The Second Topic

DC or Marvel?

(All complaints should be directed towards Gale Gäelle and Laure, not me)

Over to you...

Ok I got to admit that it is really hard to choose between DC and Marvel since I am not really involved in this whole heroes’ thingy… BUT I am going to choose Marvel for many technical reasons.

From a marketing point of view, I think that Marvel penetrated the toys market way better than DC. They also have a recognized brand image and logo as well as an impressive social media stratagem.

And I think that Marvel knew how to reach the audience by making unique movies of their heroes and getting recognized actors and actresses to portray them; like for instance Nicholas Cage as the Ghost Rider, Ben Affleck as Daredevil, Chris Evans as Captain America, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Jessica Alba as Invisible Woman, Jennifer Garner as Elektra… etc.

Besides I think that Marvel’s heroes are more familiar to us than DC‘s except for Superman, Joker, Batman, Catwoman, the Flash and Wonder Woman who are classic DC heroes.

Dear teacher, you're wrong again with my name... It's Gaëlle... anyway I won't fight more about it since I discovered what is a gale haha.

To come back to the main topic of this discussion, I prefer DC's heroes to Marvel's one. I'm not a huge fan of the combo human and insect like Spider-Man or Ant-Man. I rather prefer people like Green Lantern and Arrow even though they are less known.

I think the fight between DC and Marvel with their respective movies can be interesting in a marketing way, to see with which heroes people feel more familiar to.

It's a big subject again... Less controversial but interesting.

I have just one problem, for me choose between DC or Marvel is like choose between chocolate and sweets. In fact, both are excellent. If I must choose, I think I prefer Marvel. Heroes are more friendly, more touching. For me, DC, it's a little darkness.
My favourite hero is Iron Man, the millionnaire who saves people with these inventions, this is typical of the american dream. I think is funny, only Americans can imagine it.

Moreover, for me, Marvel is the best for the communication. Marvel have a particular place in the hearts of children with a lot of figurine. More, Marvel manages to seduce the "tall kids" with a lot of super production. It's a big stake actually.

When I was young - a long time ago in a ....- my hero was batman and then Thor, the Hulk and the Silver Surfer. I didn't really like Superman or the fantastic four or wonderwoman ... I think I liked Batman and the Hulk because they had a dark side - they weren't goody goody like superman etc... and I liked Thor because he looked awesome and had a great hammer, I also loved the Thunder. I think Batman also had some really great villains.

I didn't even know that they were from different stables and I wouldn't care if I did.

It has been great for me that the films have been made, for sure the makers were people who were kids when I was a kid and these superheroes have stayed in our minds into our adult lives.

Regarding the films the last Batman trilogy was superb and I've enjoyed the Ironman, Thor, Hulk and Avenger movies. I must admit that I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was fantastic and I'd never even heard of them as a child or adult. Of course I can't forget to mention the X-men series great movies made even better by a brilliant choice of cast.

I guess on balance Marvel is far superior but still if I had to choose only one, the Dark Knight is still king of superheroes for me.

Ahahah M. Cox so glad to know that you're not a dinosaur and that you know well Super Heros or Vilains! I don't understand how you can not like Wonderwoman! And Thor has too much hair!

DC Comics or Marvel are not very different (as for me) to each other. They have both, great comics, great Heros but I prefer DC's vilain like joker, Catwoman, Penguin,..
A new movie (Suicid Squad) is gonna be in theaters soon, it's gonna be great!

Even if, as a child, I didn't read a lot of comics, I started later and with the movies I started to be interested about these Superheroes/Vilains.. And we are a generation which grew up with comics, so we all have our favorits.

Did you Watch the lego movie? I'm sure you'll like it!

I haven't watched the "lego" movie - the posters looked like it was aimed at 3 year olds (I'm more 5).

I like long hair on men. Don't forget I lived through the long hair era and maybe I looked like a woman but I still think it's great.

I agree with you Mr. Cox, the lego poster was a bit childish...

- We would appreciate some pictures of you with long hair -

I really love Marvel and DC, those two universes were part of my childhood and I'm still a huge fan. Spontaneously I would say Marvel. I really like X-Men : the story, the characters but also the big question behind the entertainment : what can define a human being. I think XMen have a pretty powerful plot and the characters are really cool ! I like the comics, the old tv series and the movies as well (ok not ALL of them...) I also like Avengers, Thor, Spiderman and the others. I'm really fond of this bright, funny and heroic environment.
However, I definitely think that nothing is better than the 90's Batman series (DC)... First this is the coolest opening ever ! I don't care about Batman himself but the villains are so great ! Watch one episode one day, or at least the opening ! (ok here it is : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvlHJRfSMOc ) and the Nolan movies were also so good ! In DC I also like Wonder Woman. I mean, this is the first really bad-ass woman in the comics ! How could I not love her ?? It's true that at the beginning she was more a man with boobs and long hair and later she has been ruined by some unnecessary love stories with all men of Justice League but her background story is great !

