Marvel VS DC

[Robbo]

Personally i prefer the DC characters (most of them anyway). In this thread i also wanted to talk about how sneaky Marvel have been over they years unveiling the Avengers Movie which will have epic Spoilers everywhere

[Xanatos]

Both DC and Marvel have an amazing set of characters, I personally prefer Marvel, though only because I'm more familiar with their work. You see, unlike DC, Marvel comics were and still are available for purchase in my country, I grew up reading Spiderman, and X-Men comics, I even collected panini stickers and albums based on various Marvel franchises, not to mention that I'm a huge fan of Stan Lee.

As for the movies, well, both sides have shown what they're really capable of, if you ask me it's a great time to be a comic fan as you can see your favorite characters on big screen, the best thing though is that they're actually good, if games would only get such treatment.

[Robbo]

About the Avengers film i think this did happen but im not sure because i havent Seen Spiderman 3 in ages and ive only seen it once anyway the thing was

SPOILER!!:

Nick Fury Shows Someone Captain America's shield?

Did that Happen?

[Josh_R]

I like both, but for me Marvel takes the win. The only DC characters I really like is Batman, and Green Lantern. Whereas with Marvel I have the X-Men(Gambit is the shit), Spidey, Daredevil, Black Panther, and Blade. It is really no contest for me. MARVEL RULEZ!!!

[final fantacy_tifa]

Hmm...I like both a lot but idk if I have a fav
There both excellent so I'm not to sure but I prouble lean toured marvel

[Clint]

I don't like aspects of both Marvel and DC, but if I had to pick one, I'd go with DC over Marvel any day. This all comes down to which brand has the least annoying characters. With Marvel, I can't stand most of their characters. The Fantastic 4 are lame as shit, Spiderman is a whiny little *****, the X-Men thrive on teamwork, the Avenger's are always sticking their noses in situations that just cause more trouble than it's worth, Daredevil is so blind that he can see, and not to mention that every single member of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a complete ****.

DC has some pretty annoying characters. The Elongated Man is a super fruit. Superman thinks he's the shit. He doesn't realize how many times Bruce Wayne has kicked his ass. Wonder Woman is a preachy environmentalist feminist bitch. Aquaman is under the impression that being a mermaid doesn't make him a faggot. I very much enjoy The Flash, especially Wally West's version. I like Spectre, Hawkman, Batman, the white Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, the Atom, and my personal favorite, Zatanna Zatara.

[Rebecca Harrison]

I think marvel, to be honest, i prefer it to DC because ive heard about marvel more than DC

[T.G. Oskar]

In my case, Marvel. All the way.

Each has its bunch of similarities, don't take me wrong. But in the case of which group of superheroes I would like saving me, I'd choose a Marvel superhero over a DC superhero (Batman be damned, and I think Batman is the shite in how awesome he is, but still...).

Both types of superheroes are larger than life characters, but Marvel's ones are a bit more believable. Sure, Spider-Man has some drama towards it, the "drama queen" kind (don't get me started on One More Day), but he's a bit more believable in that he feels fear, and he's a comical guy because that's his way to handle that fear. He's the archetype of what happens when superheroes are born pretty much from accident; he starts using his powers indiscriminately, then learns the purpose and the value of those powers towards others ("With great power, comes great responsibility"), and generally tries to balance his daily life conflicts with his superheroics, in a way that albeit truly unbelievable, doesn't stretch disbelief in the way Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne do. It also shows a bit of progression, something that IMO hurts DC a bit when you consider Silver Age heroism (lighthearted is good, but trying to make any sense of that is just horrible; Crisis on Infinite Earths only BARELY managed to stop that).

On the other hand, DC characters are pretty much god-like. Superman is the uber-example: his life, in and out of the costume, is pretty much perfect; his daily conflicts are there, sure, but in an entirely separate strata much of the time. You can figure that Clark has daily life conflicts much like Marvel characters do, but noticing them is much harder than with the latter. And Superman is pretty much invulnerable, so as long as you don't use kryptonite or magic (or are Doomsday).

Which...is another of the conflicts I have with DC characters. Aside from Batman, who has...all the vulnerabilities that other human heroes have but that plans ahead to counter them, most if not all DC characters are invulnerable sans for a single item which is pretty much sold in the supermarket. Supes and kryptonite/magic, Martian Manhunter and fire, Green Lanterns and the yellow color (though this may not be the case anymore because Parallax is no longer there, though in this case it may be psychosomatic as of late), Aquaman and...what's Aquaman's weakness, anyways? Oh, and the ultimate winner: Wonder Woman and bondage.

