Marvel vs. DC: MUA and JLH article help

[Johnny DC]

Note: You may have seen this tread in other forums. Don’t panic, I have permission from Dew. It’s in the Community, Misc. and Multiplatform Games, DC Comic and Marvel Comic forums.

Here’s the deal: I’m a journalism major taking a feature writing class. A story idea I submitted to my teacher involved getting fan reactions to the rivalry between Marvel and DC Comics, extending into their publications, films and most recently video games (with Justice League Heroes and Marvel Ultimate Alliance being released within a week of each other). I would like to get some angles and quotes from Hype members since I don't personally know too many comic fans. All intelligent comments are welcome, though I won’t use all of them in my story.

Here’s the catch: I need to know you’re real name. And I need to know your phone number. It’s my school’s journalism department’s policy that each story turned in for a journalism class needs an addendum listing the names and numbers of all sources used so the teacher can call them and make sure that 1) they exist and 2) that they actually said what I quoted them as saying in the story.

I'm aware that many would be uncomfortable with this, but I can assure you, I'm a professional; I’m an intern/general assignment writer for a major daily Colorado newspaper (though, remember this is for a class, so the article I write won’t be published.). While it's difficult to prove credentials over the Web, I'll try. If you’re someone I want to use in the story, I’ll PM you my work e-mail address. If you need further proof, I have ways to prove I am who I am.

Here’s the topic: DC Comics vs. Marvel Comics and the mediums they compete in. Remember, the timeliness of the story will focus on the release of the rival video games, so if you’ve played Justice League Heroes, make sure to comment on it. I realize that Marvel: Ultimate Alliance won’t be in stores until Wednesday, the same day my story is due. Still make sure to comment on your impressions. My lead will be something like: “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance hits shelves today…rival comic company DC Comics released their version last week,” blah, blah, blah.

Help me Hypesters. You’re my only hope.

 

[Johnny DC]

I'll get the ball rolling:
Which publisher has better comics right now? What about in the past?
Which has better movies?
Which has better games?

 

[XwolverineX]

Comics: DC
Movies: =
Games: Marvel



Games are obvious, every single DC game has sucked. Spider-man 2, Hulk:UD, XML 1&2 = All good.

Comics, IC was superb. HoM and CW are characterization spitting on ****. NA is crap, utter crap. Spider-man got ruined. Plus, DC has Vertigo. Fables, Y:The Last Man, etc, are some of the best comics out there.

Movies. I didn't like Fantastic Four, at all.. I hated Hulk. Daredevil, uyck. The Marvel movies I like are Spider-man, X-men and Blade. All 3(and almost 3) movies in. DC movies that are good are Batman Begins and Superman Returns(in the last 10 years), but they're both only one movie in. Right now, I guess Marvel. DC will soon take over that regin though.

 

[Johnny DC]

I forgot to add television shows.

 

[BrianWilly]

[BIG. ASS. RANT/]

In terms of comics quality, DC has been ahead of the game for quite some years now. In my opinion they focus substantially more on storytelling and characterization, as opposed to Marvel which is focusing purely on shock and glitz. Obviously, there are exceptions to the norm on both sides -- Marvel has the likes of Joss Whedon and Brian Vaughan for the forseeable future, and DC has published some..."questionable"...stories in the form of Leslie Thompkins and, well, almost the entirety of the new Supergirl's run.

