STFU right now about the different Green Lanterns before Rik comes back and starts whining about John and Hawkgirl on JLU, AGAIN… Seriously, kind of… :clown:
As i’ve always brought up in marketing talks, Marvel has had IMO the best marketing plan ever.
DC is now always trying to ape marvel and that really makes them the pathetic number 2, so much that DC forgets how to be DC again (Real Superheroes not Curbstompers).
problem with that though is that we live in a cultire so pessimistic and so damn anti-authority that anything remotely resembles decency = like a spanking from our parents…
especially if you target the Teenage Market (whom I’m only quoting a speaker to a convention i’ve attended "the st000pidest market’) since they always think Bad = Cool (F*ck just because something is dark doesn’t mean it has more depth… retarded (proven fact) argument, or they’re way too much in a hurry trying to grow up/get laid and the whatnot.
Until the world becomes optimistic (in such a case optimism would be cool, and cynical would be boring [which i actually have that philosophy now]) I do agree that DC will have a tough time planting their seed as something other than humber 2.
In fairness to DC, Marvel also has it’s share of threads as confusing as the infinite earths like DISCUSSING the mutants for example, who’s dead and not, who got F*cked and who’s gay? and listening to a discussion LIVE of these fanboys AND NOT FOCUSING on the stories and instead on intercharacter relationship is IMO a big waste of time (since it’s 90% of what i hear rather than discussing on how a plot is well crafted)
dc is too golden age for me
the names are piss-poor and so are the outfits designed in the 50s
DC of course is created in a different era, supes came from the deppression period, so it’s unfair to compare them to the streamlined marvel age which ALREADY had a ground to build on. but hey at least you say “for me” and anyway Marvel does have it’s share of silly names (they’re ALL superheroes for crying out loud)
too much mans, boys and lads for me
One reason I like Marvel over DC is cuz…well DC characters seem to have this ‘boy scout’ feel or something, whereas everyone in Marvel is a rouge or vigilant feel to them. Another reason why I like Marvel over DC 
that i definitely agree with
Except for Batman. And Wonder Woman’s occasional neck-snappin’. And Hal’s tendency to go evil…
Still, all you have to do is look at my avatar. DC is certainly more appealing to me now than they once were, but I have too much history with Marvel.
I dunno, bad hitboxes and dull gameplay just didn’t cut it for me.
Anyway, last good book from DC was New Frontier.
Hmm I calculate a ratio of 3:1 from the polls (this MIGHT mean [tho I highly doubt it] that for every 4 SRK forum member here, at least 1 of them is a fan of DC [of course this includes those that are equal between both])
it all relates to the thing about society nowadays being anti-authority, the term “boy scout” is a word used to give negative connotation to a tone in a comic book setting that offers something DIFFERENT (no better or worse, just an alternative)
as much as I can refer to the term “overly angry puberts in trenchcoats who’s overly whiny and not being able to get the job done (being superheroes)” as a term that can be used as a derogatory to the other end of the spectrum (which IMO is a lot more ludicrous considering they still wear spandex and has some kind of wany powers).
Again if people have a thing about not listening to their parents… remember that one day you’ll be a parent itself and time will erode back the rebellious attitude into something irrational, and in a comic books context… fun.
And BTW BOTH DC and Marvel now fall victim to too much anti-heroism.
and here’s a FACT
Being More or less Realistic DOES NOT MEAN better because in the long run, comic books aren’t realistic anyways (hence the argument “at least XX is more/less realistic than yy” is ridiculous outside of subjective opinion or preferences) and it’s only a matter of preference on party can drive on in order to disporve the other as less credible…
I voted DC, but only because of the Vertigo line. If we’re considering the main universes though, then Marvel is my choice.
Yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous when you have a guy turning into a big green monster because of gamma rays and then have a guy who starts running fast after a chemical accident, but it’s even more ridiculous to debate which of the two is more grounded in reality.
Well i think what people mean by Marvel being more rooted to reality is that the Marvel Universe takes place in a modern time and on Earth. They actually acknowledge places around the world and these stories take place in these countries. Also the fact that some people can connect to the characters like Peter Parker for example because he goes through normal things that we as people go through when he’s outside his Spiderman persona.
DC on the other hand, while good, every single character is godlike. I mean can you connect to a character like Superman or Batman?
Can I connect to a character who feels that he can never fully be part of the culture he lives in, and who knows that the people around him would find him amazing if only they could see through his mundane exterior? Of course I can. Most people can. Superman is probably more identifiable than most people are willing to admit.
Furthermore, if you’re an American, you’re part of an organism that has all the power in the world, and the terrible responsibility that goes with it. If you can comprehend that, then you can identify with Superman on that level too. Superman is one of the most multifaceted superheroes ever created, and he can be identified with on many levels.
