View Poll Results: do it
DC
32
47.06%
Marvel
36
52.94%
Voters: 68. You may not vote on this poll
Why Marvel Vs. DC?
02-10-14, 03:14 PM
#1
DVD Talk Special Edition
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dc vs marvel
who do u like more thru the ages.
Marvel pros/cons
-Everyone says Marvel is good at making realistic characters who have real life issues besides their counterparts
-Much of their stuff makes no sense
DC pros/cons
-DC has stronger characters on the whole
-Kind of boring?
Marvel pros/cons
-Everyone says Marvel is good at making realistic characters who have real life issues besides their counterparts
-Much of their stuff makes no sense
DC pros/cons
-DC has stronger characters on the whole
-Kind of boring?
02-10-14, 03:37 PM
#2
DVD Talk Hero
Re: dc vs marvel
Hmm... through the ages? That's a tough one. I think I've always leaned a little more towards DC because of the iconic characters and my love of the little digest-sized reprints that they would do for classic JSA stories. If you include Captain Marvel, and then the 80's runs of Teen Titans and LoSH...
But I've also been a gigantic Uncanny X-men fan; I don't know how many times I read and re-read that Dark Phoenix Saga trade (back when trades were rare).
I remember when I first started reading comics, I had no idea they were separate companies. I remember having that Superman/Spider-man crossover and, while liking the story, I didn't know how big of a deal a crossover like that was.
So it's tough for me to choose. If you asked me a few years ago, I'd have said DC; at the time I was collecting a bunch of their titles monthly, mainly because I loved the characters, and despite the changes that every new Crisis brought along, I felt like they were closer in spirit than the heavily revamped Marvel universe was. Then they completely through continuity away, the characters were no longer what I remembered, and I dropped out entirely. Sales have improved, but the editorial stuff seems like a nightmare; on the Marvel side, it seems like they value long runs from their established creators; I've said it before, but Marvel can collect a lot of lengthy runs in Omnibus format and have them read well because of the consistency of the writing teams on those books; DC basically has/had Johns and Morrison, but there are a lot fewer really classic creator-driven runs.
But I've also been a gigantic Uncanny X-men fan; I don't know how many times I read and re-read that Dark Phoenix Saga trade (back when trades were rare).
I remember when I first started reading comics, I had no idea they were separate companies. I remember having that Superman/Spider-man crossover and, while liking the story, I didn't know how big of a deal a crossover like that was.
So it's tough for me to choose. If you asked me a few years ago, I'd have said DC; at the time I was collecting a bunch of their titles monthly, mainly because I loved the characters, and despite the changes that every new Crisis brought along, I felt like they were closer in spirit than the heavily revamped Marvel universe was. Then they completely through continuity away, the characters were no longer what I remembered, and I dropped out entirely. Sales have improved, but the editorial stuff seems like a nightmare; on the Marvel side, it seems like they value long runs from their established creators; I've said it before, but Marvel can collect a lot of lengthy runs in Omnibus format and have them read well because of the consistency of the writing teams on those books; DC basically has/had Johns and Morrison, but there are a lot fewer really classic creator-driven runs.
02-10-14, 06:03 PM
#3
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Re: dc vs marvel
DC by a huge mile.
I grew up watching reruns of the Adam West Batman TV series in the 1980s before I ever even heard of such a thing as comic books. One day while at the grocery store with my mom, a Batman comic then happened to catch my eye. That got me into comics. Batman and Superman were my first loves.
I eventually got into Marvel, but I never cared for them nearly as much. In fact, Marvel in the 90s pissed me off so much that I dropped Marvel cold in 1994 and have never bought another Marvel comic since then. I really don't regret it one bit either, especially after hearing about crap like Sins Past and One More Day.
DC has done a lot of stuff that has upset me too, but never to that extent. I don't like what they have done with much of the New 52, but I still read about 20 DC books a month.
In the movie medium, however, its the complete opposite. Marvel completely trashes DC in the movies. I don't particularly care for Nolan's Batman trilogy. I love love love the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That is better than any DC movie ever made. I desperately hope that one day DC will have a Cinematic Universe as good as Marvel's, but I'm not holding my breath.
I grew up watching reruns of the Adam West Batman TV series in the 1980s before I ever even heard of such a thing as comic books. One day while at the grocery store with my mom, a Batman comic then happened to catch my eye. That got me into comics. Batman and Superman were my first loves.
I eventually got into Marvel, but I never cared for them nearly as much. In fact, Marvel in the 90s pissed me off so much that I dropped Marvel cold in 1994 and have never bought another Marvel comic since then. I really don't regret it one bit either, especially after hearing about crap like Sins Past and One More Day.
DC has done a lot of stuff that has upset me too, but never to that extent. I don't like what they have done with much of the New 52, but I still read about 20 DC books a month.
In the movie medium, however, its the complete opposite. Marvel completely trashes DC in the movies. I don't particularly care for Nolan's Batman trilogy. I love love love the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That is better than any DC movie ever made. I desperately hope that one day DC will have a Cinematic Universe as good as Marvel's, but I'm not holding my breath.
02-10-14, 06:38 PM
#4
DVD Talk Hero
Re: dc vs marvel
DC will always have the DCAU in media, though, and in general I like their cartoon offerings a lot more than Marvel's.
02-11-14, 08:21 AM
#5
Re: dc vs marvel
I liked both equally in the 70's and the 80's. DC was doing some great stuff with Batman and the Claremont/Byrne storylines for the X-Men were awesome. After that I didn't care much for either and stopped collecting monthlies altogether in the late 90's.
02-11-14, 09:17 AM
#7
DVD Talk Godfather
Re: dc vs marvel
I've always been a Marvel fan, since that's what I was introduced to in the early 90's when I was 8 or 9. Which funny enough, seems to be when all the big comic fans dumped them. But Jim Lee's X-Men will always be how I picture the way comics should look like.
Although Batman is still my favorite character overall.
Although Batman is still my favorite character overall.
02-11-14, 10:15 AM
#8
DVD Talk Legend & 2021 TOTY Winner
Re: dc vs marvel
Always been a Marvel fan. Spider-Man was my favorite character as a kid. I didn't start collecting comics until the mid ninetes, starting with X-Men (mostly because of the animated series) and braching out eventually until I was reading most of Marvel's titles. I've tried different DC titles at different times, but nothing from the mainstream DCU really stuck with me.
02-11-14, 04:20 PM
#10
Re: dc vs marvel
DC for me easily. I grew up with Batman and Superman, and I would pick up way more DC titles than Marvel. The only Marvel characters I really enjoyed were Cap, Daredevil, Spiderman, and X-Men. The rest of Marvel's characters just never held my interest despite how many chances I would give them.
02-11-14, 08:13 PM
#11
Banned by request
Re: dc vs marvel
I think Marvel has a richer universe than DC, but DC's a-list tops Marvel's, IMO.
That being said, I think Marvel really went off the deep end with the tie-ins. I used to have a subscription to Amazing Spider-Man back in the '90s, and I remember receiving some issues and the first three or four pages were resolving a storyline from a different title that Spider-Man had a tie-in with. It was infuriating, because I wasn't going to go out and buy all these other issues, and that meant that this was 3 or 4 pages that could have been used to tell a complete standalone story. And usually the issue ended with "To see how this all ends, check out this month's Incredible Hulk #219!"
I had that subscription for two years and I think maybe four issues were actually standalone (or had the story continue into next month's issue as opposed to another title).
I know DC does stuff like this too, but I feel like Marvel pushed it harder and further.
That being said, I think Marvel really went off the deep end with the tie-ins. I used to have a subscription to Amazing Spider-Man back in the '90s, and I remember receiving some issues and the first three or four pages were resolving a storyline from a different title that Spider-Man had a tie-in with. It was infuriating, because I wasn't going to go out and buy all these other issues, and that meant that this was 3 or 4 pages that could have been used to tell a complete standalone story. And usually the issue ended with "To see how this all ends, check out this month's Incredible Hulk #219!"
I had that subscription for two years and I think maybe four issues were actually standalone (or had the story continue into next month's issue as opposed to another title).
I know DC does stuff like this too, but I feel like Marvel pushed it harder and further.
02-11-14, 09:42 PM
#12
DVD Talk Reviewer/ Admin
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Re: dc vs marvel
I've gone back and forth.
I've been reading comics basically my entire life, but back in 1988 when it stopped being an every-once-in-a-while thing and grew into a full-blown obsession, I bought Marvel just about exclusively. I'd seek out back issues of a few DC books (Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans, pre-5-years-later Legion of Super-Heroes, Firestorm, all things Outsiders), but I was a straight-up Marvel Zombie for a few years there. In particular, I'd read basically anything with Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four.
When Image first started and Marvel tried desperately to imitate them, I quickly drifted away and moved more towards DC and independent books. Strangely, I didn't follow any of the big, marquee DC characters. It was mostly LSH, back issues, and a very long line of shortlived series on the DC side of things. I don't think I read any Marvel books near the end of high school or at all throughout college. When I think back to those years, it's mostly Scud the Disposable Assassin, Bone, and LSH, although I know I read a hell of a lot more than that. Everything I read was either cancelled, went on hiatus (or was so perpetually delayed that it might as well have been), or changed creative teams for the worse, so I stepped away from comics entirely near the end of college.
When I started getting back into comics a few years after graduating, I was open to basically anything, and I read a ton of Marvel, a bunch of DC, and a healthy stack of indie stuff. My pile of DC books gradually grew and grew and grew, to the point where I was reading more DC than Marvel. When the New 52 kicked off, I started off reading...I don't know, not quite half the books? Every month, I'd drop more and more. When I was down to 5 or 6 books, basically none of which I enjoyed anymore, I just decided to walk away.
Marvel has its share of mistakes. Their big crossover events are basically always terrible. They might start well but quickly peter out, and the endings are never close to satisfying. The smaller events are frustrating because I don't want to read 17 different X-books. I have the couple I like, and I kind of want to keep it there. (It doesn't matter what you read; there'll be an X-Men crossover at some point.) The double shipping can be frustrating because the creative teams are constantly changing. There's not a lot of continuity in writer/artist pairings anymore. Marvel renumbers/relaunches everything seemingly every couple of years.
On the other hand, Marvel books are just so full of life and joy. Tons of dark, terrible things happen, sure, but I still feel wide-eyed and excited to pick up a Marvel book these days. DC, though...? Ugh. It's everything that made me want to stop reading comics in the '90s. All the fun, playful books have been cancelled. It's a 14-year-old's perception of what's mature and adult, so the entire New 52 is a bleak, joyless miasma of death, dismemberment, and general misery. Abysmal writing...X-TREME '90s throwback art, too many characters I once loved devolving into raging, unlikeable assholes...ugh. I couldn't get into the Night of the Owls thing or the Death of the Family as much as most, and I gave precisely no shits about Year Zero and used that as a jumping off point. The brightest spots for me were Wonder Woman, Frankenstein, Demon Knights, Animal Man, and Swamp Thing. Rotworld was pretty dreadful, especially near the end, effectively killing my interest in Animal Man and Swamp Thing. Frankenstein didn't last. Demon Knights felt like it was running in place. I loved, loved, loved Wonder Woman, but after a couple of years, I felt like it just didn't have any momentum. I'd probably like it in trades, but in monthlies, I was ready for it to move onto a different arc. Cliff Chiang's art was a huge selling point to me, and he rarely seemed to contribute anything more than covers on any regular basis.
My indies are basically all trades at this point. Marvel is mostly monthlies (well, a lot double-ship, so biweeklies?) with a handful of trades. No DC at all for me now. I'm to a point now where I think I could only read TPBs and feel pretty satisfied.
I've been reading comics basically my entire life, but back in 1988 when it stopped being an every-once-in-a-while thing and grew into a full-blown obsession, I bought Marvel just about exclusively. I'd seek out back issues of a few DC books (Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans, pre-5-years-later Legion of Super-Heroes, Firestorm, all things Outsiders), but I was a straight-up Marvel Zombie for a few years there. In particular, I'd read basically anything with Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four.
When Image first started and Marvel tried desperately to imitate them, I quickly drifted away and moved more towards DC and independent books. Strangely, I didn't follow any of the big, marquee DC characters. It was mostly LSH, back issues, and a very long line of shortlived series on the DC side of things. I don't think I read any Marvel books near the end of high school or at all throughout college. When I think back to those years, it's mostly Scud the Disposable Assassin, Bone, and LSH, although I know I read a hell of a lot more than that. Everything I read was either cancelled, went on hiatus (or was so perpetually delayed that it might as well have been), or changed creative teams for the worse, so I stepped away from comics entirely near the end of college.
When I started getting back into comics a few years after graduating, I was open to basically anything, and I read a ton of Marvel, a bunch of DC, and a healthy stack of indie stuff. My pile of DC books gradually grew and grew and grew, to the point where I was reading more DC than Marvel. When the New 52 kicked off, I started off reading...I don't know, not quite half the books? Every month, I'd drop more and more. When I was down to 5 or 6 books, basically none of which I enjoyed anymore, I just decided to walk away.
Marvel has its share of mistakes. Their big crossover events are basically always terrible. They might start well but quickly peter out, and the endings are never close to satisfying. The smaller events are frustrating because I don't want to read 17 different X-books. I have the couple I like, and I kind of want to keep it there. (It doesn't matter what you read; there'll be an X-Men crossover at some point.) The double shipping can be frustrating because the creative teams are constantly changing. There's not a lot of continuity in writer/artist pairings anymore. Marvel renumbers/relaunches everything seemingly every couple of years.
On the other hand, Marvel books are just so full of life and joy. Tons of dark, terrible things happen, sure, but I still feel wide-eyed and excited to pick up a Marvel book these days. DC, though...? Ugh. It's everything that made me want to stop reading comics in the '90s. All the fun, playful books have been cancelled. It's a 14-year-old's perception of what's mature and adult, so the entire New 52 is a bleak, joyless miasma of death, dismemberment, and general misery. Abysmal writing...X-TREME '90s throwback art, too many characters I once loved devolving into raging, unlikeable assholes...ugh. I couldn't get into the Night of the Owls thing or the Death of the Family as much as most, and I gave precisely no shits about Year Zero and used that as a jumping off point. The brightest spots for me were Wonder Woman, Frankenstein, Demon Knights, Animal Man, and Swamp Thing. Rotworld was pretty dreadful, especially near the end, effectively killing my interest in Animal Man and Swamp Thing. Frankenstein didn't last. Demon Knights felt like it was running in place. I loved, loved, loved Wonder Woman, but after a couple of years, I felt like it just didn't have any momentum. I'd probably like it in trades, but in monthlies, I was ready for it to move onto a different arc. Cliff Chiang's art was a huge selling point to me, and he rarely seemed to contribute anything more than covers on any regular basis.
My indies are basically all trades at this point. Marvel is mostly monthlies (well, a lot double-ship, so biweeklies?) with a handful of trades. No DC at all for me now. I'm to a point now where I think I could only read TPBs and feel pretty satisfied.
02-11-14, 09:59 PM
#13
DVD Talk Legend
Re: dc vs marvel
I haven't read monthlies from either company for years now. Overall I prefer DC to Marvel; just a stronger affinity for their characters and universe. 80s DC was my wheelhouse: Wolfman/Perez Titans, Levitz/Giffen Legion of Super-Heroes, Miller's Batman, Byrne's Superman, Perez's Wonder Woman, Grell's Green Arrow, Barr's Batman and the Outsiders, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, as well as other pre-Vertigo titles like Hellblazer, Sandman, and Black Orchid, Earth-2 books like Infinity Inc and All-Star Squadron, etc. Then the prestige stuff like Watchmen, TDKR, even lesser heralded work like Camelot 3000 and the DC Challenge. Just a great period for comics.
Nu52 lost me from DC, and Marvel's endless "STATUS! QUO! SKAKE-UPS!!" every year made me sick to my stomach (and I'm not a big Bendis fan, save for Ultimate Spider-Man). Less said about Mark Millar, the better.
Nu52 lost me from DC, and Marvel's endless "STATUS! QUO! SKAKE-UPS!!" every year made me sick to my stomach (and I'm not a big Bendis fan, save for Ultimate Spider-Man). Less said about Mark Millar, the better.
02-11-14, 10:30 PM
#15
DVD Talk Reviewer/ Admin
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Re: dc vs marvel
It's a little messy because everything has just been relaunched or is on the verge of being relaunched, so anything I'd recommend might not be there in its current form a month or two down the road. 
The constant relaunches are part of the reason why this seems like a good time for me to step away.
Hawkeye is probably my favorite book on the stands, as unreliable as its shipping schedule is anymore.
I'm really digging Guardians of the Galaxy so far, and Sara Pichelli's art is superhumanly gorgeous.
I couldn't get into Matt Fraction's Fantastic Four run, but the sister title (FF) with Mike Allred was fantastic. It just ended.
Ultimate Spider-Man has been a consistent favorite, and I've really been enjoying the Miles Morales era as well, although that run recently ended and is about to be relaunched.
I'm a card-carrying Gillen/McKelvie fan, so Young Avengers was right up my alley, even though the 'Mother' thing dragged on too long. It's gone.
I loved Mark Waid's Daredevil, but its final issue is about to come out, and it's getting yet another relaunch.
I winced at the idea of Spider-Ock, but I've been loving Superior Spider-Man. It too is being relaunched, but as long as Dan Slott is writing, I think I'll be onboard. The Superior Foes of Spider-Man spinoff has been wonderful so far too. (Superior Team-Up, not so much.)
Peter David's X-Factor was a consistent favorite, but it just relaunched with a different team, on and off the page. Wolverine and the X-Men was the only other X-book I was reading in floppies, and it's about to end. Rick Remender's X-Force was tremendous up to a point, and even though the last trade only came out a few months ago (right?), it's on its second relaunch since then, I believe.
Indestructible Hulk is...I don't know, probably about to be relaunched. It started with a really strong premise (Banner lets SHIELD use Hulk as an oversized bullet if they give him a lab and unlimited resources to work with when he's not angry) but got distracted by the mostly unreadable fallout of the Age of Ultron event. The earlier issues are worth reading.
If you're okay reading trades and don't care if the comics are a few years old, I'd recommend The Incredible Hercules, all of Gillen's Loki stuff in Journey into Mystery, Nextwave, and basically all things Ultimate Spider-Man. The collections of pretty much anything I named earlier too, although FF and the X-books might be somewhat impenetrable. If you're interested in Slott's run on Spider-Man, Big Time is a good jumping-on point.
The constant relaunches are part of the reason why this seems like a good time for me to step away.Hawkeye is probably my favorite book on the stands, as unreliable as its shipping schedule is anymore.
I'm really digging Guardians of the Galaxy so far, and Sara Pichelli's art is superhumanly gorgeous.
I couldn't get into Matt Fraction's Fantastic Four run, but the sister title (FF) with Mike Allred was fantastic. It just ended.
Ultimate Spider-Man has been a consistent favorite, and I've really been enjoying the Miles Morales era as well, although that run recently ended and is about to be relaunched.
I'm a card-carrying Gillen/McKelvie fan, so Young Avengers was right up my alley, even though the 'Mother' thing dragged on too long. It's gone.
I loved Mark Waid's Daredevil, but its final issue is about to come out, and it's getting yet another relaunch.
I winced at the idea of Spider-Ock, but I've been loving Superior Spider-Man. It too is being relaunched, but as long as Dan Slott is writing, I think I'll be onboard. The Superior Foes of Spider-Man spinoff has been wonderful so far too. (Superior Team-Up, not so much.)
Peter David's X-Factor was a consistent favorite, but it just relaunched with a different team, on and off the page. Wolverine and the X-Men was the only other X-book I was reading in floppies, and it's about to end. Rick Remender's X-Force was tremendous up to a point, and even though the last trade only came out a few months ago (right?), it's on its second relaunch since then, I believe.
Indestructible Hulk is...I don't know, probably about to be relaunched. It started with a really strong premise (Banner lets SHIELD use Hulk as an oversized bullet if they give him a lab and unlimited resources to work with when he's not angry) but got distracted by the mostly unreadable fallout of the Age of Ultron event. The earlier issues are worth reading.
If you're okay reading trades and don't care if the comics are a few years old, I'd recommend The Incredible Hercules, all of Gillen's Loki stuff in Journey into Mystery, Nextwave, and basically all things Ultimate Spider-Man. The collections of pretty much anything I named earlier too, although FF and the X-books might be somewhat impenetrable. If you're interested in Slott's run on Spider-Man, Big Time is a good jumping-on point.
02-12-14, 09:52 AM
#18
Challenge Guru & Comic Nerd
Re: dc vs marvel
I love both, and sort of hate the new 52, but it'll always be DC for me. Even if they disappeared tomorrow, or their stuff got so bad that I never buy another DC item again, I could live off my DC books for the rest of my life. Swamp Thing, Plop, Crisis, Watchmen, 70s horror titles, Barry Allen Flash, etc etc have always been 'my favorite things'.
02-12-14, 10:51 AM
#19
Re: dc vs marvel
Me, too. The old stuff I can re-read over and over again. I love pulling out the old 100-pagers and reading the GA/SA stories.
02-12-14, 02:05 PM
#20
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: dc vs marvel
I've gone back and forth.
I've been reading comics basically my entire life, but back in 1988 when it stopped being an every-once-in-a-while thing and grew into a full-blown obsession, I bought Marvel just about exclusively. I'd seek out back issues of a few DC books (Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans, pre-5-years-later Legion of Super-Heroes, Firestorm, all things Outsiders), but I was a straight-up Marvel Zombie for a few years there. In particular, I'd read basically anything with Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four.
When Image first started and Marvel tried desperately to imitate them, I quickly drifted away and moved more towards DC and independent books. Strangely, I didn't follow any of the big, marquee DC characters. It was mostly LSH, back issues, and a very long line of shortlived series on the DC side of things. I don't think I read any Marvel books near the end of high school or at all throughout college. When I think back to those years, it's mostly Scud the Disposable Assassin, Bone, and LSH, although I know I read a hell of a lot more than that. Everything I read was either cancelled, went on hiatus (or was so perpetually delayed that it might as well have been), or changed creative teams for the worse, so I stepped away from comics entirely near the end of college.
When I started getting back into comics a few years after graduating, I was open to basically anything, and I read a ton of Marvel, a bunch of DC, and a healthy stack of indie stuff. My pile of DC books gradually grew and grew and grew, to the point where I was reading more DC than Marvel. When the New 52 kicked off, I started off reading...I don't know, not quite half the books? Every month, I'd drop more and more. When I was down to 5 or 6 books, basically none of which I enjoyed anymore, I just decided to walk away.
Marvel has its share of mistakes. Their big crossover events are basically always terrible. They might start well but quickly peter out, and the endings are never close to satisfying. The smaller events are frustrating because I don't want to read 17 different X-books. I have the couple I like, and I kind of want to keep it there. (It doesn't matter what you read; there'll be an X-Men crossover at some point.) The double shipping can be frustrating because the creative teams are constantly changing. There's not a lot of continuity in writer/artist pairings anymore. Marvel renumbers/relaunches everything seemingly every couple of years.
On the other hand, Marvel books are just so full of life and joy. Tons of dark, terrible things happen, sure, but I still feel wide-eyed and excited to pick up a Marvel book these days. DC, though...? Ugh. It's everything that made me want to stop reading comics in the '90s. All the fun, playful books have been cancelled. It's a 14-year-old's perception of what's mature and adult, so the entire New 52 is a bleak, joyless miasma of death, dismemberment, and general misery. Abysmal writing...X-TREME '90s throwback art, too many characters I once loved devolving into raging, unlikeable assholes...ugh. I couldn't get into the Night of the Owls thing or the Death of the Family as much as most, and I gave precisely no shits about Year Zero and used that as a jumping off point. The brightest spots for me were Wonder Woman, Frankenstein, Demon Knights, Animal Man, and Swamp Thing. Rotworld was pretty dreadful, especially near the end, effectively killing my interest in Animal Man and Swamp Thing. Frankenstein didn't last. Demon Knights felt like it was running in place. I loved, loved, loved Wonder Woman, but after a couple of years, I felt like it just didn't have any momentum. I'd probably like it in trades, but in monthlies, I was ready for it to move onto a different arc. Cliff Chiang's art was a huge selling point to me, and he rarely seemed to contribute anything more than covers on any regular basis.
My indies are basically all trades at this point. Marvel is mostly monthlies (well, a lot double-ship, so biweeklies?) with a handful of trades. No DC at all for me now. I'm to a point now where I think I could only read TPBs and feel pretty satisfied.
I've been reading comics basically my entire life, but back in 1988 when it stopped being an every-once-in-a-while thing and grew into a full-blown obsession, I bought Marvel just about exclusively. I'd seek out back issues of a few DC books (Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans, pre-5-years-later Legion of Super-Heroes, Firestorm, all things Outsiders), but I was a straight-up Marvel Zombie for a few years there. In particular, I'd read basically anything with Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four.
When Image first started and Marvel tried desperately to imitate them, I quickly drifted away and moved more towards DC and independent books. Strangely, I didn't follow any of the big, marquee DC characters. It was mostly LSH, back issues, and a very long line of shortlived series on the DC side of things. I don't think I read any Marvel books near the end of high school or at all throughout college. When I think back to those years, it's mostly Scud the Disposable Assassin, Bone, and LSH, although I know I read a hell of a lot more than that. Everything I read was either cancelled, went on hiatus (or was so perpetually delayed that it might as well have been), or changed creative teams for the worse, so I stepped away from comics entirely near the end of college.
When I started getting back into comics a few years after graduating, I was open to basically anything, and I read a ton of Marvel, a bunch of DC, and a healthy stack of indie stuff. My pile of DC books gradually grew and grew and grew, to the point where I was reading more DC than Marvel. When the New 52 kicked off, I started off reading...I don't know, not quite half the books? Every month, I'd drop more and more. When I was down to 5 or 6 books, basically none of which I enjoyed anymore, I just decided to walk away.
Marvel has its share of mistakes. Their big crossover events are basically always terrible. They might start well but quickly peter out, and the endings are never close to satisfying. The smaller events are frustrating because I don't want to read 17 different X-books. I have the couple I like, and I kind of want to keep it there. (It doesn't matter what you read; there'll be an X-Men crossover at some point.) The double shipping can be frustrating because the creative teams are constantly changing. There's not a lot of continuity in writer/artist pairings anymore. Marvel renumbers/relaunches everything seemingly every couple of years.
On the other hand, Marvel books are just so full of life and joy. Tons of dark, terrible things happen, sure, but I still feel wide-eyed and excited to pick up a Marvel book these days. DC, though...? Ugh. It's everything that made me want to stop reading comics in the '90s. All the fun, playful books have been cancelled. It's a 14-year-old's perception of what's mature and adult, so the entire New 52 is a bleak, joyless miasma of death, dismemberment, and general misery. Abysmal writing...X-TREME '90s throwback art, too many characters I once loved devolving into raging, unlikeable assholes...ugh. I couldn't get into the Night of the Owls thing or the Death of the Family as much as most, and I gave precisely no shits about Year Zero and used that as a jumping off point. The brightest spots for me were Wonder Woman, Frankenstein, Demon Knights, Animal Man, and Swamp Thing. Rotworld was pretty dreadful, especially near the end, effectively killing my interest in Animal Man and Swamp Thing. Frankenstein didn't last. Demon Knights felt like it was running in place. I loved, loved, loved Wonder Woman, but after a couple of years, I felt like it just didn't have any momentum. I'd probably like it in trades, but in monthlies, I was ready for it to move onto a different arc. Cliff Chiang's art was a huge selling point to me, and he rarely seemed to contribute anything more than covers on any regular basis.
My indies are basically all trades at this point. Marvel is mostly monthlies (well, a lot double-ship, so biweeklies?) with a handful of trades. No DC at all for me now. I'm to a point now where I think I could only read TPBs and feel pretty satisfied.
Just kidding! I love passionate comic book readers. Seriously. One of the reasons I still buy comics at my LCBS.
02-12-14, 03:13 PM
#21
DVD Talk Reviewer/ Admin
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02-12-14, 04:49 PM
#23
Banned by request
Re: dc vs marvel
If you include the Vertigo imprint I'd probably have to switch my vote to DC, since most of my all time favorite comics come from there.
02-12-14, 05:10 PM
#24
DVD Talk Hero
Re: dc vs marvel
Well, if you include imprints, I think DC raises significantly. Not only Vertigo (I mean, Sandman alone...) but also Wildstorm. Before you laugh, think about it, the Authority, Planetary, ABC (including League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), etc. Marvel imprints gets you... Epic? (Groo and Dreadstar?)
02-12-14, 08:02 PM
#25
Challenge Guru & Comic Nerd
Re: dc vs marvel
Did you just say that you don't like Adam's reviews?
Good point; and a huge reminder of many of the books that have been in my "Save the best for last" to read pile for years and years.
Well, if you include imprints, I think DC raises significantly. Not only Vertigo (I mean, Sandman alone...) but also Wildstorm. Before you laugh, think about it, the Authority, Planetary, ABC (including League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), etc. Marvel imprints gets you... Epic? (Groo and Dreadstar?)