I actually remember the exact moment where I first started to prefer DC over Marvel. It was during the Green Lantern "Hate Crime" storyline a few years ago (2002), where the protagonist's gay friend was the target of a vicious hate crime. Now, even just four years later, by today's standards the story comes across as sort of preachy and maudlin, but it the time it was groundbreaking stuff that had never really been tackled before in such a mainstream comic. At the time I just remember thinking, "Isn't this the sort of stuff that Marvel should be writing? Maybe in an X-Men book, since the X-Men are supposed to be all about social tolerance? I mean, everyone knows that." Except that, at the time, every single one of the X-books were busy fighting space aliens or foreign country invasions or some such nonsense. Instead, this book with a cosmic-level character wielding pseudoscientific power rings -- which you'd actually expect to be about space aliens -- is charging head-on into this very emotional, very earthly, very humane and relevant storyline. People like to simplify the two companies' characters by saying that DC has godly, unrelatable characters while Marvel has the human, relevant characters. That's really an outdated pastiche, if it were ever true, it's certainly not today; at the least, both companies are equally as capable of writing humane, relevant stories and the "other" sort.

The only real, substantial difference between the backdrop of characters and attitudes in the two universes right now is that heroes are renowned and admired in the DCU whereas they are feared and persecuted in the Marvel U. While this could just have been an instance of some people liking one thing and other people liking another and it's nice to have both to choose from, it's almost as if these countering attitudes of respect versus disrespect is being seeping through to the editorial and writing aspect of the companies as well. Following the continuing saga of the DCU, you really get the sense that they respect the history and the iconicism of their characters: at no point in reading these stories will you ever forget some of these characters are three or four times as old as you are, have been around when your grandparents were virile, with decades upon decades of publication history behind their every move. Following the storylines of the Marvel universe, it almost feels like they want to forget about everything that the heroes have stood and fought for in the past and just make everything as shtty for them as possible. Instead of the valiant and experienced hero he should be with decades of history behind him, Spider-Man is instead treated as the dumb n00b court jester of the company. It took the X-Men years upon years to advance and evolve to the current state of social progress that they'd experienced in the early 2000s, and with a single wave of the hand all of that was just..."decimated." Currently with Civil War, most readers would rather prefer to believe that their favorites characters have been brainwashed or turned into robot clones than to believe that they could actually be acting so out of character of their own free wills.

The problem is that new readers might come into this universe and think, "What's the big deal? Isn't this what they're supposed to act like?", not knowing or appreciating the intense backstory and history behind these characters and how, no, they're really really not supposed to act like this. And Joe Quesada completely, intentionally fuels that sort of thinking. He has freely admitted that the reason he wanted to do Civil War was to turn the Marvel superheroes back to the hostile and antagonistic mindsets that they had at the beginning. He basically says, "Well, I know that they've naturally become friendlier to each other since they've all been around each other for so long, but to hell with what's natural...I want paranoid, cynical heroes!" Nevermind that nothing in their pasts justify this sort of drastic attitude change, what's important to Marvel is not for plot to conform to characterization, but for characterization to bend for plot.

The entire concept of the Ultimate universe seems to be an extention of this point, of forgetting the history of characters. It's as if Marvel looked at its regular universe, the one that's been around for all these years, and said "Okay, we don't like you anymore, we want to make something better." As much as I can't begrudge the actual quality of some of the Ultimate comics (I especially like Warren Ellis' Ultimate Fantastic Four), I've never been and will never be able to completely accept it for that very reason.

[/BIG. ASS. RANT]

Marvel seems to alternate between incredibly good movies and...slightly less good movies. For every spectacularly awesome Spider-Man and X-Men movies you have, you also have such tripe as Elektra and Blade Trinity. And then there are the ones who sort of aren't all the good but aren't entirely horrible like Fantastic Four and Hulk. DC has been consistently making some damned good movies lately with Superman and Batman (I even liked Constantine!...yeah, I know), but it will be forever known as the owners of such trainwrecks like Catwoman and Batman and Robin. I think that Marvel wins this category through the sheer quantity of good movies released, but on a running ratio I'd say they're about even.

In terms of TV shows, DC wins. Even when Marvel was at the top of its game in the nineties with the X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons, they still had to contend with the practically flawless Batman Animated Series. And Bruce Timm's DC animated universe just seems to have gotten richer and more developed through the years, with the Justice League cartoons and even with the guilty pleasure Teen Titans.