What I can’t identify with is the high school nerd who inexplicably has his pick of beautiful women, a fantasy job taking photographs for a major newspaper, and the gall to still bitch about how bad his life is in spite of all that. I often suspect that people only think Spider-Man is identifiable because they’ve been told so many times that he is. Yeah, he’s having a hard time making his rent. I guess I can identify with that, but it’s not a particularly interesting problem and it doesn’t make him a more interesting character for having it.
Aunt May is dying and Spider-Man has to swing across the city with the only cure that will save her life? Yeah, that’s a more interesting problem, but it’s also nothing more than base juvenile escapism. It’s the kind of self-centered hero fantasy that everyone has when they’re a kid. I think that’s the level on which people connect with Spider-Man. It’s not that he mirrors their real world problems, it’s that he mirrors the daydreams they have in order to escape from their real world problems.
Don’t get me wrong. Pete is a good character, and part of why he’s good is that he spends part of his time as an ordinary guy. Like Barry Allen, the time we spend with Pete’s ordinary civilian persona adds color to his adventures. But I would not say that it’s an ability to identify with the average Joe that makes him good, because there’s a whole lot about Pete that is hardly average.
And how about the rest of the Marvel universe? Marvel has more than its fair share of gods, billionaires, and government affiliated meta-humans, just like DC does. I think it’s a fallacy to say that Marvel is more realistic than DC, and I think it’s a fallacy to say that being more realistic automatically means more identifiable.
EDIT:
I forgot to address Marvel having more real world locations than DC. I suppose this could be a factor if you live in New York City or… New York City. But considering that most of DC’s fictional cities are clearly based on real world locations, the superiority of Marvel’s realism extends only as far as naming conventions.
Hellboy is published by Dark Horse. Not to be all anal, but I don’t think anyone pointed this out and I felt obliged to take matters into my own hands.
I think Rugy and goody’s last few posts have made good points. I don’t see why “realism” could possibly be a factor in enjoying one company’s superheroes over the other’s. They are both fantasies with similar trappings and only a few minor conventions set them apart.
I think I got into Marvel first because my older brother who got me into comics was a Marvel fan and when I was young I looked up to and always copied my brother. Of course when you are a kid you never admit to that sort of thing even if you do it. 
It was a different time, in the mid/late 80s. At least by me there was an unwritten rule. You couldn’t be a fan of both Marvel and DC. If you bought one, you were not supposed to buy the other. Of course the rivalry was pretty strong back then. I can’t say if it was stronger back then than it is right now because, well, the internet wasn’t around and I can only speak about what was going on in our local comic book shop. Couldn’t tell ya.
My brother and his best friend at the time would buy lots of comics. He would buy DC and my brother would buy Marvel. And then they would swap books and read each other’s stuff. It’s funny, when his little brother and myself got older we sort of did the same thing. Only, I read a lot less DC books than my brother did, and he in turn read a lot less Marvel comics than his brother did. We didn’t buy as much as they did… Comics went up a dime, from 65 to 75 and our local comic book shop had a policy where they would hold books for you until you had the money… Like say, if ASM 240 came out this month if you put it aside they’d hold it for you up to a year so you could still buy it at cover price. When we came of reading/buying age they stopped doing that. That store no longer exists. Interestingly enough, our comic book shop was called “The Store.” 
I read a lot of my brothers comics for free behind his back before I actually paid money for one. The first comic I ever paid money for was ASM #269 because I was like 11/12 and there women on rooftops wearing bikinis! So yeah raging hormones… The story was called “When Cometh The Commuter” written by who would much later turn out to be my favorite comic book writer, Peter David! Funny how that works. 
As an aside, Marvel had the STAR Comics line too, and I was just about the right age for that kind of stuff. So after ASM 269 I got into Spider-Ham, Muppet Babies, Droids, Ewoks, the MADBALLS comics too! I was only buying ASM and was picking up the rest of the age appropriate stuff Marvel was offering. Later I got into X-Men (after reading a TON of my brother’s back X-Men issues) and next thing you know, I was done with STAR (well, STAR ceased to exist) and I was a straight up 616 guy.
Back to the past, reading my brother’s comics -
My brother did on occasion buy DC comics, despite the bias. It was usually the big stuff, like Infinity(Infinite? The first one) Crisis 1, Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, stuff like that. And I of course got to read a lot of it, mostly behind my brother’s back when he wasn’t looking like always.
I dunno, maybe it was just because I was copying my brother’s Marvel preference but I just got way more into the Marvel characters. The Crisis at my young age was pretty complex, the only thing I even remember from it was that Supergirl died. Marvel later on did Secret Wars, kind of to counter the Crisis.
