PhantomStranger

Growing up, I never really got the DC vs. Marvel thing. I was fully committed to both companies and their heroes. I probably ended up buying slightly more Marvel books, only because they seemed to publish more titles. As an adult it became increasingly more difficult to keep up with Marvel, when the X-Men and other mutants began to overwhelm Marvel's universe.

My affinity for DC's characters has only strengthened as I've gotten older. Aside from Spider-Man and to a lesser extent Captain America, I really don't care anymore what Marvel does to their characters.

brayzie

Even though I'm more of a DC fan right now, I always enjoyed the way Marvel had a better integrated universe. And it seemed like they had a lot more consistently good creative runs on their titles and they seemed at times more edgy or experimental with the newstand comics.

X-Men has had some great creative teams over the years: Claremont and Cockrum/Byrne/Silvestri/Lee, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitley, Josh Whedon and John Cassaday, and the creative teams associated with Age of Apocalypse.

Spider-man's entire run has been an entertaining soap opera until the Clone Saga and/or One More Day.

Daredevil has some very classic creative runs by Miller, Nocenti, and Bendis.

DC Comics can go for long stretches of time with not so entertaining installments. For the longest time Batman wasn't that fun to read until Hush and then later when Morrison started writing. Superman was pretty boring with the exception of All-Star. I don't like Geoff Johns but he at least does good work with classic characters like GL and Aquaman. Haven't read his Flash stuff yet though.

actionjackson29

I've always been a Marvel but tried to get into DC with nu52 and really dislike the different for the sake of being different. I still get trades of Batman, Batwoman, Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman but I really wouldn't care much if any of them got cancelled. Marvel Now with near complete creative teams shake up brought out a ton of good books. All-New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Uncanny Avengers, Avengers, New Avengers, Avengers Arena, Deadpool and Thor God of Thunder. Daredevil and Hawkeye were running before Marvel Now and while DD is relaunching I believe Waid will still be writing. And one of my favorite titles ever is X-Factor by Peter David which quietly ran for over 100 issues. It's been relaunched with different characters by David but it's hard to see him capture lightning in a bottle like he did with the previous volume.

fujishig

Yeah, I said it before but Marvel does tend to setup long creative runs that work out great.

Brubaker did a fantastic Daredevil following Bendis, and also did a definitive Captain America run.

Walter Simonson on Thor

Bendis on Avengers (even if you hate him). Roy Thomas and Buscema, Busiek and George Perez.

Peter David on Hulk and X-Factor (twice)

John Byrne on FF and Alpha Flight

Claremont and Alan Davis on Excalibur

Claremont and Sienkiewicz on New Mutants

Michelinie on Iron Man

Even recently, besides Bendis, they've had Hickman on FF and Secret Avengers, Abnett and Lanning on the cosmic stuff, etc.

So many candidates for a great omnibus, and while DC has great great stories, a lot of them that are in the regular DC Universe are side characters (James Robinson on Starman, pre Vertigo Alan Moore Swamp Thing, Morrison on Animal Man, Ostrander/Mandrake on Spectre), written by pre-new-52 Geoff Johns (JSA, GL, Superman, etc.), or glorified elseworlds. (there are of course notable exceptions; Giffen and co on Legion, Giffen/Demattius on Justice League, Wolfman/Perez on Teen Titans, Morrison on JLA, Waid on Flash, etc.) I mean, when I think about their two iconic characters, the greatest stories they've been involved in are mostly elseworlds (Dark Knight Returns, All Star Superman, Kingdom Come, heck, Alan Moore's last pre-Crisis Superman stories where he could throw whatever he wanted into it)

Hokeyboy

Probably my favorite run on any comic, ever. FANTASTIC stuff.

duff beer

yeah it was good

slop101

From the '60s until the early to mid-'90, Marvel was hands down better than DC, in stories, character, art, etc. (though to be fair, in the '80s, DC had higher "highs" than Marvel, but far lower "lows"). Then yeah, they got a little nuts with the tie-ins and their quality-control dipped quite a bit. While at the same time, DC upped their game, with the Vertigo line and a better consistency along their titles. I'd say right now, they're pretty much more or less on even footing.*

But since Marvel was SOOO much better during those 3 important decades, I'd have to give it to Marvel.

*I spoke too soon - they were on even footing before this who "new 52" fiasco. Now, DC's kinda shot themselves in the foot, and Marvel's actually doing okay with their "Now" line, so for now, advantage: Marvel.

