If you were to ask me who my favorite superhero was I'd have to say, Batman. Not because of him, really, but more about the world about him. I've loved the dark, gritty, futuristic gothic style of Gotham from the start. I've loved the friends of Batman like Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, Barbara Gorden and Dick Grayson. I've been fascinated with the villains from the evil means for a greater good style of Ra's al Ghul to the maniacal crimes of the Joker. Not to mention the grey characters like Catwoman and Damion Wayne. I've loved the stories they have been able to give me and like to hear new ideas for them.
But that is where my intimate knowledge of DC ends.
Sure I know the usual. Over powered Superman, Greek hero styled Wonder Woman, Master of the Sea Aquaman and speedy Flash. I am aware of them but never really got too much into them.
At least not like I've gotten into Marvel.
Overall, I think I've read more Marvel comics than I have DC, which has always left me curious. None of Marvel's heroes really made me as intrigued. At least not at the start. And I think I know the contributing factors to this.
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Movies.
Sure, DC may have beaten Marvel to the punch with Superman and Tim Burton's Batman in the 80s but those quickly declined with only the first two of each being of any real worth in my eyes. I didn't really get into Superman because the movies were... well more geared towards kids. It reminded me of the campy Batman TV series where the Joker was just a goofy prankster with some harebrained scheme. Heck! Lex Luthor's plan was to literally disconnect California from the continental US and make it his own country! And I guess liked Batman due to the films but not really the DC universe for one big reason.
The movies never hinted at there being a world outside of Gotham or Metropolis. The Batman movies were their own contained stories because they didn't really need to explain the outside world. They were Batman movies, not DC. Forget DC. This is Batman!
And there in lies the problem.
They were going out to make just that. They just wanted to make make movies about the hero they wanted to focus on, but not the universe they were apart of.
And Marvel did a similar blunder with Spiderman. I actually rather liked the first Toby McGuire Spiderman, mostly because JK Simmons makes a spot on J. Jonah Jameson, but also because it had some promise and I feel if they had made an effort to maybe make connections to other heroes, it could have launched Marvel ahead rather quickly.
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But it wasn't until Iron Man came along with its introduction of Marvel's famous "after credits wink and nod" that resulted in the Marvel franchise blowing up the way it did. It was clear us nerds wanted some good entwined story telling, and Marvel was the first to make an effort at giving us what we wanted.
It was this hinting at a wider world outside of what we saw in the movie that lead me to start reading up all the Marvel graphic novels at my library. I looked into the heroes whose movies would be upcoming to see what I could expect from it. I wanted to know more because Marvel had given me a little taste of what was coming.
And this is where DC fell behind. The Christian Bale Batman movies were fantastic and really brought grittiness to a modern city, but it was just Batman. Not DC. They insulated their heroes from the outside and made themselves suffer for it. And with their recent attempts at cashing in on what Marvel has done falling flat on its face, I can't really see how they plan on fixing it.
But while their live action films have fallen to Marvel's, I will back up DC by saying that its animated movies are very good and a must watch. It's obvious that those movies are made with love rather than cashing in on a running trend, going into some obscure lore in the DC universe and exploring new ideas for it.
But until DC can really get their act together and tempt me with more things than a Civil War knockoff, I am afraid I gotta lean towards Marvel.
Forgive me, Batman.