Here's something that might be interesting: apparently, the release of Justice League Heroes was bumped up by Warner Brothers, against the wishes of the developers, so that it would predate the release of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Make of that what you will. I've played through Justice League Heroes a few times now, it's a pretty fun game especially in terms of replay value. It's not nearly as versatile as the X-Men Legends series and also unfortunately much shorter, but it's about three degrees more enjoyable. With that said, however, I suspect that MUA will probably blow it out of the water. The graphics look really good, the gameplay looks smoother, and the character customability looks insane.

 

[The Leaguer]

Leslie Thompkins as a killer was good.

Not joking.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Leslie Thompkins as a killer was good.

Not joking.

I thought the War Crimes story was pretty good, even though it f**ked up Leslie Thompkins' character. Much better than War Games.

 

[XwolverineX]

Zomg, fool.


TV.. Spider-man TAS was cool. X-men TAS was good. But DC still takes the cake. Batman TAS was best, Superman TAS was awesome also. Then JLA comes in, and kicks the **** out of everything Marvel. Plus, Smallville is pretty good.

 

[The Leaguer]

I thought the War Crimes story was pretty good, even though it f**ked up Leslie Thompkins' character. Much better than War Games.

It made Leslie far more interesting than she ever had been before.

 

[Darthphere]

Here's something that might be interesting: apparently, the release of Justice League Heroes was bumped up by Warner Brothers, against the wishes of the developers, so that it would predate the release of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Make of that what you will. I've played through Justice League Heroes a few times now, it's a pretty fun game especially in terms of replay value. It's not nearly as versatile as the X-Men Legends series and also unfortunately much shorter, but it's about three degrees more enjoyable. With that said, however, I suspect that MUA will probably blow it out of the water. The graphics look really good, the gameplay looks smoother, and the character customability looks insane.

LAWL! Poor programmer dude, he takes his time to post on the boards and gets eaten up by some fanboy, LOL!

 

[gildea]

comics = marvel
movies = marvel
games = marvel

 

[The Leaguer]

Gildea's right, the crappiest comics, movies and games do come from Marvel.

 

[Doc Destruction]

comics = DC
movies = Marvel
games = no clue

 

[The Leaguer]

Doc Destruction is right, the best comics do come from DC, the worst movies do come from Marvel and the best games do come from "no clue," and by "no clue" he means DC.

 

[gildea]

Gildea's right, the crappiest comics, movies and games do come from Marvel.

you funny.





In response to the topic at hand IMO the company behind the comic isn't as important as the creators doing the work.

 

[Johnny DC]

More questions:

When do you think the rivalry between Marvel and DC began?
Why do you think it began?
Did it ever die off?

 

[Darthphere]

More questions:

When do you think the rivalry between Marvel and DC began?
Why do you think it began?
Did it ever die off?

During the Stan Lee era.

Publicity reasons

Yes, but Joey Q decided it was best to revive it.

 

[Johnny DC]

Here's what my comic-book reading friend, Matt, wrote to me in an e-mail. Maybe it'll spark some feedback:

I've always been skeptical of the rivalry. I think it's something perpetuated by the real fan boys and no one else. Personally, I think the idea of a rivalry came at an end in the mid-90's with the DC vs. Marvel series and since then it's been more about making money.

Both companies, creatively and financially, have come to similar parallels. Ideas are stolen and re-furbished in both universes without shame and it's no one's fault as writers shift from company to company on a yearly basis.

The money isn't made from the comics anymore. Obviously it is still a big part of the industry, but the merchandising, movies, and cartoons dwarf anything the comics might do. You can have 11 year old children who proudly don a Batman Halloween mask and backpack and have no idea that Batman is actually a comic book character. So, that said, I guess the real rivalry lies in how you can market the actual comic book characters to a real world audience.

