Chris Diver:

DC: The Superior Comic Company

DC Comics is one of the biggest comic book companies of all time. Founded in 1934, DC is home to some of the most famous comic characters including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash. Throughout most of the company’s history, the biggest competitor of DC has always been Marvel Comics, leading to the debate on which one is better. The answer to that question is, in fact, DC.

The first thing to look at is the fact that DC is MILES easier to jump into with better continuity than Marvel. Marvel established their shared comic book universe during the 1940s with characters such as Namor, Human Torch, and Captain America teaming up on occasion and maintained this continuity ever since. Because Marvel has not done a company wide reboot, it has left the continuity a complete mess.

While Marvel has retconned several things over the years to stay modern, the continuity has spanned almost 80 years. DC, on the other hand, has gone through two reboots over its history, one in 1986 with the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event and the other in 2011 with the The Flash story “Flashpoint,” which is the start of the current continuity. While not a reboot, DC also had a relaunch in 2016 known as “DC Rebirth” that served as a way to revamp certain characters. With this, new readers only have a few years’ worth of stories to keep up with. As for Marvel, new readers don’t have an easier jumping in a point, and they have to go through years of continuity to start reading.

(Spoiler alert for this next point for a few DC and Marvel stories) Speaking of reading, DC puts out events that are better than Marvel and easier to read. The last big event that Marvel put out was 2017’s “Secret Empire,” which was a huge flop and tried to tear down everything readers knew about one of Marvel’s most popular characters: Captain America.

The story tried to say that Captain America has been a member of Hydra since the 1940s, essentially destroying the character’s entire life. The story’s writer, Nick Spencer, then chickened out by saying Captain America was brainwashed all along, something he swore up and down for months that wasn’t the case. The story was also hard to follow with every comic having a tie-in, making the reader to follow countless different books to understand the story.

Another story to look at is 2016’s Marvel “Civil War II” which is a sequel to the first “Civil War.” The old cliche of sequels not being as good as the original once again stands tall. “Civil War II” saw Iron Man vs Captain America, and instead of being a story that is reflective of the politics of the time or even being interesting, “Civil War II” was nothing but an excuse to kill off several well liked characters and cash in on Captain America: Civil War.

Compare that to DC’s current story “Doomsday Clock.” “Doomsday Clock” is currently ongoing and has managed to hit it out of the park with several issues. Unlike “Secret Empire” or “Civil War II,” DC has used “Doomsday Clock” as a way to change the DC Universe for the better while respecting the characters involved with the story. “Doomsday Clock” is also self-contained, making it easier to follow without having to buy a bunch of books to understand what is going on.

There are also the characters that are considered the company’s flagship characters and how each company treats them. The character who is considered DC’s flagship character is Superman, with Batman and Wonder Woman also considered to be flagship characters. DC treats these characters the way they are supposed to be treated, and the reason they are the flagship characters is because they are the most popular.

As Batman grew in popularity, DC started to give him more of a spotlight; as Wonder Woman grew, they started to give both of them the spotlight. Now take this and compare it to the character Marvel is pushing as their flagship character: Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel. Unlike Superman, Captain Marvel isn’t super popular; she has had multiple comics cancelled over the past few years due to low sales while other characters, like Spider-Man and Captain America, continue to sell well. Had her stories been good, it would be different, but Captain Marvel stories just aren’t interesting. She has been turned into a Mary Sue with zero problems or hardly any emotions. She has even appeared to be a borderline sociopath fascist during her team up with Ms. Marvel by supporting locking people up without trial.

The product itself isn’t the only problem; the other problem is that Marvel has had a tendency to hire people who have never worked in comics before and give them top characters to write. Marvel is hiring young adult and Tumblr writers who maybe read one comic as a kid and only know anything about Marvel due to the movies. This is not how you run a comic company, and it has done nothing but hurt Marvel’s sales and reputation. DC on the other hand focuses their hiring on those that have comic experience and people that write good comics instead. While there is a flop every once in awhile, the majority of writers are consistent with their work and show that they know what the DC Universe is about.

Jason Messina

MARVEL the Better Industry

Marvel Comics is the biggest comic book company of all time. Marvel Comics was founded in 1939. Marvel is known for having some of the most recognizable and amazing superheroes ever: The Invincible Iron Man, Thor the God of Thunder , Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and of course The Amazing Spider Man, just to name a few. The only company that has ever come close to competing with Marvel Comics, is DC Comics. DC Comics may have been founded first but they are nowhere near the best.

Now when it comes to the modern times superheros are still popular as ever. Movies and videogames all help push the popularity of superheroes and their subsequent comics. And one group has been in the spotlight for quite a long time.

Marvel Comics have so many interesting characters that there is a little something for everyone. These comics are marketable and can be a good fit for just about any taste. There are some more grittier storylines which have since become more popular of late. But something that DC constantly forgets is that superheroes are supposed to be fun.

You don’t always have to be wearing black makeup and screaming that nobody understands you. Now there is no denying that DC has embraced an increasingly edgy feel, but all this does is turn away anyone that’s not in the mood for loneliness and random bursts of sadness.

Now of course there are some DC characters you can label fun, Flash, some green arrows, the robins, but it’s not nearly as much we want.

There is one point I will give to DC, overall they have better and more memorable villains. The villains are the thing that will make me pick up a DC Comic. They’re unique and all with their own motivations as well, as being written good in most variations. And of course there are the many batman villains who will never be topped. It does make sense though that DC has good villains. When you spend so much time locked in the dark with nothing but brooding heroes with boring personalities it almost becomes like an escape to create characters with motivations to kill these annoyingly bland heroes.

DC may have the upperhand in villains, but Marvel has the upper hand literally everywhere else.  The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had 20 Outstanding movies in the last 10 years, and that’s just the MCU, not even taking into account the other many Marvel movies that were made. It feels like DC is just trying to play catch up. Of course the Dark Knight trilogy was good but what was the last DC movie besides those 3, that anybody liked? Suicide Squad sucked, Batman V Superman was Laughable, and sure Wonder Woman was great but then they ruined it with Justice League. And with the trailers that are coming out they are still not doing any better. (Teen Titans looks AWFUL)

That being said DC may have been able to pull off a couple good television shows but that was before letting every single last one dig their own grave. They never last. Marvel has been able to create good tv shows as well, proving that it’s not that difficult.  

Honestly though DC is lucky for one reason. They have a single character that has kept them a float and going throughout their entirety as a company, and no it’s not their S clad monster that is the most freaking overpowered thing to ever exist.

It’s Batman.

The only defence anybody will ever have for DC and it would be really funny to watch them have to live without him. Because without the bat there is no way they’d still be around.

In the end you can like whoever you like it’s no big deal to me, all I know is that DC didn’t need a Thanos snap to erase most of their characters from existence.