Well, to conclude I have no answer... I like them both even if I don't really like how Dc new 52 comics (new versions of the comics) are dark and so are some new marvel comics. I can't wait the movies like Deadpool (because I love the character), Black Panther and the other movies of Marvel phase 4 and X-Men. I'm pretty negative for Batman vs Superman beacause I didn't like Man of steel but I'm curious about Suicide Squad (I don't like the comic but I love Harley Quinn...). I can't tell about the tv series because I don't watch them...
I really encourage each of you to watch them to get an idea and to discover those great and big universes and the story of their creation ! It's freaking interesting !

As i'm not a big fan of DC and as i don't know a lot of things about it, for sure it's Marvel who win this competition for me. First because i like the movies, more especially the iron-man ones, with his relaxed and rock'n roll style. But of course i really really really like the Avengers, such a good hero team. I prefer the characters, their powers maybe more "impacting", more unusual, more actual. I'm also agree with Yara who said that Marvel, by just making unique movies of single heroes give the impression of a recognizable heroes family by incorporate special actors, different identities.

Then, as i have an artistic formation and cause it's one of the most important things why i'm just a kid when i see it, i'm gonna talk of course about the graphics. Just look at them, there are amazing. The quality of the sketch line, the colors, the emotions, the shadows work, this is a great and huge illustrator designer work.
Marvel also got a good communication support, and know how too make you live like an avenger when a new movie is coming. I also like the idea of adapted series such as marvel agents of shield. Perfect mix cause there're secret spies agency called Shield and super-heroes.

Finally, i like the theme this week.  thank's Gaëlle and Laure. When will we debate about rugby world cup Mr Cox?

DC or marvel, good question, I prefer none. I saw films of marvel and DC and none is become my favorite movie. A a pinch, I appreciated Thor movie because I like the actors. But that's all. I'm more passionate post apocalyptic movies or romantic comedies, to each his own taste. According to me, I think there are too many superheroes movie or superheroes series and now we attent new superheroes movie, new heroes. How many spider-man movie they released us? How many films are pro-American (eg captaine america).
To conclude, there are many other heroes that not exploiting enough. What a pity !

Alexia I completely agree with you about the fact that there is a lot heroes unexploited !! It's so stupid to use the characters over and over by just changing the actors... That why I'm excited about Black Panther or Deadpool they are new in the cinematic universe :-)

Yeah ! Marvel against DC Comics, what a war between these two. My heart isn't divided even though I like both of them in many ways, Marvel get the win for me. There are so many things to talk about. First I want to start with comic books. Actually what I believe is the problem of DC is that things are quite hard to follow as there are many stories and almost the same amount of reboot. Moreover, the Multiverse is quite hard to follow. But crossover arcs like Infinite Crisis or Crisis on Infinite Earths are great even though it requires some knowledge on a lot of characters before reading.
On the other half, Marvel is easier to follow, the universe is as large as the DC one, perhaps even larger but the thing is that I really believe it's easier to follow the story of this universe. Arcs in Marvel comics book are just amazing, Civil War to quote only one is absolutely incredible and it's no coincidence if this arc is going to be included in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Now that I've talked about the general universe of comics books I want to take time to take a look at characters. The thing I find a bit disappointing is that DC comics seems to have developed just few leading characters and the others looks like less important. According to me if we look away from Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, The Flash an Green Lantern (Which are by the way 5 of the 7 founders of the JLA( Justice League of America)) The other members of the DC Universe seems like thier developement isn't very deep. For example, Green Arrow has always been seen as a Batman copycat which is far from being a compliment even if Batman is great (I'm just talking about comics here, TV shows will come later ). I'm a huge fan of Batman, I like how dark is the universe and it's mainly well writen. I think Grant Morrisson's job on Batman comic books is impressive. Plus, we can hardly denied that one of the greatest villain in the comic books (The greatest by far for me) is no other than Batman's nemesis, The Joker. I love how mad is the guy and that his origin are very confused. I also like other characters from the Batverse, I strongly believe that out of all the DC Character, the Dark Knight is on top of the mountain. However, I also like The Flash and Green Arrow, probably because of the TV shows but still I appreciate their stories (Flashpoint is great ), Superman is ok but I'm not a huge fan, or at least he isn't my favorite. I have to admit that Green Lantern is pretty hard to understand but still likeable. Regarding the other, I don't know much about thier comic universe so I won't really cricise them, even if I think that they don't look that attractive for readers ^^
Let's now stop at Marvel's characters. I love a lot of them, from Spiderman to Thor, Iron Man or Captain America. I must admit that I haven't read that much of their adventures apart from those of Spidey. Even though I don't find villains as great as the Joker, The Green Goblin aka Norman Osborn or Thanos are very interesting characters. What I like about Marvel is that their characters are really developped without regarding whether they are very put forward or not. I strongly believe Stan Lee is a genius and it's no surprise if we get to see is face in every Marvel movie considering how important he is in the history of the franchise. My favorite character isn't from comic books though, it's Grant Ward from the TV show Marvel Agents of SHIELD but if I had to choose one from the comics I'd pick Spiderman.

