I was introduced to comics by my uncle. Through him, I fell in love with the Legion, so when I started buying them myself, I started with Legion and slowly developed more DC titles.
At the time, I bought a few Marvels as well. Thor and The Avengers come to mind.
I met some Marvel fans that made fun of me for reading any DCs and I got mad so i stopped reading all Marvels and wouldn’t touch them for years.
I mostly stuck DC until I stopped reading.
I grew up reading mostly Marvel titles that my dad had given me, plus having a subscription to Peter David’s amazing Hulk run for a while. However, my dad also bought me Giffen Justice League issues, which pretty much cemented my love of DC (and obscure DC characters). Nowadays I buy DC pretty exclusively (not counting other non-Marvel companies), but I still keep up on what’s going on at Marvel and read trades when they come out.
I can honestly say that I’ve never once understood the criticism that DC heroes are too powerful to relate to. It just completely baffles me. Mostly because I can’t remember a time when I actually related to any hero to any great extent. I’m as much unlike Spider-Man as I am Superman.
I think it was more of a case of the DC heroes being too wooden and one dimensional. Marvel has certainly upped the powers of its heroes (Thor, Silver Surfer, The Sentry (who would take out pre-crisis Superman) etc.) so that argument is long gone. Some DC readers, however, were fairly smug confident in the knowledge that a lot of their titles were intellectually superior when a number of them were just thinly disgused R rated pot-boilers.
I think the industry in general is in trouble though. The Marvel/DC distinction maynot be relevant 10 years from now.
I’m a Marvel fan. Growing up in the 80s, I used to love the X-Men and, to a lesser extent, Spiderman and nowadays, like reading about (but not actually reading) the Avengers, Daredevil, and a handful of others.
99% of my exposure to DC has been through its movies (none of which I have especially liked), its cartoons (Batman: The Animated Series was cool but that’s it), its TV shows (kitsch), and its fans. I don’t think I’ve ever actually read any DC comic aside from “The Death of Superman” and that was out of sadistic gleee. I hate Superman. Batman too.
I really like the concept of Green Lantern though. He might be the coolest hero of either universe.
The larger the corporation, the less likely they will want to “subsidize” a losing division. For an example, when Time Warner bought Turner, wrestling was quickly excised. Turner has stated in interviews two reasons why he kept wrestling, even though it was a red line on his statements: (1) When he was just starting, it was a large money-maker and it had sentimental value due to that, and (2) He didn’t like Vincent McMahon.
DC Comics has to make money to stay in business. Not every title, mind you, just the overall company. Obviously, they want to keep the franchises (Superman, Batman, Justice League, Teen Titans) alive for internal licensing arrangements, but that’s the same with Marvel. What they both want to do is introduce books and let fan buying pattern and feedback help them to refine their offerings to the most profitable stable of titles possible. And that is why Wolverine, Batman and John Byrne are shoved down readers throats. If readers truly were sick of stopped buying comics just because JB, BW or Wolverine are in them, they would be pared back.
To my fellow CoH players, the JB referenced above is neither the real JB nor the wannabe JB. Just want to avoid any confusion.
One thing I find to be broadly true is that DC is the company for strong innovative storytelling while Marvel is the company for compelling contemprary imagery. This can be traced all the way back to genesis of the scripts, where DC scripts can be intensively descriptive while Marvel uses the dialogue script style.
Strong writers tend to cut their teeth working at DC, strong artists do their style-defining work at Marvel. Clearly there’s room for debate here, given Bendis’ and Busiek’s affinity for Marvel characters and Alex Ross’ apparent switch from Marvel to DC – but as I said, I still find this to be broadly true. You know what company you want to find UK superstar comic book writers, in any event.
I came of age reading my uncle’s post-death-of-Gwen-Stacy Marvel Comics and his earlier 80 page giants and the like. I stumbled onto Frank Miller, Roy Thomas and Peter David’s 80s ouevre but absolutely fell in LOVE with Wolfman’s Teen Titans and later, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Watchmen and occassional Superman stories.
These days I buy comics from writers or writer/artists I like irrespective of what companies they happen to work for. This tends to skew more towards DC/ DCU imprints, various independents and the occassional Marvel ULTIMATE title.
When I was really into comic books, I guess I was a DC “purist.” I preferred them precisely because they were fantastic. I liked that Superman lived in Metropolis and Batman lived in Gotham, not New York City. I liked the idea of an alternate universe where anything was possible, instead of trying to ask, “What would it be like if there were superheroes in the real world?”