And the biggest one is the dissimilar lists of powers some have (at least Superman & family). For example: you can figure that Superman is an alien entity, but he's a Swiss knife of powers. Super strength and invulnerable skin hint of a supernatural constitution, and you can figure that he has the lung strength or whatever explanation they may give for his super-breath, but then he has X-ray vision and heat vision, which are essentially energy-based powers. Then...to top it off, flight; how a supernatural constitution explains flight, anyways!? Super-speed and super-leaping are perfectly explainable if you push disbelief quite a bit, and would group Superman into having a supernatural constitution, but then you get flight and vision modes and not even genetics can start to deal with that. That's a big example of dissimilar power lists, which don't seem to combine or explain themselves very well. Then you get several clones and people like Superman whom have roughly the same type of powers if not entirely new ones. And Superman can pull off a new power at any moment. Batman can be well-explained (screw powers, I have the monies!), but when you factor genius-level intellect, enough money to create the perfect kind of gadget, 1st Dan (or close to) mastery of several martial arts, Ph.D in Forensics and Criminal Psychology, and a little bit of mania (not to the levels of Joker, but at least mild paranoia and psychosis), that willing suspension of disbelief gets stretched quite a bit. But, of course, Batman is perfectly explained. Wonder Woman and how she always lands on bondage, not quite enough (and well...she has a smaller list of dissimilar powers, but Training from Hell explains that, as well as being born from...clay or something). Then you get Martian Manhunter, or Zatanna, and things go BOOM!

Marvel...well, they are developed a bit better. You've seen how Spider-Man has grown, and despite his crazy antics and drama-royalty attitude, he has developed into a respectable hero in the superhuman community; he has the experience, and he's good natured even if he doesn't have quite the genius-level intellect of, say, Beast or Reed Richards (and the latter IS questionable...) But then you get people like Wolverine, whose powers and training are almost comparable to Batman, or Storm whom has powers over weather (and I believe Storm IS powerful but overrated), and you get...a minor BOOM! as well. But you can figure that their enemies, their reasons to behave the way they do, and their general character development is a tad more solid.

That doesn't mean both sides have very strong character development and power development, but when I have to refer to superior character development and power development, I have to defer to Magneto of all people. This man takes an apparently ridicuously weak power (magnetism, not even electromagnetism but mere ferromagnetism) and becomes a near-god-like entity in a way it is perfectly explainable. Albeit completely wrong in many ways, if you measure both Superman and Magneto upon the same degree of disbelief-ignorance-measurement, Magneto gets to be a clear winner. For starters...Magneto is vulnerable to non-ferrous materials (including non-magnetic ferrous compounds), but he finds a way to make them useful. He can levitate and fly, which would be a HUGE suspension of disbelief even with the latter turned really high, but you factor in the magnetic field of Earth and you realize he's taking advantage of that same field to glide; it's a pretty smart way to handle it. He also has genius-level intellect, which may stretch disbelief a bit, but his intellect is not on the degree of Batman; he gets enough to pull off crazy plans, but not enough to create gadgets as Batman would. And all in all, even if he began as a one-off villain, he became one of the most respected villains and even part-time leader of the X-Men just by sheer character development. Few heroes and villains get that same treatment, even in DC (and most of them belong to the Batman series, including Batman and the Joker of all people). I always consider Magneto's character development and power development, even if he's a villain most of the time, as an excellent way to develop a character in any type of fiction (be it historical fiction, science fiction, or even memoirs); despite a hidden background, you get enough to figure out why he's a mutant supremacist, and enough reasonable explanation to figure out the extent of his powers, but also a more humane side of things and his willingness to put aside his flaws for the well-being of existence, even to the point where he may be willing to embrace the vision of his arch-enemy. That kind of complexity, richness and plausible deniability within the character is what makes me choose Marvel over DC, even if DC has an equally reasonable amount of people like that; in DC, it's mostly on the main heroes and a few villains, while on Marvel it's almost a requirement for all heroes (except for...Squirrel Girl. But she's blatant comic-relief).

In the end, I see it as a bunch of components and a bit of bias grown by the time it got nurtured. I can't hardly follow a DC story, while I can follow the big arcs of Marvel with relative ease. As well, Marvel has characters with the right kind of development, characters that are comic relief but done in a very nice way, and characters that deal with real-life problems without hindering their superheroics (and at times hindering their superheroics, but in a constructive way, barring One More Day of course).

As for what Marvel has wrong...Reed Richards DOES NOT HAVE GENIUS LEVEL INTELLECT IF HE'S A PERFECT MORON!! He may have a ton of Intelligence, but animal-level degrees of Wisdom and negative levels of Charisma! Dr. Doom, of all people, is smarter and more likeable than Reed Richards; the Beast of all people is ages smarter than Reed Richards, and let's not speak of how Professor X could teach Reed how to be a better man the good way (by speaking) or the bad way (by doing psychic juju on him, and for goodness sakes Xavier, this man is the poster child for lobotomy!)

[Robbo]

Both types of superheroes are larger than life characters, but Marvel's ones are a bit more believable.

I know this is your opinion its just you talked on the topic as if everyone goes looks at super-hero media then rates it believability. The reason i like Super-hero things is because its away from reality, Which is why i prefer DC.

