Are you a Marvel or a DC

[davejames]

I enjoy the Marvel movies, but I've never really been able to get into the comics for some reason (save for the occassional thing like JMS's run on Spider-Man). Those incredibly complex backstories and relationships that fans love so much make it really hard for a newbie like me to jump into it.

Plus there seems to be a greater spirit of optimism to DC's characters that I don't really sense much of in the perpetually dour and conflicted Marvel characters (who seem to be fighting each other as often as they're fighting actual supervillains).

 

[Trekker4747]

DC all the way.

The heroes are just so much more epic and "grandiose" (for lack of a better term).

Yeah, I think that's sort of what I was driving at. When you think of superheroes you think of Batman and Superman, men who stand up above everyone else and just own things. You think of epic powers, or gadgets. You think of iconic villains like Lex Luthor or The Joker.

Then there's Marvel where the characters hardly really boldly stand out and over the rest. Which, again, probably goes more to how complex and tuned the characterizations are over at Marvel. The characters are more nuanced than just "guy with god-like powers" or "guy with lots of money, gadgets and time."

But, for my tastes, I want epic and bold and for that I pretty much think of the superhero who started the genre.

 

[indianatrekker26]

DC all the way. I grew up with the old Adam West Batman series, and the Dick Donnor Superman movies. Then i started collecting Superman and Batman with the Doomsday and Knightfall stories. I have a 12+ year collection of superman and batman books. And still going with the DC relaunch.
I've never been into Marvel at all. Just don't care for any of the characters other than Punisher. And yet, other than Superman and Batman, i've never really been into any of the DC characters. So I think i'm pretty much a supes/batfan, but not necessarily a DC fan.

 

[Mr Light]

I've preferred Marvel once I got into it three years or so ago. But Geoff Johns' Green Lantern is probably my favorite franchise.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I'm neither. That being said until recently I've been mostly DC that is to say that I've been reading more DC than Marvel but over the last two or three years have been back reading Marvel.

 

[Mr Light]

Now with the New 52 DC, I most absolutely definitely prefer Marvel. I think Action Comics is the only reboot title I actually like (Batman and GL don't count they didn't change at all!)

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ Batman's continuity didn't change but there was still change. Babs returning to Batgirl instead of Steph Brown and Dick Grayson becoming Nightwing again instead of continuing to be Batman. Which I still don't see the point of.

Marvel has more interesting and fun books personally than DC does right now. The one DC relaunch books I'm excited about are "Action Comics" and "Batman". I'm excited about the upcoming finale to "Batman, Inc" as well.

 

[Agenda]

When I was growing up, Marvel was dominating and they were my comics of choice. For the most part, the only DC I read was Superman, Batman, and the occasional horror comic (DC always had better non-superhero comics, imo). In more recent years, I've explored more of the best that DC has had to offer, including Vertigo. But I've always considered myself a Marvelite.

 

[DrCorby]

I voted Marvel, but that's a close call.

I started out reading Marvel in the early 80s (X-Men first, then at least tried most of their other books), then started picking up some DC with the first Crisis and John Byrne's move to Superman. I then at least sampled most of what DC had. The balance shifted back and forth between the Big Two many times. Plus, I tried lots of books that looked interesting from other publishers, many of whom are no longer around (First, Eclipse, Comico, WaRP, Pacific, Dark Horse, DC's Vertigo imprint).

I haven't regularly picked up and read comics for many years now. Lack of time and reluctance to spend that much money. But I do take my girls every year to Free Comic Book Day, and get to sample a variety of books from several publishers. But I haven't been bitten by the bug again. Although I do occasionally pick up a trade collection that catches my eye. I'm following Fables and The Walking Dead that way, thanks to a co-worker.

Over the time I regularly collected comics, I stopped following publishing companies, and followed writers and/or artists (and sometimes characters) I really liked. And that often introduced me to new talents working with those favorites that I then followed for a while. Huge crossovers from the Big Two (and aped by many smaller publishers) helped kill my comics habit. I want to read what I like, not what some suits think I should read, especially if they can rope me into a ton of peripheral books. Bleh...

 

[Starbreaker]

Marvel. I love The X-Men, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, etc...

 

[Nerys Myk]

I've always bought and enjoyed both. Captain America and Batman are my favorite heroes. The JSA and the Avengers are my favorite teams.,

 

[C_Miller]

I like Classic Marvel Comics. 60s-80s Marvel was on top IMO. So many classic runs going on at the same time. They're also stories that I can read and re-read constantly. DC during that period not so much. In the late 80s and 90s, with DC comics like Batman Year One, Watchmen, Starman, Sandman, Wally West Flash, Kyle Rayner and others. In the 90s DC kind of pulls away with it.

In the 2000s (around when Geoff Johns was on Avengers, Morrison was on New X-Men, Mark Waid Was on F4, JMS was on Spidey), they kind of come back together again and I like them both equally. When events took over like Civil War and Infinite Crisis around 2008, I dropped out of comics. Then I got back into comics now and I really don't like anything Marvel is doing, but I'm loving a lot of DC books (or enough to fill up my pull list).

From looking at this thread it looks like a lot of the people who said Marvel are either not regular comic readers or former readers. Not to say Marvel is bad, just making an observation.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I think I'm in the minority since I didn't vote either one. I read who entertains me the most and right now Marvel is leading. I'm not really fond of some of the New 52 antics and I was heavily into DC before the relaunch.

