In this monster of a thread, Showdown, some people consider themselves as “Marvel” or “DC” fans.
I will admit that I have read more DC titles than Marvel. However, I never let the logo tell me what I should or shouldn’t read. If I liked the story, I read the comic. If I didn’t like the story, I didn’t read the comic. There are very few titles I read just because of the title [Legion of Super Heroes and offshoots]. Mostly, if something in a title catches my fancy, I start reading it. If and when it turns south, I stop. That could be after one issue or 60. Doesn’t matter if it is Spiderman or Superman or Spawn or Savage Dragon or whomever.
I’m curious about the reasoning for feeling that the publisher is the driving force, not the actual writers and stories. Can anyone of you Marvel or DC purists help me out?
Well, what it comes down to is that DC fans are sophisticated, erudite, connoisseurs of the comic book medium; whereas Marvel fans are just a mob of spotty poopie heads.
Well, I’m not a purist by any means. I’m pretty much like you–I read what I like.
That said, however, there have been times in the past where a particular was more likely to have titles I would enjoy. The heyday of DC’s Vertigo line was an example–I knew that I was more likely to enjoy a Vertigo title than the mass of DC material. Ditto for Dark Horse.
But “more likely to enjoy” doesnt’t equal “guaranteed to enjoy,” not does it mean I’m interested in ignoring every other title out there. That, I don’t get either.
A lot of it depends on which company’s books you started reading first. You get hooked into that particular universe and then, because you have devoted so much time to it, you get fairly protective of it. This is further exacerbated by the comic community itself which tends to attract people who get a little too close to the characters.
I’m not sure that is as true today as it was say 10 years ago but I think it is still valid. The growth in alternative comic publishers (and I mean that in the broadest sense and not just indy publishers) and manga has broken this mold somewhat and given comic book readers greater variety.
As a generalization, DC characters were once considered staid, boring and very one-dimensional whereas Marvel was more cutting edge and “hip”. That is not the case today. Indeed, if the mainstream comic book market continues to shrink there may be a very real DC/Marvel cross-over!
As full disclosure, my favourite character is Thor. I own every Thor ever published. My favourite DC character is Orion because I like the DC mythos (both Thor and Orion were created by Jack Kirby (well, Thor was adapted by Kirby but close enough).
I find a lot of the brand-loyalty comes from being invested in one universe or another. If you’ve already absorbed decades of one history, put up with reboots, deaths, inevitable rebirths, etc., and can recite story arcs like a bard of yore, you have little incentive to venture out into a different universe with which you are not familiar, and in which you are many years behind in your reading from the get-go. Why be a neophyte again? Better to remain ensconced in your comfortable, familiar continuity and ignore what that lame other publisher is putting out.
Of course, that takes it to extremes, and most will read at least some from the Other Guy, depending on what draws the reader: a featured writer or artist, or perhaps a particular storyline. I read mostly DC titles (especially JSA & JLWhatever), but I’m careful to keep abreast of happenings at Marvel, so I can discuss goings-on with my friends who like such dreck .
Well, I’m a Superman fan. I love all things Superman, therefore I lean towards DC. However, most of the titles I actually own are Marvel (all X-Men). I can’t say I believe that either one is better or more “realistic” than the other–let’s be honest, they both have their share of lame.
The proof of that, of course, being the mere existence of Aquaman and Dazzler.
I let myself get locked into DC in the Sixties. Beyond what I considered absolutely lousy art in Spiderman (I came across #10 in particular) there wasn’t a shred of reasoning behind my “decision”.
When the Eighties came I had a practical reason for not letting myself get hooked on Marvel too much. The price of comics became astronomical by that time. I quit buying new comics almost entirely in '88 for this and other reasons.
Nevertheless I bought certain titles from Marvel, such as Power Pack – too cute to pass up-- and SURPRISE, SURPRISE: Squadron Supreme. A search through my accumulated comics would also show a smattering of Spiderman and (mostlydonated) X-men from the Seventies.
