sandman. But Superman also has some great examples. Red Son and All-Star Superman are two of my favourite comics and both jacked Superman's power levels to almost ridiculous heights. Kingdom Come is also a good Superman tale, largely because the problems they're trying to deal with are the sort of thing you can't power your way to victory in, and Superman's normally unerring sense of morality and desire to do what he thinks is right largely backfire on him leading to the situation spiralling completely out of control by the end.
Excellent reads that might change your opinion on Supes a bit. Though I would certainly say that barring a handful of writers I wouldn't touch most of the monthly Superman stuff. And I say that as a big Superman fan.
DC has gone far beyond "power creep" with Superman. All their years of resetting continuity, and they've still never thought to simply run a reboot on the fifty years of making him invincible and pulling new powers out of the writers' rear.
In general, I find that DC tends to have the more interesting story setups and concepts. Marvel, on the other hand, actually has interesting characters, character development, and personality. The best character that DC has is Batman, but even that is almost completely backstory and setup, as the guy hasn't grown or changed since he was written (and any attempt to do so is either massively rejected by the fanbase, or done for the sole purpose of resetting everything, as in the awful Widening Gyre arc). On the whole, I prefer the better character work, even if the stories themselves aren't as good.
However, I've stopped following most of the comics with any degree of regularity, and have no real interest in picking them back up at all. So I'll just end with saying that at least Marvel knows how to make decent movies.
Actually, they did do that with the Jon Byrne reboot in the 80's after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Most of the powers people had pulled out of their asses were gone, his strength was brought down to non-earth shattering levels, he was fast, but not speed of light fast, etc. That didn't last too long though and pretty soon writers gave in to the power creep again and have never really gone back on it. The closest they've come since was Morrison's stint on Action Comics during the New 52 reboot where a much younger Superman was portrayed as being much less powerful (while trying to stop a train for instance, it derails and smashes him into a building leaving him actually bruised and bloody as a result, and I don't think he could fly either. But even that was only meant to be temporary and he got progressively stronger as the series dealt with things from the current day in the New 52. Morrison's run on that story arc was still excellent though. But apparently most writers aren't happy unless Superman is a literal god. Which I guess is fine sometimes since the threats he often deals with are godlike in and of themselves, but most writers can't pull it off.Quote:
Originally Posted by Skyblade
As much as I love Batman and the Justice League, I'm pretty loyal to Marvel. Spider-Man and X-Men are two of the best superhero comics ever and tell really great stories that I can identify with. The recent Marvel movies have also been really good.
I think characters in Marvel continuity die more often than in DC. They come back of course, but DC only really kills off a character for the utter shock of it. It's never actually really that shocking though.
I prefer Marvel comic books, games, and movies to DC. A lot of the DC movies have been pretty crappy.
I haven't been interested in reading comics in years. While Batman and Lobo have always been some of my favorites, I tend to prefer Marvel much more than DC. Their world and characters just always seemed more interesting to me.
I still have my old Marvel vs DC graphic novel :p
In terms of video games Marvel wins in that department. The Arkham games have been great, but there were so many bad or forgettable DC games before that. Besides Arkham I can name DC Universe Online and Injustice as being good from DC. On t other hand the Marvel list is kind of long: Spider-Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, The Punisher, Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Alliance 2, That X-Men RPG, X-Men Arcade, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Marvel vs Capcom (Didn't really like 2 or 3).
Man, I've been meaning to play some of the recent Batman games that came out in the past 5 years. I Have played all the X-Men games from arcade to ps2 and have liked most of them, but I some how just couldn't find it in the budget for PS3 games until recently.
DC has Superman which is way too overpowered. But I like his underwear. It is alway clean and spotless unlike mine. :bigsmile: