Marvel vs. DC Comics

[Trent Roman]

^ I loved the MAX Supreme Power. Best Superman story I've ever read, and it was at the competitors. Ah, well.

And on the other hand, it's entirely too realistic. Cuz, you're right. We had eight years of the American public trading their liberties for security (and I'm not sure we're really done with that). My friends, partners and I have all been threatened or attacked more than once, without a lot of recourse for it afterward. I have to live through this stuff. Why do I want to read a comic book about it, when that comic book isn't going to be insightful or empowering in any way?

Ironically, it was tackling those sort of storylines that got me into comics these last few years, but I can sympathize with the idea that the medium is no longer telling the sort of stories you want to read (I, too, think the Ultimate line has gone way too dark and violent, amongst other franchises which have opted for trendy dystopianism that ill fits the historical outlook of the setting). Though I've not read them myself, I hear the Marvel Adventures series still have that kind of escapism of earlier incarnations--have you checked those out?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[RobertScorpio]

^ I loved the MAX Supreme Power. Best Superman story I've ever read, and it was at the competitors. Ah, well.

And on the other hand, it's entirely too realistic. Cuz, you're right. We had eight years of the American public trading their liberties for security (and I'm not sure we're really done with that). My friends, partners and I have all been threatened or attacked more than once, without a lot of recourse for it afterward. I have to live through this stuff. Why do I want to read a comic book about it, when that comic book isn't going to be insightful or empowering in any way?

Ironically, it was tackling those sort of storylines that got me into comics these last few years, but I can sympathize with the idea that the medium is no longer telling the sort of stories you want to read (I, too, think the Ultimate line has gone way too dark and violent, amongst other franchises which have opted for trendy dystopianism that ill fits the historical outlook of the setting). Though I've not read them myself, I hear the Marvel Adventures series still have that kind of escapism of earlier incarnations--have you checked those out?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

I wonder if Disney will slowly start getting its fingers in this cookie jar....

Rob

 

[CaptainCanada]

I doubt it; firstly because Marvel already makes stuff like the MA line for younger readers; second, unless they have some huge plan to completely revamp the existing market paradigms, simply altering the content isn't going to do anything; third, comics are such a small part of the business (the real money is in IP licensing) that it's unlikely they'll draw much attention (see: DC and Time-Warner).

 

[I Grok Spock]

I'm a Friend Of Ol' Marvel. With emphasis on 'Ol. I haven't read a book regularly for about five years, and judging from the descriptions above, I'm not too unhappy about that.

I really miss the wacky, way-out Marvel of the 60s and 70s. Comics were such a great escape back in the day, brimming with fun and action and a kind of bent optimism. Stan and Jack and Steve and Co. created something really great and I'm a bit sorry that there's no audience for it today. I suppose kids get stuff like that elsewhere, in cartoons or video games or on the web or something. But I do miss that four color, twenty page book every thirty days from it's over-hyped cover promising the latest Masterpiece from the Marvel Bullpen to Stan's Soap-box to the ads for X-Ray specs and a 5,000 piece set of plastic Army Men for just $1.47!!

Ah well, 'nuff said.

 

[coolghoul]

And...the best boobs in comic are in DC...Power Girl!!!

Right. And I suppose Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk are flat-chested.

Now that's an idea for a poll!!

Oh - and one more thing - those two posts are worthless without pictures!!

 

[Anwar]

At least Marvel's heroines (or female characters) are genre savvy about their outfits: Emma Frost and the Dark Ms Marvel (I lost track of all the cell-phone pictures being taken of my ass!)

 

[RobertScorpio]

And...the best boobs in comic are in DC...Power Girl!!!

Right. And I suppose Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk are flat-chested.

Now that's an idea for a poll!!

Oh - and one more thing - those two posts are worthless without pictures!!

Umm..She Hulk has nice boobies, but looks like a freak. Power girl is hot looking, more hot looking than Ms Marvel.

And then there is always wonder woman and her island of lesbiens!!!

Rob

 

[Admiral2]

Right. And I suppose Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk are flat-chested.

