Growing up a comic book and superhero fanatic, I was constantly plagued by the question: Which company, DC or Marvel, produces better content?
Each respective brand has its pros and cons. For example, some people prefer Marvel over DC because Marvel maintains a lighter tone as opposed to DC’s darker themes and stories. But let’s really explore both sides of debate.
Marvel comics maintains a cohesive, continuous storyline, while DC comics reboots their stories and characters in multiple universes. While it can be easy to keep up and understand Marvel’s singular storyline, DC fans can enjoy multiple versions of the same character. However it can be confusing when first getting into DC comic books.
Marvel movies have always consistently done better than DC films. Marvel’s highest grossing movies earn upwards of over $600 million. While DC’s highest hits just over $500 million. So when examining success like this, you may think that Marvel has DC beat. Especially seeing the recent success in both revenue and perception of their latest features, “Deadpool” and “Civil War,” compared to DC’s recent release of “Batman vs Superman,” which received a lot of talk, but mostly negative reviews.
But when it comes to animated features and live-action TV shows, DC actually wins. For the past several years, DC has released multiple animated features with titles like: “Justice League: Doom,” “The Flashpoint Paradox,” “Son of Batman,” Batman VS Robin,” “Bad Blood” and most recently, “Justice League VS Teen Titans.” All of which receive consistently good ratings from IMdB and Rotten Tomatoes. The upcoming animated feature “Batman: the Killing Joke,” based on the the historic and one of the darkest Batman graphic novels, has been making headlines with its cast and it receiving an R-rating. DC also has hit live-action shows currently on the air including “Gotham,” “The Flash,” “Supergirl” and “Arrow.” Meanwhile Marvel only has one show “Agents of Shield,” and the second, “Agent Carter,” was recently cancelled (plus two only available on Netflix) which rates below "The Flash" and "Arrow."
Another topic for debate is often the originality of the superheroes and stories themselves. DC comics was founded in 1934 under the Wheeler Nicholson’s National Allied Publications by a man named Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. It would later evolve into DC after its popular series the “Detective Comics,” which featured Batman’s debut in the year of 1937. It wasn’t until a few years later in 1939, Timely Comics was founded, which then turned into Atlas Comics in 1951. It was then known as Magazine Management, which produced men's adventure magazines, risqué men's magazines, humor, romance, puzzle, film and other assorted other kinds of magazines and then later adding comic books to their publications which went under the brand name Marvel. Plus Marvel Entertainment, which was founded in 1998, which is now owned by the Walt Disney Company (yes, very confusing).
As DC was founded years prior to Marvel being founded, let alone producing comic books, many individual Marvel characters have been pointed out to be “copies” or “responses” to beloved DC characters. For example DC’s the Atom with the ability to shrink was created in 1940, while Marvel’s Ant-Man, a similar character, was first seen in 1962. DC’s Plastic Man was first seen in 1941, versus Marvel’s Mr Fantastic, who wasn’t seen until 1961. The most popular two to compare are easily Batman who debuted in 1939, to Iron Man — both ordinary billionaires, with no super powers, who create a persona and use technology to have their own powers, who was first seen in 1963. And that’s not all: The Joker(1940)/ The Creeper (1975), Deathstroke (1980)/ Deadpool (1991), Deadshot (1950)/ Bullseye (1976) plus more.
Marvel comics also charges more per comic book. In fact, the average DC comic book costs about $2.99, while Marvel is about $4.99. Subsequently, if you regularly buy DC comic books, you will save about $520 a year.
Another important issue to bring up is the sexism in comic books. It’s no secret that comic books have a history with the over-sexualization of women and their female characters as the original comic book audience was strictly male. Not only that, but writers, producers and artists of comic books are more often than not male. In fact, all of Marvel’s movies’ directors since 2008 have all been male. But as of lately, the issue of the character Black Widow’s over-sexualization, domestication has become more apparent as the character has been featured heavily in the last few Marvel movies. Editorials on Comic Book news sites have been calling out the company for making her more of sex-symbol that serves little to no purpose. Aside from this, Marvel also likes to tell their character’s stats which includes weight. For example it is listed that Miss Marvel is 5’11 and 125 pounds. The healthy weight for a woman who is of that height is approximately 175 pounds. DC, on the other hand, also states their character stats — the major difference is that all females range from 5’5-5’7 and 130-150 pounds which falls in the average and healthy range especially for female superheroes who are presumably in good shape. Meanwhile any woman in the Marvel universe that is muscular or curvier, is typically 6’ and up and over 200 pounds. DC comics recognizes that taller women weigh more (shocking!) and that muscle actually has weight. Marvel, on the other hand, needs to do some serious thinking about the kind of message they are sending to fans about what weight and body expectations.
With all the facts and logic, I personally prefer and love DC comics. They’re not perfect but they are the original and never shame a powerful female character. But in the end, your preference is up to you.