As for the summertime blockbuster arcs, there is still a level of competition there. Often times the summer arcs are so full of malarkey and they even lack creativity. The are ideas recycled in order to re-create characters to either make them more reader-friendly (or, in other words, capital-friendly). The Infinite Crisis storyline was fantastic in it's crossover title build, but in the end failed to deliver some sort of finite "impact" development. In my opinion, that's not such a bad thing: you can't totally shift a universe in a seven-issue blockbuster arc. So DC developed 52 so that they could flesh out characters. They avoided the pratfalls of some sci-fi catastrophe infecting a "world" that has become far more secular and easy-to-relate to the readers. With 52, the writers have put the impact of such an event into a human form so as not to scare away the casual reader.

I don't know the numbers off of the top of my head, but assuredly, Civil War has received less acclaim and publicity. It's an idea toyed with the X-Men in it's hay day and the unmasking of such high-profile cash cow characters seems a bit like ruining a good thing. Marvel has always failed to deliver in most of their blockbusters, especially in the last few years, and I feel they rely a bit too much on the re-boot aspect to benefit their numbers.

That said, DC has the upper hand with their comics. They have iconic figures and for years have seemed to dominate the marketing world. Marvel pioneered the "blur the line" heroes with Chris Claremont and Jim Steranko. DC, in my opinion, failed to replicate such a thing until two years ago with the Identity Crisis line.

The real rivalry is in the movies, the merchandising, and the marketing to outside audiences. As long as DC has Superman leading the charge, it will have a sort of mythical edge over the rest of the comic book industry. But honestly, as long as each company is making money and seems to bandy around the same ideas, I struggle to see if the rivalry is what shapes the business and gives either company a competitive edge. I think the creativity has been shutdown, while complacency and playing it safe are coddled. No company gains a fiscal edge unless a movie is released in a certain business quarter. Other than that, the comic book industry remains stagnant.

But hey, it's a necessary evil to keep the medium around.

 

[XwolverineX]

I'm tired of posting in two threads. I think I need sleep.

 

[BrianWilly]

I think the recent barrage of Big Events sort of shows that there still is a lot of rivalry in terms of comic sales. Ultimately, you're going to want to do better than your competitor.

Some of the potshots are more blatant. Almost the entirety of Jeph Loeb's Superman/Batman arc "With a Vengeance" was a big ole' Marvel bashing fest. And here's his justification.

And of course DC had that vendetta against Quesada, though I don't know if it's still going strong today.

I think that, at the core, the rivalry is largely meaningless. Not that it still doesn't influence a lot of people -- you can't imagine (or maybe you can) the amount of people here who stubbornly buy only one company's books for no particular reason -- but that it is essentially a fight over nothing. I say that right now DC's got better books, but that could change at any point. The companies swap artists, writers, and editors all the time; as much as the characters may be a draw, those are the people who truly make or break the companies.

I don't think the rivalry is going to end anytime soon, either. You see it all the time in the world; it's like people who fight over sports teams, or TV shows, or even teenyboppers who spend all their time arguing whether the Backstreet Boys were better or 'NSYNC were. Competition is very much alive in every aspect of the world.

 

[Johnny DC]

Well, I just turned the article into my teacher. Only one person sent me their info (thanks BrianWilly ), so I had to change the viewpoint of my story from a news feature to a participatory feature, of sorts. Basically, I put myself into it. I was up until 4:15 a.m. writing it.
Thanks to everyone who commented, especially to BrianWilly (again), Dew k. Mosi, hippie_hunter, Ben Urich, XwolverineX, Axid, Souless, Ravensford, and everyone elso who commented. If I could have used something from everyone, I would have.
Here’s the story I turned in, sans BrianWilly’s real name and location. You’ll notice the ending is a little abrupt—it couldn’t exceed three pages double spaced. Be gentle if you find errors; remember I had a late night:

Being a twin, I know a little something about rivalry. My brother Joseph and I will take opposite sides on almost anything just to be different. But of all our petty squabbles, we’re renown among our friends and family for our blind devotion to two separate comic book publishers: Marvel and DC comics.