Secret Wars, I can’t explain how cool it was for me at the time. There were lots of Marvel characters that I saw from Spider-Man and Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk and a bunch of those old 60s cartoons they re-ran on TV hanging out together! You could see the DC guys hanging out all of the time on Super Friends, so Secret Wars was special in that it was something at least I didn’t see everyday. And unlike Crisis it was pretty damn new reader friendly. If you never even read a comic in your life you could follow along that it was good guys vs. bad guys on a planet fighting it out!
I think another big thing Marvel had in their corner was G.I.Joe and Transformers, and in the 80s EVERYONE was into these shows. As great as the cartoons were at the time, the comics were even better! For Transformers I mean story, dag those OG Transformers comics had crappy artwork… Even in the cartoons which Marvel had a hand in there was some pretty cool stuff going on. Both of the shows and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends shared voice actors (Spider-Man = Bumblebee’s voice, Starscream/Cobra Commander/Doctor Octopus = same voice etc). Heck that corny music that played whenever Spider-Man entered a dancehall even played on G.I.Joe! I don’t know, all of this to me was things that just made Marvel seem cooler than DC. I think their G.I.Joe and Transformers work was a gateway to other things.
DC at the time, we had Superfriends, which I dunno gets kind of corny even when you’re a kid and getting a bit older by comparison. The 60s Batman TV show too. When you are really young you think these are the greatest things of all time! When you start going up in age a bit, this kind of stuff loses it’s luster.
There were the Superman movies and everyone, including myself loved those. And the DC cartoons got cool again for me when they started doing Super Powers. Though by the time Super Powers rolled around I was already a Marvel-lite.
I think when people who were just like me that would only buy one brand or another, turned when Superman died. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE got that comic. My brother who stopped buying comics at the time even got it. One guy I know who was a big time DC hater even came to school dressed in all black when Superman died. Me, oooh I was like HELL NO I’LL NEVER PAY MONEY FOR A DC COMIC! So I didn’t get any of it. Hey I was right! Those comics aren’t worth jack now! :arazz: Even though I just didn’t get it at the time because I was just hatin.’ :badboy:
I really got into DC and started buying their stuff after the Tim Burton movies and after Batman The Animated Series. Well it was really after BTAS. They really made Batman seem a lot cooler than I had perceived him to be. Again I did read Dark Knight Returns, but I took it as an alti-universe type of thing, for me Batman was still that guy in the 60s and Superfriends. Besides, at this point the, Marvel / DC rivalry was kind of over. People I knew who only got one side got both. On top of that they were crossing over everybody on a daily basis…
JQ went out of his way to bring the rivalry back and he did, because he is right, when there is a rivalry both companies do better. Again, I can’t say if it’s worse than it was before or about the same, though we never had weekly blogs by Levitz and Quesada or heck the 80s version of this post would be a letter I wrote to ASM that wouldn’t get printed… Even at it’s worse back then, crossovers were still on the table, like Teen Titans / X-Men, now it seems that they are off the table. Levitz said there won’t be any crossovers with Marvel until JQ quits. Don’t know if he still feels that way or if this is all PR like when Rappers have beef and then you see them hanging out at Starbucks later. ARG just give me a Marvel vs. DC fighting game already GAWD!
And there’s my stroll down memory lane. “When I was your age blah blah blah…” But that’s how I got into Marvel first. It wasn’t about big guns and so on in the 90s, it was in part because of my brother being a Marvel head and all of the shows plus G.I.Joe and Transformers made it seem like the cooler place to be. Oh and let’s not forget, raging hormones and Muppet Babies. 
Dc. Despite being set in fictional places, it feels more real than marvel, due to the fact that things aren’t so ridiculous. It feels more gritty. Besides, Marvel keeps fucking up and/or killing off characters I like. Most recently, Wolfsbane. All those years in The New Mutants, she’d gotten away from that accent (which sounds nice but looks like shit when you read it)…suddenly, she’s got it worse than ever when that one sucky dude tossed the kids into Cable’s care…now she’s dead in X-Force #3. It’s for the best anyway. Nobody at Marvel seems to be able to draw canine or feline heads. Marvel should get some people who draw nature studies.
Actually she’s still alive.
I was born in '83 and didn’t get into comics until maybe '89 or '90, so I didn’t read a lot of the comics back then when they were fresh off the racks. But lately (as in, the past couple of years) I’ve developed a real taste for and appreciation of '80s books. I really think DC had way better books in that era, especially the mid/late '80s. (I’m not trying to start an argument with you, my Mod, I am only about to embark upon an unmitigated rambling reminiscence. P.S. to goody - What does “unmitigated” mean?)
