A debate amongst nerds as old as time, who is better? DC or Marvel? Now obviously this is something that is impossible to answer, it all depends on personal preference and really there is no definitive answer. Fact is if you prefer DC or Marvel then it's perfectly understandable why, they're both amazing in their own ways. But what I hate is when people say things like "Marvel is better because their movies are better!" or "DC is better because their TV is better!" Now both of those statements are true, but that doesn't mean you can judge the overall quality of the brands. TV and Movies are just portions of these monster companies now, which is also why it's not fair to just judge them based on the comics either because even though that's where they start, it's not the biggest audience. A while ago I made a post talking about who made better videogames, Marvel or DC? But really that just came down to personal preference yet again, i said DC's roster was more extreme with most games being either amazing (Arkham Asylum) or terrible (Superman 64) but they also had a smaller roster of games, while Marvel though having some amazing (Ultimate Spider-Man) and terrible (Thor: God of Thunder), the majority of their games just lay in the "Good" section. Really that could describe any medium of these franchises in a nutshell.When it comes to the films people often jump to the Marvel bandwagon, which makes sense, they've had more films, take more risks and have made some legitimately awesome movies (The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men: First Class, etc). But at the same time, there is a lot of mediocre amongst those rankings as well (Daredevil, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Thor The Dark World, X-Men). Really Marvel's biggest flaw is that they don't take enough risks, they don't dare differ from the norm, or let other film makers try and experiment with their properties, they did at one point with Spider-Man and Sam Raimi and Hulk with Ang Lee, but nowadays, not so much. It gets even worse if you just look at the films by Marvel Studios, not Fox or Sony, just Marvel. How many talented auteurs have there been that nearly directed a Marvel movie? Edgar Wright, Ava DuVernay, these people who could make excellent films if Marvel gave them a chance. With a library of films this large you would expect Marvel to be more willing to experiment, to do something different and have a bigger variety of films, yeah there would be a few awful films in the mix but we would also get some new and amazing films. Yes they did experiment in the sense of creating the cinematic universe tie in together but really that only matters once every 5th film when the characters actually do exist in the same movie, really these movies were made to stand on their own, hence why you constantly find yourself asking the question why none of The Avengers are helping Iron Man when he's attacked by a terrorist.
While DC has a much smaller roster of films but that doesn't make them any less interesting because, right from the start they've been taking risks. Superman: The Movie, the first real superhero movie was written by the guy that wrote The Godfather, they gave Tim Burton, one of the most stylistic directors working two Batman movies. Even as godawful as Batman & Robin is, atleast it has a style to it, something that makes it better than just a standard superhero flick. Constantine with Keanu Reeves, regardless of what you think of it was a C-List comic book character who got a movie made that wasn't an origin story, just think about that, since when does that happen? True there are some DC films that are just generically bad (Steel) and some that are awful for a multitude of reasons (Catwoman), but then you take a look at their good films like The Dark Knight, often considered the best comic book movie ever made, frankly there was a time where i didn't even like calling it a comic book movie because it didn't feel anything like a comic book, but that's a good thing because it experimented, it did things differently, it still kept the core themes, characters and ideas behind Batman but it knew to try things differently. The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel are films that people are so split down the middle, people either love or hate these movies, but when was the last time you saw Marvel spark that kind of reaction? When did you see people passionately debate the merits or flaws of Thor The Dark World, or X-Men: Days of Future Past. Even with their upcoming movies like Suicide Squad, a film based around focusing on the villains, Marvel would never do that, or casting Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, or Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. I'm not saying these decisions will pay off and be good, we won't really know till the films come out.
This type of argument makes me think of Temple of Doom and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Temple of Doom is a bad movie, but you remember it, it took risks, it did things differently, it didn't always pay off but a lot of people liked it and you could debate whether the risks were worth it or not. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull however was so tame and generic that you question what the point of it was and that's why people see it as the worse movie, because it gave them nothing to talk about, nothing to get emotionally involved with. DC takes risks, do they pay off? Not always, but at least they're trying and they'll give you something to talk about, and when they do pay off, they pay off big time. While Marvel on the otherhand, makes good films, they've made a lot of good films, they've also made amazing films, but if you were to put it in a ratio of how many good films they've made versus how many awful/amazing films they've made, the good films would outweigh them severely, which some might say that's a non-problem, a good film is a good film and to that i say that's fine, but for me personally i would prefer something a bit more experimental.
Ironically in TV it's completely opposite, as much as I love Flash i can't deny the generic elements that live inside of it, meanwhile Daredevil is one of the most interesting and challenging superhero shows i've ever seen. Hm, i guess we never will get an answer to who's best, DC or Marvel, oh well, i guess we'll have to enjoy both.
-Danny
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