[T.G. Oskar]

I know this is your opinion its just you talked on the topic as if everyone goes looks at super-hero media then rates it believability. The reason i like Super-hero things is because its away from reality, Which is why i prefer DC.

This is an expanded part of my opinion, and a reason why I hammer so much the "willing suspension of disbelief" thing.

I don't care if it's physically impossible to fly by your own through physical means, or whether it is possible to eject a current of electrical energy through air in a way that the established current is much better than ground. Nor if about 10% of the population can't be genius-level intellect characters, if only because of the penchant for hyperspecialization over polymathy. However, most of the detractors of science-fiction use this concept when debating about the "reality" of a character, since they'll just hammer the idea of "having superpowers is unreal". However, when you hammer the idea that you have to suspend your disbelief a bit, you can realize that some of these heroes are just living their normal lives, except they have a bit more interesting lives than we do.

So, if to enjoy fiction you have to separate a bit from reality altogether, and of most of the laws that rule it, there is another extreme to measure; the Mary Sue extreme. This is the character that's just TOO perfect to be true, that can solve problems with only a little effect, where big problems are solved in a single issue, and that manage to get ridiculous actions work in such a way that even stretching disbelief simply can't explain how someone did it. It's a requirement of throwing away any concept of reality and just see a hero win despite all odds and without any challenge, while the villain pulls off a really weird plan to achieve something unachievable, without regards to even stop and think that the hero will always win.

In other words, Superman in the Silver Age. Really, go look at Supes in the Silver Age; if "super-ventriloquism" is a perfectly explainable power and one that can improve and work constantly instead of being a one-shot (or at most, a five-shot) power, then...it begs to answer why bother with a paradigm change that even DC has followed ever since.

It's not a potshot at your opinion; quite the contrary, it's an acknowledgement that all tastes differ, and even Supes in the Silver Age isn't a Mary Sue in all aspects*, but sometimes, you want a escapist fantasy rooted a bit in reality, and not just seeming like it. There's no moment where, say, Lex Luthor stops planning to defeat Superman and say "hey, maybe I should quit this altogether: Superman always stops me, no matter how perfectly executed my plans are. Maybe I should just give it up?" Certainly, it shouldn't be that way: the Joker keeps fighting Batman only because it is his reason to exist; the Batman and the Joker cannot exist without each other, and the Joker is one of the few reasons why Batman hasn't devolved into utter psychosis out of living a life where he constantly dangles between fear and...normalcy, so to speak. Maybe Lex has a further reason to do so; maybe he's keeping Superman in check so that he doesn't turn into a dictatorial leader and turn Earth into a terrible dystopia (and Superman: Red Son tends to lead to that area), or maybe Lex is forced by circumstances to oppose Superman, or even has a vendetta he simply can't settle (see Smallville for a view of that development). Or simply Lex does it just because, but that reason eventually gets stale.

That doesn't mean DC characters haven't had any development: the powers of flight come after some development, even if they make no sense given Superman's power makeup and even if they attempt to explain that Krypton's gravity pull was greater than Earth's; Supes has gotten married and even died, for goodness sakes, but that development seems a bit artificial, as in tackling situations to deal with a new type of audience.

Don't get me wrong on that one: I like silly as well as serious. Deadpool is easily one of my favorite characters because he can't take things seriously in one moment (and even when he does, he eventually ruins it); notice how a parody character can be so complex and unique at the same time (I wonder what Slade would say when he meets Wade...) Spidey is both silly and serious when he needs it. I also like some stuff from DC: Batman is one, the frickin' Eradicator is another (Superman as Knight Templar; what's not to love about that one!?). But when I try to follow DC's stories, they seem a bit unreal, alien, and something that no amount of unreality can manage to deal with. On the other hand, perhaps you're more related to see just a good guy winning all the time, even if they have their troubles, instead of a really deep psychological introspection on the characters and their lives (I take you don't like what Frank Miller did to Batman, which is basically "Marvel-izing" it and taking that up to eleven?). I also love Superman in Planet Joker, given how it gives a wonderful story about Batman's mythos in a different lens, and having even MORE surreality than the common DC world. The way how Superman outsmarts the Joker is just brilliant: it shows a good study of the Joker and an insight to his weakness. It also shows the full extent of a psychotic clown with nihilist tendencies and near-omnipotence (and a taste for the trickery as the Joker outsmarted Mr. Mzytlptlk** of all people to give away his powers, something Superman hasn't even thought of or even kick a notch to prevent being hassled. And it's a good story overall, writing-wise.

*Sephy, on the other hand...(personal opinion, at least)
**Mr. Myztlptlk can be outsmarted easily, but to that degree? And after realizing that Superman with his lawful mindset tricks him all the time? nd not to mention that without his powers, Myztlptlk would have no reason to exist since he wouldn't be able to bone Superman anymore (bone in a good way, y'know; loads of tricks like the Joker once did to Batman). Come to think about it; why didn't Bat-Imp came to rescue Batman, anyways?