Bias against DC is largely a result of how the Superman titles were handled in the '50’s and '60’s. And Batman prior to 1964. (The “New Look”) Wonder Woman from sometime in the '50’s to 1965 would require a whole new thread to discuss. In the Flame Pit.
Fans often overlooked the more adult writing in Hawkman, Atom, etc. Even Green Lantern and the Flash usually had less gimmicky stories than about 2/3 of the Superman title stories.
I read exclusively DC when I was growing up, for the simple reason that it was impossible to find Marvel Comics in my area in the early 60s. When a friend moved into the area with a collection of Spider-Mans aroung 1966, it was the first time I had heard of him.
But I still preferred DC. I never liked the soap opera elements of Marvel (which evidently was the basis for their appeal) and the repetitive storylines of the 60s (typical Spider-Man from the era: New villain shows up, fights Spidey; Spidey loses; Spidey mopes about how bad his life was yadda yadda yadda; villain shows up again; Spidey wins. Sometimes they dragged this out for two or three issues) and didn’t care for their long storylines (I preferred – and still prefer – a one-issue story). DC has heroes; Marvel had whiners.
But, overall, DC tended to feature better stories. By the 70s, the belief was that DC wrote comics for college age audiences, while Marvel wrote for teenagers. This is the secret of Marvel’s success – if you aim for teenagers, you can’t go wrong (this applies in other areas, too).
About the only Marvel series that ever stood out for me was Howard the Duck (don’t let the movie fool you – Gerber’s comic was terrific stuff; I have the entire run). There were occasional good stories (I liked some of Peter David’s Hulk stories, and enjoyed the absurdity of She-Hulk).
But there’s a long line of good DC and DC/Vertigo books – Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, JLA, Sandman, and Preacher, for instance – that are light years ahead of Marvel in writing and story.
When I collected comics, I was exclusively a Marvel guy, for two main reasons: Marvel did Spider-Man and Daredevil, and most of my friends who collected also mainly bought Marvel. (The TSR Marvel role-playing game clinched it.)
I did kind of fall for the “home team” buzz a bit—Marvel was my team, and I thought it was cool to back them. (Marvel had about a 50% market share at this time, so I definitely wasn’t alone.) It seems very silly nowadays, particularly when I hear Marvel EIC Joe Quesada actually longing for the days when readers were either DC people or Marvel people. What is this guy, a freakin’ teenager?
So the Superman’s love life wasn’t like a soap opera :rolleyes:
Most of DC’s characters were wooden which never really appealed to me. Even now I don’t see Superman as having much dept. DC did, however, constantly push the envelope with their mature line which paved the way for more mature comics. They also have a larger corporate parent which allows them to continue running lines that sell less than 20,000 a month. Some argue that the increase of mature content in comics helped alienate the youth market in the 90’s but I’d put it down to style over substance.
Right now, DC as a publisher is by far the more interesting company. Its main superhero line is more experimental than Marvel’s (that’s a chance from a couple years ago), it has Vertigo and Wildstorm/ABC, both of which publish material that Marvel wouldn’t even think about, and now DC is doing great collections of 2000 AD and Humanoids material from Europe which most American readers have never seen before. Meanwhile, Marvel’s got another X-spinoff!
Hehe…the Squadron Supreme wasn’t the only wholesale lifting of DC characters that Marvel ever did. The Shi’ar Imperial Guard were copied without much change from the Legion of Superheroes.
Gladiator was Mon-El. Oracle was Saturn Girl. Tempest was Lightning Lad. Magik was White Witch. It goes on. They are almost character for character simply lifted and the serial numbers filed off. I always thought the SS and the ImpGuard were the most blatant and ballsy plagiarisms in comicdom.
I always read DC exclusively because I liked Superman, the Legion of Superheroes, Batman, Aquaman, the Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League. Marvel comics were, well just “foreign” from my perspective. I haven’t read any comics for years. Used to be you could pick up a Superman and enjoy it. Now the casual reader has been shown the door and unless you want to follow religiously and buy every issue, you can’t follow it.