Marvel always seemed to be trying too hard to have fantastic characters in realistic settings. And attempts to make stories realistic just came off as shallow and pandering. On the whole, comic book writers are much better at coming up with imaginative stories than realistic ones.
And for that reason, all the attempts that DC has made to “ground” their characters have just fallen flat with me. I want everything in a comic book to be larger than life. I like Green Lantern, not Green Arrow. I’m not particularly interested in seeing how a character in a comic book would handle drug dealers, or teenage pregancy, or testing HIV positive. I want to see them fighting aliens and ninja robots and demons and evil wizards.
I agree with SolGrundy’s sentiment quite a bit.
I’ve read thousands of comics - I have a twelve-year solid block of X-Men… maybe more… I have a ten-year-or-so solid block of Superman. Yes, all four titles.
I like DC a bit better. For several reasons.
One, richer Golden Age. The JSA rocks. The Invaders? Eh, kinda cool.
Two, of the two major comic companies, one of them seems to like continuity. The other apparently has half-a-dozen Wolverine clones wandering around doing guest-shots. Yeah, some comic creators denounce continuity. Like Chuck Austen. And John Byrne. Not company I’d want to be in…
Three - every single time I get interested in a Marvel title, it’s cancelled within a few months or handed off to a creative team that consists of heavily medicated monkeys that screws it up.
Four - Grew up reading more DC than Marvel, as it was more available. Heck, Batman, All-Star Squadron, and Justice League of America helped me learn to read.
No, no. That’s Incredible Hulk. Spider-Man is Amazing.
Yeah, that’s what always bothered me about Spider-Man. He’s a damn EMO superhero, for crying out loud. And I really liked the cheesiness of '60s DC, where in every issue Superman would mysteriously save the day, and then at the end they would reveal through a flashback how he did it. Still, I like a few Marvel superheroes. Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America are all good. But I could never be bothered to understand the intricacies of the Marvel Universe.
I felt, as I grew up, that the industry was maturing its offerings along with my own maturation. The ‘fantastic’, cheesy Superman was becoming less (but still) cheesy, Batman was getting dark, the X-Men’s mutant hysteria was actually getting good. Essentially, it turned from a child/young teen stories to older teen / young adult stories just as I did. Or maybe it was just reader bias on my part. Any title that did not transition, I dropped. I picked up new titles based on recommendations. If I liked them, I read them until such time I didn’t like them.
A couple of things soured me. I understand the need to introduce new characters and don’t begrudge them. However, both universes started looking like City of Heroes - more heroes than normal people. Being a mutant wasn’t special anymore; there were more mutants than lefties. Plus, massive crossovers started, where I ‘had’ to buy several different books to stay current with the continuity of one book I liked. But the crossover books weren’t good, and I ended up getting lost in the book I liked, and I just said to hell with it. Or the crossover books didn’t treat the characters and supporting cast properly, and I got disgusted with the way things were going. And the heroes started dying more often than Comic Book Guy showers, but it no longer meant anything. I liked Hal Jordan’s demise. I wanted Supergirl retired, never to return. I don’t ever want to see Barry Allen, Gwen Stacy, or Mar-Vell alive (aside: I know his son now does the Captain Marvel gimmick - did Mar ever return?)
Now I’m back to reading more again (Candid, I supported the industry when you were growing up :)) and I’m seeing the things that had me liking comics. But I really don’t see anything that currently makes one publisher’s offerings unique to the other.
But that’s just me.
Just an opinion but I always thought DC sucked. I tried some of the titles but I couldn’t stand them. About the only one I could stomach was teen titans. Of course my comments must be put in the proper context. I have not read a comic book since 1985.
Heh. I’m biased towards Marvel (Spidey, X-Men, etc.) but I read comics from both sides. Haven’t gotten around to DC’s Identity Crisis series yet, though. 
I was a Marvel only buyer/collector with one big exception. I had to have anything by Neal Adams that I could get my hands on. Especially Green Lantern/Arrow comics & Batman.
I started off with feet planted firmly in the DC universe. I liked Superman, loved the Flash, and even got a bit creeped out by some of the darker batman stories (course, reading them at night in the car on a darkened unfamiliar road couldn’t have helped). I used to have the Crisis in Infinite Earths where the Flash died.
Then I found some old Marvel comics. Mostly X-Men but a Thor or two as well. I liked the idea of being a hero and being kinda miserable.
The DC heroes were just too clean for me. Batman took off the cape and cowl and became Bruce Wayne. Superman put on glasses and became Clark Kent. Even as heroes, they were popular. It was always “Yay, Superman.” At the time, even Batman was respected by police.