They have a rivalry too.

Marvel Comics consists of Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Hulk among other characters; its universe of heroes and villains considered more realistic and angst-ridden by critics and fans. DC Comics has the iconic superheroes: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc., who live in a world of imaginary cities such as Metropolis and Gotham. I prefer the latter company, my twin brother Joseph, the former, and our debates can sometimes become as heated as the competition between the two publishers.

Both have vied to be No. 1 in comic book sales since before World War II. Nowadays, the rivalry goes beyond comics, stretching into the film and television industry.

And today, with the release of “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance”, that rivalry branches into a new medium: video games.

“‘Marvel: Ultimate Alliance’ is going to rule all,” my brother teased as he pre-ordered it on-line. He’s basing this off of news and footage from video game Web sites such as ign.com and gamespot.com; also, this happens to be a sequel of sorts to two other video games: “X-Men Legends” and “X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.” The X-Men titles were four-player role-playing games featuring everyone’s favorite mutants. “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” extends into the entire Marvel universe—over 140 characters will appear in the game.

DC Comics came out with their version last Wednesday: “Justice League Heroes,” which has over 10 playable characters, many of which are DC’s most iconic, including the three mentioned earlier and the Flash, Green Lantern and Aquaman.

I managed to pick up my store’s final copy. While I enjoyed it along with other fans, the game’s mediocre response won’t be able to compete with the giant that “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” is.

BrianWilly, 23, of The Church of Joss has also played “Justice League Heroes.”

“It's not nearly as versatile as the X-Men Legends series and also unfortunately much shorter, but it's about three degrees more enjoyable,” BrianWilly said in an Internet message board discussing the rivalry. “However, I suspect that (“Marvel: Ultimate Alliance&#8221 will probably blow it out of the water. The graphics look really good, the game play looks smoother.”

But as far as comic books go, BrianWilly sides with DC Comics.

“In terms of comics quality, DC has been ahead of the game for quite some years now. In my opinion they focus substantially more on storytelling and characterization, as opposed to Marvel which is focusing purely on shock and glitz.”

In regards to the rivalry, BrianWilly admits it’s essentially a fight over nothing.

“I say that right now DC's got better books, but that could change at any point. The companies swap artists, writers, and editors all the time; as much as the characters may be a draw, those are the people who truly make or break the companies.”

My friend Matt Southard, 23, of Northglenn, Colo., agrees. He’s been reading comics for about 15 years.

“Both companies, creatively and financially, have come to similar parallels. Ideas are stolen and re-furbished in both universes without shame and it's no one's fault as writers shift from company to company on a yearly basis,” Southard said, who also believes that the rivalry is mainly in making profit.

“The money isn't made from the comics anymore,” Southard said. “Obviously it is still a big part of the industry, but the merchandising, movies, and cartoons dwarf anything the comics might do.”

Marvel’s “X-Men: The Last Stand” hit theaters earlier this year and has grossed over $400 million worldwide, according to boxofficemojo.com. Its competition, DC’s summer blockbuster “Superman Returns,” has been trailing, having made just under $400 million so far.

Last year was a different story; “Batman Begins” has made roughly $40 million more than Marvel’s “Fantastic Four.” I’ll usually tend to fall back on that fact in debates with Joseph, along with the fact that DC has a firm grasp on the television market with hit shows like “Smallville” and the former “Justice League Unlimited.”

But argue as much as we like, Southard remains skeptical on the very notion of a rivalry.

“I think it's something perpetuated by the real fan boys and no one else,” Southard said. “But hey, it's a necessary evil to keep the medium around.”

So until “The Dark Knight,” “Batman Begins’” sequel, comes out in the summer of 2008 (to compete with whatever summer blockbuster Marvel shells out on a yearly basis), I imagine I’ll be coming up with plenty of reasons as to why “Justice League Heroes” is better than “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.”

Oh yeah, and remember: plagiarizing is the devil