When you think about the original Avengers, who do you think about? Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp? Maybe Thor, Cap, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp? That as never changed. As far as I know it hasn’t been ret-conned.
Now the JLA.
Superman
Batman
GL
Flash
Wonder Woman
Martian Manhunter
Aquaman
I mean
Black Canary
GL
Flash
MM
Aquaman
I mean…wait…the original 7 again…no wait…take out MM and throw in Cyborg (?)…
Marvel is definitely on a tear right now, but like a few others have pointed out, I think that that success is overstated and it tells the story of why DC is in the situation it is in right now. First, not all of the Marvel Comic properties are with the same studio, Spider-Man is with Sony, X-Men and Fantastic Four are with Fox, and though Marvel has the rights back to Punisher, Daredevil, Ghostrider, and Blade, those films were made by other studios as well.
Marvel studios has made the Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and Avengers films. Admittedly, those films are generally pretty good, a few of them excellent, but there’s some duds in there. Personally, I think Iron Man 2 is a pretty blah movie, Incredible Hulk wasn’t much better, and Iron Man 3 suffered from the same issues so many other third super hero films did (Superman 3, Batman Forever, X-Men 3, Spider-Man 3, Dark Knight Rises, etc). Avengers was excellent, I quite liked Thor and Thor 2, and the first Cap movie was fun and I’m looking forward to the second, having heard great things about it. Marvel Studios has done a great job of developing films with fairly consistent tone, so the audience knows what to expect, and even their poor films are quickly forgotten when the next one comes out.
This is something the other studios, whether with Sony and Fox with other Marvel properties, or WB with DC, just can’t do. ALL Marvel Studios does is their films and they’re pumping out one or two a year, where with the others we’re lucky to get a new Spider-Man, X-Men, or DC film every two years. This means that the flops are left to linger so we remember them more. I don’t think very many people will say Iron Man 2 was a great movie, but no one talks about that film like they do X-Men 3 or Green Lantern, because we were stuck lingering on those flops for a while.
And as for the whole shared universe thing, it’s ALWAYS been the goal, the problem has always been that it’s something that’s difficult and expensive to make and harder to sell. Fox proved it could work with X-Men in 2000, and WB has been trying to get it off the ground for years, in fact, they had a full Justice League script and were in preproduction for a film before the Nolan films took off and it was canceled. So the idea that Marvel did it first, just isn’t correct, but they’ve definitely been the ones to do it best so far, and shown that it’s profitable and worth the risk.
I think when you actually compare the average quality of films over roughly the same period, DC and Marvel aren’t that far off, the only difference is Marvel has more of them. Batman Begins and particularly The Dark Knight are amazing films, in my opinion The Dark Knight is at least as good as Avengers (IMO Marvel Studio’s best film) and Batman Begins isn’t that far behind. I personally adored Man of Steel (though I admit it had it’s faults), Dark Knight Rises had some problems, a few plot and editing issues but it was still fun and while I didn’t hate Green Lantern, it was poor. Compare that to Marvel Studio’s films, and you get a similar rate of amazing, good, mediocre, and poor, the only difference is Marvel has a few more films rounding that out.
I think the biggest problem facing WB and DC, besides the fact that they’re playing catch-up now with fewer opportunities to do so, is that the iconic nature of their characters is both a blessing and a curse. When people saw Iron Man, other than comic nerds, there were no preconceived notions about the character, they could make subtle adaptations for the film, and all everyone cared about was that they had fun. But virtually everyone knows who the big three are over at DC, and that’s a blessing in that it draws the crowds to see it, but it also means people will judge them harshly if it doesn’t mean their expectations.
For instance, sure Man of Steel had some pacing and plot issues, but overwhelmingly the complaints I’ve seen weren’t about that, they tended to be along the lines of “Superman wouldn’t do that”, “it was too dark”, “it was too different from the Reeve Superman”, etc. If it had been more or less the same film with a character other than Superman, those complaints wouldn’t exist, but then less people would have been inclined to see it. Marvel has managed to largely solve this issue, because now the name Marvel has become the draw, but they can use new characters that don’t have the expectations attached.
So, now, DC has a pretty decent hit on their hands with Man of Steel, though it’s a bit divisive, but they also know that they HAVE to get a shared universe going and they pretty much have to bet it all on the Man of Steel sequel and, assuming it’s at least decent, the follow up Justice League film. Only time will tell how the new versions of Batman and Wonder Woman will be perceived by the audience.
…which was my point.
Okay…I mixed up your antecedents in that post.