Spoilers!
While I love both when it comes to movies, Marvel takes the cake.
1. The Marvel Universe is built piece by piece.
Each of the heroes in the MCU are given the opportunity to take the spotlight and tell their story. Meanwhile we see Clark Kent drawing all the focus. True, we’ve yet to see a wider set of offerings from DC, but based on "Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice," they’ve tried to jump into the middle of the universe without properly building up the context for these heroes.
2. Marvel’s long term plan.
The first of the MCU movies aired in 2008 with "Iron Man," and based on the plans they’ve released, we’ll have Marvel movies to keep us company well into 2018, providing us a decade of content. This may be the main reason we’re seeing DC trying to catch up to Marvel. They have a plan, they’ve released a similar plan to Marvel, but they lack the last eight years of setup.
3. Humor — but really!
Though some of the scenes in "Man of Steel" and the most recent installment of the DC franchise might make you smirk, at no point did I find myself all-out laughing. Meanwhile, Marvel provides us with films like "Deadpool" where you leave the theater in physical pain after two and a half hours of laughing. The general tone of Marvel movies is also lighter, more like the energy you get from reading a comic book; meanwhile, we have these dark gloomy scenes from DC.
4. Marvel’s action sequences are easier to follow.
Marvel takes their time. When we see Thor beating the pulp out of a bad guy, you can follow his hammer. Or when Captain America throws his shield, the camera follows it and lets you keep your eye on the action. Meanwhile, many of the scenes in "Man of Steel" are dark and blurry and hard to keep track of. The one exception that deserves a note is some of the Batman scenes we got to see this March. When Batman takes on a group of mercenaries, it’s one of the best scenes in the entire franchise.
5. DC’s heavy-handed Jesus metaphors.
Watch "Man of Steel" and "Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice," and count how many times you see people worshiping Superman or Clark descending out of the sky with the sun at his back, hands out stretched. Seriously, just think about it.
6. Characters with depth.
The motivations and personalities of characters like Iron Man, Black Widow and Captain America make us connect with them. We care about them; we want to see Hawkeye and his family do well; we feel strongly when Quicksilver is gunned down, and we only knew him for one film. Meanwhile, Superman feels detached from the audience. More importantly, the villains — the villains in DC don’t feel like there’s a motivation for them. Doomsday was just a big scary monster. Perhaps the biggest sin of the movies is Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, just a crazy 20-something genius with daddy issues — not moving, and definitely not scary.
7. Multiple directors
Having more than one hand in the pot lets more than one creative voice be heard. This lets us see multiple views of the same character and begin to care more about the stories that are being told.
8. Marvel has a good handle on scale.
Each of the MCU movies has the right level threat or danger. The stakes feel appropriate for the for the movie. Ant-Man doesn’t need to save the world on his own; that’s reserved for the Avengers as a whole team. In the two movies we’ve seen from the DCU Supes and Batfleck both are seen taking on apocalyptic threats mostly on their own. The stakes feel disingenuous when they are consistently so high.
9. Kevin Feige
The man at the helm, the guy with the vision. Instead of a brain trust fighting over creative pride, Feige provides the franchise with strong, constructive leadership that helps build a cohesive and engaging world.