Basically, I just have a hard time thinking of any '80s Marvels that really stood out, other than Frank Miller’s Daredevil stuff and his Elektra miniseries with Sienkiewicz. I know everyone is high on Claremont’s Uncanny and New Mutants, but I can’t stand that overwritten tripe. It hasn’t aged well at all. Probably would be more fond of it if I grew up reading it, but even if I were fond of it I doubt I could feel proud about liking it. Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme probably deserves its status as a groundbreaking superhero epic, and I like it a lot. But even Squadron Supreme has some hokey dialogue and too many narrative captions. However, I think it can stand the test of time because of its grand ideas, epic plotting, and sheer commitment to passion.
If Marvel had any other really outstanding '80s books, they were probably published under Epic. I’m thinking specifically of Groo, which is unquestionably one of the most crucial creator-owned comics of all-time. There are probably some other good Epic titles out there, but I haven’t read many of them. I have read Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar, which eventually moved over to First Comics, and that’s a decent read; it hasn’t aged all that greatly, though. There’s a lot of exposition and unnecessary dialogue throughout. (It improves when Peter David takes over the scripting, but by that time it’s already at First.)
A lot of other Marvel stuff was good fun, but nothing all too life-changing. Like Sano mentioned, there was GI Joe and Transformers. Those were definitely fun comics for any kid. I think Marvel’s Star Wars and Indiana Jones comics were still going on during the '80s. I haven’t read any of those Marvel Indiana Jones comics, but I’ve read a scattered few of the Star Wars comics and I liked them fine. (Of course, it’s possible that I am just a Star Wars whore who will most likely enjoy almost anything with the “Star Wars” brand on it, so long as it isn’t written by Kevin J. Anderson.)
Thor by Walt Simonson is considered to be one of the great runs - however, I haven’t read the entire thing so I don’t feel I can fairly comment on it. But I do know that what I have read is great. There was that one Roger Stern arc in Avengers where the new Masters of Evil took over the mansion and beat up Jarvis - that was a great arc. I remember some of the David Michelinie stuff in Amazing Spider-Man during the late '80s: stuff I enjoyed as a kid, but I doubt I would want to carefully reread them today. A lot of those Marvels were just good, clean fun. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but when I started reading '80s DC comics a couple years ago, I was way more impressed with a lot of them.
(Oh, and John Byrne’s Fantastic Four is horribly overrated. Just like the man himself.)
One reason why I think DC, overall, made superior comics than Marvel in the '80s is because DC (at the time) was more forward-thinking. They introduced the first maxi-series (on Baxter stock, man!) with Camelot 3000. It helped that Brian Bolland did the art… And he set a precedent for being late. That twelfth issue came out, what, like 30 months after the first issue? Nobody cares about the lateness now. And it ended up being a decent read because he took his time.
I think DC also had some more balls back then. They were the ones who allowed some of their characters to appear in non-Comics Code Approved titles on the regular. (Not just for some three-issue “VERY SPECIAL EPISODE” preaching to youth about the evils of drugs. Not that there is anything wrong with that.) Mature Readers, baby! Comics like the O’Neil/Cowan The Question and the DeMatteis/McManus Dr. Fate are still pretty great today. And of course, motherfargin’ Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Doom Patrol, Animal Man, Sandman, and the rest of the books that spawned Vertigo in the early '90s (Shade and Sandman Mystery Theatre, suckas!).
And Watchmen. Can’t forget Watchmen. Or Dark Knight Returns. Or Year One. Or Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?. Or even The Killing Joke.
Even some of the DC comics that weren’t going into mature readers territory were still outstanding in their own right. The Giffen/DeMatteis JLI was full of wit and character development, along with great illustrations. Ostrander’s Suicide Squad (finally finished reading all of it earlier this year) was edgy without being overly provocative. And the super-popular Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans was basically DC’s answer to Claremont’s mutants. (However, like Claremont’s books, I don’t think those Teen Titans have aged well. Wolfman’s probably the DC Claremont in my mind.)
[I shall let goody extol the greatness of Byrne’s earth-shattering Man of Steel revamp of the most important superhero of all-time.]
Face it, bubs - back in the '80s, DC had all the kickass comics. It was all about DC and the independents. (Usagi Yojimbo, Nexus, Badger, American Flagg!, Grendel, TMNT, Ms. Tree, Cerebus, DNAgents, Crossfire, etc.)
I guess I don’t hold either Secret Wars or the original Crisis on Infinite Earths in any high regard. Those, to me, are just typical, generic '80s corporate superhero comics.
I think DC also dominated Marvel in the '90s. But that’s a whole 'nother post.