I've already talked a lot but I'll keep going with TV Shows and movies. I'm a huge fan of DC shows on TV. I love Arrow and the Flash and I really look forward to see Legends of Tommorow which will be the spin-off of these two series. On the other hand, Marvel has really strong quality in TV Shows. Even though Marvel's Agent of SHIELD as been pretty slow to start things off, it has become my favorite TV show overall. Agent Carter with the lovely Peggy Carter from Captain America is very good also and I can't wait for next season. Marvel has also launch Daredevil on Netflix and I really enjoyed the first two episode, I have to go forward with it. But what I think is Marvel's top advantage in this war between the two is clearly that unlike DC, they've included their series in the MCU. DC want to seperate the TV part from the movie universe which is think is pretty lame especially when we see the performance of Stephen Amell as Green Arrow or Grant Gustin as The Flash. In the movie fight, I really love Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy but apart from these three, I'm not much of a fan of the other movies from the DCverse. Regarding Marvel, I'm a big fan of the entire MCU, I have yet to watch Ant-Man but I really enjoyed every movies that have been realised so far. I really look forward to see what Marvel will do with Spiderman now that they've got back the right to make movies out of him. The only thing I find disappointing is the fact that Marvel doesn't have the rights to developped movies for all of their characters as they sold them when they were in financial difficulties years ago. Even though X-men movies doesn't belong to Marvel but to FOX, I really enjoyed them apart from the third one. To conclude on this point I agree with Yara, Marvel studios have found a great range of actors to play their characters, who doesn't like Scarlett Johansson after all

Finally, I like to talk briefly about video game because I think this is where Marvel need to improve. I love the Batman Arkham series and Lego Batman series is pretty enjoyable. On the contrary apart from Lego Marvel, I can't name a Marvel game I enjoyed that much (The Amazing Spiderman 2 was really disappointing.)

I think I'll stop here, good luck reading all that craziness, did I mentionned how much I liked this subject ?

Oh waw... it is really nice to know that someone is THAT interested in this particular world. And thanks for agreeing with me Alex. And yeah who doesn't like Sacarlett.
And i wanted to ask you a question: who do you prefer, Halle Berry or Anne Hathaway as cat woman?

Thanks Yara

I haven't seen the movie with Halle Berry as Catwoman so I'm not sure whether or not I'm qualified to answer but looking at the picture, I'd say Anne Hathaway, I prefer Halle Berry as Storm in the X-men ^^

The Catwoman movie was one of the worst movies EVER!

You look traumatise John. But at least you save me from even trying to look at it ^^

Oh yeah the movie was horrible... Halle Berry tho...

Yara Bassil wrote:Oh yeah the movie was horrible... Halle Berry tho...

hahaha I thought that was the type of comment I'm supposed to make!

The first Catwoman i've saw it's with Michelle Pfeiffer, in Batman returns and i was really shocked (i was 6), and i wished never seen a penguin anymore.

I don't really get a position between DC or Marvel, actually i watch Marvel because the last spiderman was really HOT !!!
For the other, i think DC are too serious or too freaky and miss a fun and uninhibited way that Marvel use a lot.

Anothe topic that I don't know much about. I'm not a fan of the hero things. But if I have to choose one, I prefer Marvel.For DC, I like the character Batman，but not the story, it is too gloomy for me. And the most important reason is that I really really hate Arrow. The same annoying old story, it is silly that the hero paint some green color on his face before he go to save the others. On the contrary, the works produced by Marvel are more interesting, like SHIELD, X-men. So I choose Marvel.

Don't worry Rui, we won't let "Gale" choose the topic anymore.

WANG RUI wrote:Anothe topic that I don't know much about. I'm not a fan of the hero things. But if I have to choose one, I prefer Marvel.For DC, I like the character Batman，but not the story, it is too gloomy for me. And the most important reason is that I really really hate Arrow. The same annoying old story, it is silly that the hero paint some green color on his face before he go to save the others. On the contrary, the works produced by Marvel are more interesting, like SHIELD, X-men. So I choose Marvel.

Rui, I've put an alternative up.

Agree with Arrow comment - seems to be the same story every week.

Yara Bassil wrote:Don't worry Rui, we won't let "Gale" choose the topic anymore.

Her decisions blow hot and cold.

marinealbertpieri wrote:The first Catwoman i've saw it's with Michelle Pfeiffer, in Batman returns and i was really shocked (i was 6), and i wished never seen a penguin anymore.

Michelle, one of the dreams of my younger years.