 

[Myasishchev]

I started out all Marvel. Adam fucking Warlock and the Infinity Watch, you know? Infinity War's still just about the bestest comic ever. And there's Claremont's X-Men, the most quietly influential comic ever.

Then over time they stopped being much good at all, with a few bright spots (Mack's Daredevil, Morrison's X-Men, Bendis' Alias, Millar's Civil War, at least in concept) and never recovered and actually, as near as I can tell, got worse (Bendis' everything else, the Fraction works that did not also involve Brubaker--look, I know Casanova is supposed to be the king shit of indie-comic town, but if he can't write a dumb Iron Man comic to my satisfaction, what am I supposed to expect from his unfettered id? oh, but Pak's Hercules was pretty keen).

Whereas while Marvel was spinning its wheels starting in the mid-90s, DC was publishing Sandman. And The Invisibles. And the Filth. And JLA. And Fables and Y The Last Man, which I didn't really like all that much but I respected. And they were starting to do some interesting things to their superheroes, killing them and making them evil and replacing them and whatnot. It was pretty great. And I was also reading the old canonical stuff, like Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns.

And sure, once DiDio and Johns started treating the properties of the central universe like toys you could harmlessly tie firecrackers to instead of characters, DC started to suck a lot, like a lot, and they still generally suck and will continue to suck in many major ways (and yeah, they sort of sucked before, but it was the suck of innovation; at least they're sort of bringing that back).

Even so, they've got the giants to fall back on. What's Marvel got? Born Again?* That was like fifty years ago. Lame.

*And all Warlock comics ever made by Jim Starlin's hand. Man, that guy had a hell of a trajectory, huh?

 

[C_Miller]

Even so, they've got the giants to fall back on. What's Marvel got? Born Again?* That was like fifty years ago. Lame.

*And all Warlock comics ever made by Jim Starlin's hand. Man, that guy had a hell of a trajectory, huh?

It was 30 years ago, but who's counting? I'd say in an overall sense, with fear of over-generalization, up until recently Marvel's runs are better, with little focus given to massive giant stories. Post Crisis this changed a little bit and in the 90s, it got more apparent. But Marvel has been a lot more based on long runs by writers, where DC is seemingly more focused on bigger individual stories.

Stan Lee's Spider-Man, John Byrne's Fantastic Four, Busiek's Avengers, Claremont's X-Men, Peter David's Hulk, Gruenwald's Captain America, Miller's Daredevil. Compared to Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, Superman: Man of Steel, Great Darkness Saga, Crisis, ect. Now it's not a perfect split as there are some significant runs at DC and some big stories at Marvel, but I feel like there is a definite split there

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I go to their movies, but I haven't bought a Marvel comic in at least fifteen years.

 

[Gaith]

Winning.
​

 

[Jetfire]

No.

 

[Mr Silver]

DC

I do like the X-Men a lot, but DC provides so many heroes with detailed and intriguing characterisations whereas Marvel can be a bit samey sometimes.

 

[Myasishchev]

Even so, they've got the giants to fall back on. What's Marvel got? Born Again?* That was like fifty years ago. Lame.

*And all Warlock comics ever made by Jim Starlin's hand. Man, that guy had a hell of a trajectory, huh?

It was 30 years ago, but who's counting? I'd say in an overall sense, with fear of over-generalization, up until recently Marvel's runs are better, with little focus given to massive giant stories. Post Crisis this changed a little bit and in the 90s, it got more apparent. But Marvel has been a lot more based on long runs by writers, where DC is seemingly more focused on bigger individual stories.

Stan Lee's Spider-Man, John Byrne's Fantastic Four, Busiek's Avengers, Claremont's X-Men, Peter David's Hulk, Gruenwald's Captain America, Miller's Daredevil. Compared to Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, Superman: Man of Steel, Great Darkness Saga, Crisis, ect. Now it's not a perfect split as there are some significant runs at DC and some big stories at Marvel, but I feel like there is a definite split there

True enough. Also, yeah, I really ought to have mentioned Busiek's Avengers. That was pretty amazing.

Well. Except Triathlon. That guy was such a Poochie. But that last bit with Count Nefaria? Damn. (Of course, it was all drawn by George Perez at pretty much the height of his powers, and this probably accounts for most of the moistness I exhibit when I think about it.)

Oh! And I meant to say, a lot of people will say/have said 60s Marvel was better--so many that it's pretty much become the conventional wisdom that 60s Marvel = good, 60s DC = crap.

I'll take any given Action, Superman, or Lois Lane over any given Fantastic Four. Like, I understand how important they are to the genre, and gave super-comics their first injection of realism, and supposedly brought an unmatched kineticism and all that stuff, but Stan Lee has always gotten on my nerves a little, and I never caught Kirby Fever (or Ditko Fever either, although I like him better).

Nah, give me uncredited comics that may have been drawn by Schaffenberger or Swan or Boring or someone I've never heard of or an unpaid intern for all I know. Yeah, that's one area DC pisses me off with. How can you not credit people in a published work? It's asinine, and a little frustrating. It doesn't cost you anything to let someone put their name on the title page, Weisinger. C'mon, I had to look that up because your name isn't even on it. Jeez. I don't have to perform a fruitless google search to figure out who made Fantastic Four #8. (Well, maybe to find out who lettered it or colored it, but not to learn the names of--with all due respect to letterers and colorists--the more important creators.) It's like the guys who ran DC in 1963 just didn't care that some jerkoff on the Internet would want to talk knowledgably about the "Super-Suitor of Soomar" 48 years after it was published.