Hokeyboy

I'd argue that post-Crisis DC was better than later-Shooter era Marvel, but 60s through mid 80s was utterly Marvel's domain.

duff beer

I believe the "higher highs and lower lowers" is what clinches it, since a higher high is worth it all on its own so i'd give the 80s to DC...

slop101

Yeah, I did like the one-two punch of Byrne on Superman and Perez on Wonder Woman. Those were runs I'd swoop up on an Omnibus in a heart-beat, but the at Marvel you had Peter David on Hulk, Alan Davis on Excalibur and so on, that were just as good as those DC relaunches, if not better.

Hokeyboy

Byrne's Superman, Perez's Wonder Woman, Miller's Batman Year One and Dark Knight Returns, Moore's Watchmen and Killing Joke, Grell's Green Arrow, Truman's Hawkworld (even if it made the character's continuity a mess for decades), the early birth of what would become Veritgo with Gaiman's Black Orchid and Sandman, Morrison's Animal Man and Doom Patrol, and Jamie Delano's Hellblazer, plus the inimitable Justice League International/America/Europe... at that point DC was firing ahead of Marvel in terms of creativity and diversity.

It wasn't a total blowout, but DC was definitely leading in front of Marvel in the later 80s (all in my opinion of course).

slop101

To be fair, most of those (what I bolded), were not exactly runs on a book, but rather short mini-series, that were essentially serialized graphic novels. Not saying they don't count, but they're essentially just single one-and-done story lines, hardly representative of what was going on in the regular monthly titles.

Hokeyboy

I get what you're saying, but they also set the tone for the DCU afterward (with the exception of Watchmen, which set the tone for almost everything). I forgot who wrote Batman & Detective after Miller's Batman reboot, but it was pretty great (VERY dated Jim Aparo art notwithstanding). Also: Grell's Green Arrow run on the monthly title went for 5 years, and Hawkworld continued as a quality monthly as well.

slop101

Alan Davis (one of my favorite artists, with Mike Barr writing) was on Detective and started the Year Two storyline, which Todd McFarlane finished (and fucked it up, IMO). Jim Starlin was writing Batman when Aparo was drawing it in the late '80s.

Hokeyboy

Oh, and Batman: The Cult... fantastic. Also Cosmic Odyssey. Starlin was on fire with DC back then.

slop101

Also, Starlin's Gilgamesh II - but then he followed up that stint at DC with his work at Marvel on Silver Surfer, Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet stuff, which were just as strong.

Trevor

While I'm a bit of a continuity fan and would prefer a consistent universe with lots of call backs and reinterpretations and all, I'm slowly trying to force myself to think of every book or story arc to be an elseworlds story and just enjoy.

brayzie

Was Batman: The Cult really good? I've read a lot of bad reviews about it.

I think Marvel was killing DC for the longest time as far as regular, consistent creative teams on superhero titles went. But I thought by the mid 90s DC Comics was the better company. Mark Waid and Wieringo and later Jimenez on The Flash was great. Kelley Jones and Doug Monech on Batman really brought back that pulp/horror vibe that the earliest of Detective Comics stories had. And of course Grant Morrison on JLA. Oh yeah, Waid and Ramos on Impulse was a great comic too.

slop101

Actually, considering it was from Jim Starlin and Berni Wrightson, it wasn't really that good at all. It had some interesting idea, but the story fell pretty flat on it's face.

PhantomStranger

It's definitely disappointing considering their talent.

Hokeyboy

I dug it quite a bit. Seeing the Bat broken like that was pretty intense.

JumpCutz

As someone who grew up with the 70's comics it was DC.

Wein/ Wrightson/Redondo... Swamp Thing
O'Neil and Adams... Batman
Aparo's work on TBATB and Detective
Kirby's Kamandi, New Gods, Mister Miracle, Omac etc...
House of Mystery
Weird War
Wolverton and Aragones work on Plop
Kubert... Sgt. Rock/Tarzan
Mike Grell- Legion of Superheroes
Phantom Stranger
Kaluta...The Shadow
Adventure Comics- Aquaman/Spectre etc..

Lastdaysofrain

Kind of a big dumb question. However, with all the movies especially, and the higher profile of comic and comic related characters in general, this seems to be more and more heated.

I've been reading comics for 30+ years, and although I remember people would have a preference, it wasn't the sort of weird sports fan mentality I see today. Sort of a hatred of the other, instead of a preference for one.

Is this because more casual fans have come to table in the last couple of years? is this the "jockification" of comic book fandom? Anyone have thoughts?

As a kid I loved Marvel, as I got older I started to prefer DC stories. I still like some of both and always will. I like comics. It's odd to me that others aren't that way.

davidh777

Some discussion here:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/comic-book-...vs-marvel.html

Timber

I think it's always been this way. I was a Marvel fan and couldn't stand DC. I got into DC for some big events like Zero Hour and the like but I was never really a fan. Even today it's still carried over, I do not like their product outside of the Batman trilogy.