Now that's an idea for a poll!!

Oh - and one more thing - those two posts are worthless without pictures!!

Umm..She Hulk has nice boobies, but looks like a freak. Power girl is hot looking, more hot looking than Ms Marvel.

And then there is always wonder woman and her island of lesbiens!!!

Rob

Seriously, if it were a matter of which group has the hottest female characters I wouldn't bother choosing a favorite. Most comic book heroines are hot by design.

That's not the purpose of the thread. Hot amazon lesbians are fun, but if that were a major criterion for me choosing a favorite comic house I'd choose an adult manga publisher. Nothing that DC or Marvel has beats some of the babes in those publications.

I'm sticking with Marvel. You can keep Wonder Woman's island.

 

[The Lensman]

Typically I prefer DC because I prefer their modern mythology....although I'm utterly sick of the 40 something regime currently in place that's trying to remake DC into the DC *they* loved as kids. And I'm 42.

Loved the Marvel of old, but can't really get into current Marvel.

Now is Marvel "more realistic"? No. Because the more you try to make certain concepts "more realistic", the more the inherent flaws appear.

For example, I don't know what the SRA mutated into, but as presented in the first issue of Civil War, there was realistically NOTHING wrong with it. It made perfect sense.

People do NOT have a right to put on masks and take the law into their own hands, especially with no training in any of the fields related to law enforcement. The heroes Constitutional rights were not being violated in any way by being forced to comply with registration and training.

I sided with Cap and Co. because they represented the side that said "this is comics and we can do this stuff", not because they had any real or valid counterpoint.

Aside from that particular issue, what is it that makes Marvel more "realistic"? Despite all of Reed Richards fantastical technology, the world is still mired in an unchanging, technological status quo. The average person isn't any better off, nor is in possesion of any better tech than I am in a world where a guy can build a portal to another dimension, has a time machine, has built a flying car, etc, etc, etc.

These things, just an insanely small sampling of them, are the kind of things that would vastly change the world....realistically speaking....and yet the Marvel universe is remarkably status quo.

The same can be said of DC, especially in regards to the technology of Ted Knight. However, since they don't try to present themselves as "the world outside your window", this type of glaring flaw is easier to overlook.

Marvel has typically done a better job in presenting their main heroes more realistically. Or at least with more Soap Opera melodrama, if you can call that realistic.

And while *my* Marvel died in the late 80's, one Marvel book I'm really enjoying is "The Marvels Project". Enjoying it more than Blackest Night. Is it just me, or is this book not really receiving any real big promotional push? I found out about it about a week or two before it was released and I usually check Newsarama every day.

Too bad DC didn't do jack shit about Superman's aniversary last year. Really dropped the ball on that one. Don't even know if anything's planned for Batman this year. Which is ironic because it's typically been Marvel that's ignored it's Golden Age stuff. For whatever reason, they've been really interested in it for the last year or so. Good news as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Anwar]

Actually, I remember a story where Reed explained that he was paid by major corporations to NOT release all his inventions because they would render so much existing tech and industries obsolete that it would bankrupt most of them and plunge the world into a economic catastrophe.

Another was a "What If?" about Iron Man going public with his tech when he first built it and allowed everyone to get their hands on Iron Man tech. The result wasn't pretty.

So basically, they don't use their tech for the common good because we'd just screw it up.

 

[The Lensman]

Actually, I remember a story where Reed explained that he was paid by major corporations to NOT release all his inventions because they would render so much existing tech and industries obsolete that it would bankrupt most of them and plunge the world into a economic catastrophe.

Another was a "What If?" about Iron Man going public with his tech when he first built it and allowed everyone to get their hands on Iron Man tech. The result wasn't pretty.

So basically, they don't use their tech for the common good because we'd just screw it up.

Don't know that that makes much sense. First, Reed could gradually introduce the new tech, he's had something like forty years to do it.

Second, they aren't going to benefit any more than the candle makers did when the light bulb was invented. But the creator of the light bulb did. And new idustries would spring up to replace the old.

