As a Die hard comic fan, I’ve been following the “Our Worlds at War” Storyline. (danger, **spoilers ahead **.)
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So far, the DC Universe has been taking pounding from an alien invasion , the Impereix. Several periphery DC charecters are dead, or assumed so. ( I won’t go into names). Even ** Supes ** has had to call in a reprogrammed Doomsday for help.
Which brings us to the question, nay, the debate, could the Marvel Universe Charecters done better?
I say yes. It is my opinion that Marvel has many more Nearly-Gods charecters than DC. Thor, Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator, Silver Surfer, just to name a very few.
Does Anyone disagree, have anything to add? I won’t get into it until more people post…
[Spoilers abound… especially at the end]
Well, Namor probably would have put up a better show than Aquaman at the end of JLA:OWAW #1. Being ignoble enough to cheat didn’t help you out in this one, did it Curry? Heh, heh, heh.
I don’t know if the Marvel characters would have done a better job, as a whole, but it would certainly lead to some interesting storylines to see how the Marvel villains handled things in the ground war. Batman’s Rogue Gallery aside, there really aren’t a lot of “bad guys” in the DC Universe that anyone is dying to see. Having, say, Doc Ock and Doom team up with Richards and Pym in order to brainstorm how to fight off an alien invasion, well, that could be a pretty good story. Redemption against a common foe or whatnot. I don’t know of a whole lot of villains in the DC Universe that have the charisma to pull that off – although the Luthor-as-President through all this is a nice touch.
(Slightly off-topic: it kills me that the writing is so rushed on this. Personally, this seems like JLA: Act of God all over again. A great concept that just doesn’t have enough pages to cover everything… resulting in absolute messes like Guy Gardner getting whacked in a single panel, and dialogue that seems over-edited and wooden. And geez, how many times do you get a chance to write the last story for a major character like Aquaman? I have no idea if he’s going to be ‘permanently’ slain, but it would seem to me that if you’re even going make it seem like you’re removing a character so ingrained into the American subculture like he is that you could do a better job closing things than having some cliched, underwater ‘explosion’ at the end of an issue.)
I always thought it would be cool if Marvel created a character that could go toe-to-toe with Galactus:
y’know, the big guy who eats planets (Silver Surfer used to be his herald).
Now, this guy shouldn’t just appear fully powered in edition #1, but as a totally ordinary guy whose powers and
character development progresses over the span of five years
to the point he is the ULTIMATE Marvel hero…
and dies fighting Galactus (no Superman ressurection).
Personally, let’s even set aside the number of scientific geniuses in each universe, There are, it seems, more near-Gods in the Marvel end than in on the DC. Personally, I always thought the Hulk could have beatne Superman, and indeed, he would have an easier time of it than Supes.
I doubt the Heroes of the Marvel universe would mope around like Superman has. That was poorly done IMHO.
Plus, because of the closeness of the X-Men with the Shi’ar Imperium, they probaly could call in the Shi’ar Imperial Gaurd, as an additional force. To say nothing of the Silver Surfer and Firelord.
The sheer firepower of the Marvel Universe could probaly have repelled the Imperiex’s invasion much easier.
Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel have the same kind of mystical connection to the gods as a Thor. Green Lantern has an unimaginably powerful weapon that surpasses the Surfer’s power cosmic. Superman, of course, must be considered god-like in terms of power, if not actually in origins – hell, he wrestled an angel in one story. Don’t get me started on the Spectre. This is a guy who once committed genocide against an entire country because he found it sinful.
And all that is before we get to the New Gods.
So in terms of sheer muscle, DC can match anything in Marvel. I will grant that Marvel probably has a larger stable of compelling villains. Once you get past Luthor, the residents of Arkham Asylum and Darkseid, you drop rapidly in quality. Marvel also has a more interesting and powerful line-up of alien races. The Skrull, Shi-ar and Kree certainly have more depth (in strength and in story possibilities) than Rann and Thanagar.
So I don’t buy that Marvel has more big-gun godlike characters. But I could be persuaded that top-to-bottom they have more manpower to throw at an alien invasion.
It’s my opnion that there are more uber-supervillans in the Marvel Universe that would help defeat the Imperiex than in the DC.
Again, I think that there are more near-Gods in the Marvelverse than in DCU.
We can also bring in The Shi’ar Imperial Gaurd, Apocalypse, Magneto, Spidercide(God forbid if we ever see ** him** again), Captain Universe, Captain Marvel, Adam Warlock, Black Bolt (one reasons he could destroy Imperiex Probes easily), Wonder Man. I’m sure I could come up with more if I thought of them.
I’m removing the Kree from the equation, because they got so banged up in ** Operation Galactic Storm**.
Again , the Imperiex, IMHO, could be removed much faster in the Marvelverse than the DCU is faring. Plus, I don’t think we’d have central charecters (Like Superman has) moping around and losing the will to fight.
Darkseid…the wheels in my mind are truning…Let’s include Thanos in there to, in the un;likely event he doesn’t want to see so much death and destruction.
Y’all are missing the point regarding the Imperiex… it’s not a matter of “who’d be able to beat them”, since a simple tweaking of plot elements would make them both equally vulnerable to attack (if the writers so desired).
However, the core of the debate seems to come down to “Which is stronger?”, and in my opinion, Marvel not only has a more well-rounded cast of characters, a greater diversity of powers/abilities… but you have to keep in mind that a significant portion of the population is composed of mutants. Granted, their exact strength is unknown, but if an alien force is attacking, that’s several million potential “fighters”. (Granted, if you adjust to account for mutants who have “crappy” powers, you’d probably end up with a number on the side of a few hundred thousand… at least).
Finally, the overall technological level of the non-superpowered entities seems to be higher in the Marvel universe than in DC. Outside of Metropolis (and a few other select areas), Marvel has cooler weaponry and vehicles placed in the hands of normal Joe’s.
And regarding villains… let’s not forget the possibility of Sentinels being sent into battle (damn, those things kicked major ass). While the X-men tore them to pieces left and right, they’d complement any fighting force, if need be.