Well DC having a massive corporate parent certainly helps. It allows it to subsidize more experimental projects. That said, I always thought Marvel was more in touch with the younger reader and had more human heroes. Gimmicky stories? So the Flash running a trillion times the speed of light is profound? Or superhorse (Yes, there was a superhorse!).
For some reason Joe Quesada gives me the creeps. Regardless, I think both companies are in trouble. Marvel’s market cap is based solely on their movie licensing franchise. Comic sales aren’t’t anywhere near what they used to be with the best selling titles selling about 120k per month. Both companies seem to have given up the youth market which does not augur well for the future.
Can’t say anything of the Imperial Guard, but the SS are part of a mutual poking at eachother that Marvel and DC doing a lot at the time.
Marvel had the SS as clones of the Justice League, DC had the Assemblers (later renamed the Justifiers) as clones of the Avengers. Two Assemblers - Silver Sorceress (Scarlet Witch) and Bluejay (Antman, although he flies, like Wasp) - became members of the JLI.
Ties right in with what I said about my mostly donated X-Men.
I used to argue with a college chum about DC vs. Marvel. (BTW, some of the posters on this thread need to grow up or at least lighten up …)
He read some DC’s and only really hated Superman. I had yet to buy a Marvel, AFAIRecall. He said that there was something I HAD to see. Your comments about the SIG takeoff on the Legion brought back pleasant memories. Thank you. (He also got me to read some of Marvel’s Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock. I think one of the latter showed up in my accumulation a few years ago. Notice, I said accumulation, not collection, which implies some degree of organization…)
The issue of where send-ups are complimentary and where they qualify as plagiarism is rather complex. In a nutshell, DC and Marvel often"borrowed" each other’s characters in a friendly way. (Witness some of Marvel’s non-self-spoof items in Not Brand Ecch! and probably every early villain in DC’s Inferior Five .)
With the SS, things eventually became more complicated. When the villainous version first appeared in Marvel DC cheerfully looked the other way. But then came a Maxi-series featuring the virtuous parallel counterparts.
DC felt that an entire miniseries meant Marvel piggy-backing on their ready-made audience and making a substantial profit. But they were too late to sue. A version of the characters had been around too long, without any prompt complaint, said the courts.
Another issue I have with comics is the slavish obession with continuity. Some comic readers get so into a character that they can throw out some fairly obscure point about a character and demand that it be taken as the word of god. I’ve met two fairly well known comic book writers and they actually make fun of these sort of people. Oftentimes writers will add powers, attributes or whatever is relevant to make their story work without regard to continuity. This is ignored by the “purists” who see it all making sense somehow in the grand plan when it meant nothing of the sort.
Marvel has tried to address this with the Ulitmates line. I don’t know if it has worked but it seems like a good idea to me.
I grew up on Marvel. 70’s Marvel consisted of writers and their acid trips, like Dr. Strange, Warlock, Captain Marvel, the Defenders, and Howard the Duck. By the 80’s, Marvel stopped being so experimental, and eventually ditched those titles. Now it seems like all Marvel comics follow a formula with in-your-face art in bright garish colors.
I now mainly pick up DC/Vertigo comics, because it seems like they don’t restrict the writers so much, and employ artists with their own unique styles. It’s funny to find out some of my favorite writers also write X Men. Vertigo shows how they thrive without the formulas and guidelines.
I used to be a big Marvel junkie. All of DC’s heroes were flawless, perfect ubermensch (yeah, I’m looking at you, Clark), while Marvel’s heroes were flawed, troubled, and realistic.
Of course, this was during the '80s-early '90s, when Marvel was running on all cylinders, so that was okay.
Nowadays, of course, I read more for certain writers and characters than I do for any house brand. I’m a sucker for anything by Peter David, Mark Waid, and Kurt Buseik, and I still dip into Spider-Man from time to time just to say hi. But I’ve vastly expanded my repetoire, and maybe someday I’ll finally figure out Crisis on Infinite Earths.
But a lot of my fondest memories of early comic-collecting will be with Marvel titles.
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