In essence, those who maintain the status quo, paid off the guy who could change it, to maintain it. And while Reed was sitting on *his* tech, other people moved forward. We went from the 8-track, to the cassette to the cd to the ipod.

Ditto for computers, cars, etc, etc. Reed as a scientist and an inventor should know how progress works. How some tech and industries are going to get left behind to make way for the new ones.

 

[Mr Light]

Well in comic book time the Fantastic Four have only existed for ten or so years...

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Actually, I remember a story where Reed explained that he was paid by major corporations to NOT release all his inventions because they would render so much existing tech and industries obsolete that it would bankrupt most of them and plunge the world into a economic catastrophe.

Another was a "What If?" about Iron Man going public with his tech when he first built it and allowed everyone to get their hands on Iron Man tech. The result wasn't pretty.

So basically, they don't use their tech for the common good because we'd just screw it up.

Don't know that that makes much sense. First, Reed could gradually introduce the new tech, he's had something like forty years to do it.

Second, they aren't going to benefit any more than the candle makers did when the light bulb was invented. But the creator of the light bulb did. And new idustries would spring up to replace the old.

In essence, those who maintain the status quo, paid off the guy who could change it, to maintain it. And while Reed was sitting on *his* tech, other people moved forward. We went from the 8-track, to the cassette to the cd to the ipod.

Ditto for computers, cars, etc, etc. Reed as a scientist and an inventor should know how progress works. How some tech and industries are going to get left behind to make way for the new ones.

We're seeing a real world version of a milder case of this right now. Technology has advanced so far so fast that it is rendering large segments of the population essentially "useless" (or highly disadvantaged competitavely), and they're losing their jobs as a result. People without jobs cannot buy stuff.

RR could easily design and build a fully automated factory that could build any manner of stuff you might want (including the stuff necessary to repair and maintain itself). That's all well and good, but what are all the people put out of work supposed to do?

"Make other stuff" isn't a viable answer, because the tech will flow from industry to industry, and not only eliminate the need for people to make item A, but ANY items at all. In short: the elimination not of just the need for a kind of labor, but the elimination of the need for any labor.

 

[Trent Roman]

"Make other stuff" isn't a viable answer, because the tech will flow from industry to industry, and not only eliminate the need for people to make item A, but ANY items at all. In short: the elimination not of just the need for a kind of labor, but the elimination of the need for any labor.

Sounds like my idea of paradise. Richards' (and Starks', etc.) technologies make everything so cheap that it really ought to usher in post-scarcity economics where everyone's basic needs are assured, a sort of semi-socialist utopia like the Federation. It doesn't matter if you lose your job when the very idea of capitalist labour becomes obsolete.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[sidious618]

DC without a doubt. Marvel's characters never really interested me.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Sounds like my idea of paradise. Richards' (and Starks', etc.) technologies make everything so cheap that it really ought to usher in post-scarcity economics where everyone's basic needs are assured, a sort of semi-socialist utopia like the Federation. It doesn't matter if you lose your job when the very idea of capitalist labour becomes obsolete.

IF society were transformed along with the technology, then MAYBE. But there's no guarantee of that happening, as our present economic troubles show.

 

[JM1776]

Thor spending entire runs as a frog ...

And yet Simonson made it work.

 

[barnaclelapse]

I'm going with DC. Batman trumps everything, and the whole Civil War story irritated me.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Genius-level superheroes like Reed Richards and Tony Stark deciding to keep their tech mostly to themselves isn't enough to cover the logic hole of tech levels being mostly at a real world level in the Earth of a superhero universe. In both the Marvel and DC Universes you have any number of characters who have either genius-level intellects and/or the capacity to go into space and interact with advanced alien societies, and these characters encompass altruistic superheroes, superheroes who serve one government or another, anti-heroes, heroes for hire, and villains. One way or another the tech levels of the world at large would be a lot more advanced than the generally real world levels portrayed in the Marvel and DC Universes.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Thor spending entire runs as a frog ...

And yet Simonson made it work.

And that wasn't a "run", that was three issues.