Marvel comics were different. I read X-Men and Spider Man. People hated them, but they did the right thing anyways. It wasn’t easy, but it needed doing. I liked that. And even though Spider Man was terribly emo, he still cracked wise. Even in the face of death, he would think about overdue library books. Superman never did that.
I really lost it for DC after the “death” of Superman and the “crippling” of Batman. I know that Marvel does it too. Heroes die and come back all the time, but the Batman and Superman had sooooooo much hype over it, all for a few issues until they bloody came back. I had respect for them because they were ballsy enough to kill these characters, but whoops. :smack: I did respect them for using the Coast City destruction to launch Hal Jordan though.
I guess what it comes down to is that I identified more with the Marvel Characters I read than the DC.
I’m a DC girl and always have been almost exclusively except for the occasional X-Men when I was a kid/teenager.
I loved Wally West, Hal Jordan, and Lex Luthor (I hate Superman, but I love Lex :)). They were (are) my favorite heroes of all time.
I hadn’t read a comic in years and started up again about two years ago. Started with The Flash and built back up from there. JLA, Wonder Woman, very excited about Green Lantern Rebirth, I’m loving Identity Crisis as well.
However, all that said, I do not let the logo dictate to me. I just haven’t found a Marvel title that holds my interest. I bought Wolverine issues #1 and #2 last summer and (surprisingly) hated it with a passion, same goes for 6 months worth of Uncanny X-Men, and Issue #1 of Wolverine Snikt. X-Men was the only Marvel title I cared for as a kid and Wolverine was my favorite - so this was a big disappointment for me.
So, while I don’t technically let the logo dictate my purchase, it just seems to work out that way.
I’m a big Marvel fan who never liked any of the X-putyournamehere titles 
I did, however, relate more to a spiderman than a superman. I detest Batman so that soured me on DC. As I said earlier though, in 10 years this discussion might be moot.
When I started reading comics in the '80s, the only heroes I knew were the ones from Saturday morning cartoons when I was younger: Superfriends (Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman, and etc.) and Spiderman. So I tried some comics of those characters. Batman and Superman were incredibly one-dimensional with stories that seemed immature and ridiculous. Spiderman was realistic, fun, sometimes complex. So I picked up all his titles and then started branching out more. I eventually got whole bunches of Marvel. I’d try a few DCs but still found them pretty clumsy in their attempts to tell stories.
Of course later Marvel started going downhill with some sort of ridiculously overreaching dumb plot every couple of months that took over every title and sucked bad, so I stopped.
To read above that anyone ever thought DC was written for college students and Marvel for teenagers seems like a major disconnect to me. Maybe a hopped aboard comics at a time when all the good writers were at Marvel or something.
These days, except for a rare title now and then I pick up from word of mouth (reboot of Avengers about 5 years back, the recent DC/Marvel crossover that started out awesome but with a weak second half), pretty much any comic in the last ten years I’ve seen has been majorly cringe-worthy.
As a recent convert to US comics at the moment I’m firmly DC.
I read 2000AD as a teen but then gave up reading comics for about 10 years until someone recommended The Dark Knight Returns.
I enjoyed this a lot and bought some of the monthly Bat comics and TPB’s , I then found the Vertigo stuff and enjoyed the Preacher TPB’s etc
Now everything I read is DC/Vertigo (whole Batman series, Green Arrow, Y Last Man, Fables, 100 Bullets, Identity Crisis, Green Lantern Rebirth).
None of the Marvel comics appeal to me, I did pick up a copy of “Identity Disc”, what an awful looking comic, artwork and coloring looked terrible and what dialogue I read was awful. If that’s the overall standard of Marvel I’ll continue giving them a miss.
I think somebody nailed it earlier when they said that it all depended on what universe you immersed yourself in first. It’s a lot of effort to learn another milieu.
That being said, growing up in the 80s, I was a Marvel fan all the way. I don’t know where I got the money, but I bought everything they put out. I’m just repeating what others have already said, but I felt that the DC characters were pretty dumb because they were over-powered and uni-faceted. I felt the stories basically came down to “ooh, will it be fuchsia kryptonite this month or taupe?” With Marvel, I felt I could even sympathize a bit with the villains because they tended to be a bit deeper (Magneto). Of course I haven’t really read anything recently (though I’m going to pick up the Watchmen because of all the talk around the SDMB).
But to give DC it’s due, when I really, really needed a kick-butt (non-super) hero, there was only one answer: Sgt. Rock!!