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The irony of DC is so stated: The creators of Superman made him one of the most powerful heroes in any of the comics. However they had to give him a vulnerability to diliberate him maybe to increase his appeal; kyrptonite. So if a bum on the street happened to pick some up, he could kick the crap out of superman.

Then you have Batman. One of the weakest heroes in any of the comics at peak human strength. Yet, in the writer's psyhe they had to make him seem unbeatable. So they give him a belt that has anything they want in it that happens to have all the gadgets or weaknesses of his opponents. On top of that, they give him extraordinary luck and innate knowledge to make devices or happen upon devices or strategies to fight anyone. So you have Batman beating characters like Spawn or Superman.

Now the point of the topic; You have one of the most powerful characters in DC get beat by one of the most weakest. DC has no leg to stand on if they take the Superman character to Marvel and Marvel has Daredevil clean Superman's clock. Then again they would just bring Batman to Marvel and have Batman pull a glove from his belt that would allow him to punch out the Hulk. You decide what is far fetched.


Marvel is not free from delusions of grandeur. Marvel should pull the reigns on Wolverine before they fall into the DC trap. His healing factor is extraordinary and is staked in stone, however being able to take swings from the big green fellow and surviving a nuclear explosion now makes him invulnerable, doesn't it? Lets put a little reality back into fantasy...

By contrast, you would never find a relatively "weak" Marvel character like, say, Dr. Doom beating more powerful ... oh, wait ...

But I still think Marvel has more believable characters or at least characters with more "soul" than DC and therefore sells more. Close to the point of the original post.
Unless anyone has any other ideas...

Ha ha "diliberate"->"dibilitate" in previous post

the problem with marvel is that they keep publishing too many x-men comics and cancel any of the better comics in favour of releasing more xmen titles. Marvel relies too heavily on the x-men, which is getting rather tedious

i love x-men, but giving each one his own series instead of trying to improve the core has ruined them.

marvel has a broader range of good characters, thats why they sell more. you ask a casual comic reader to name 30 marvel characters, they can do it easily, try the same with dc and they'd be struggling.

i do hate how any idiot can beat supes though, its ridiculous...

what they are trying to do with Batman is that he is just more than a man in cape and mask. He is the kind of guy we all like to be and achieve. He is human and we can relate to that.

In X-men, they sell more because alot of people can relate to what they were going through. That is one reason why the X-men became number one selling books. Stan Lee found a gold mind and capatilize on it. I remember it in a special program they gave in the History of comic books.

true, persecution and discrimnation affect so many people, although to be fair it was done really welll...

It's also because DC hasn't capitalized on it's cosmos like Marvel has. DC has the Fourth World and the war between Apokolips & New Genesis as stories to expand on their universe, yet they don't. Darkseid, who's supposedly killed other gods, is getting his ass beaten down by Superman regularly nowadays. Highfather rarely enters into combat like Marvel's Odin. What has Apokolips and it's new gods done to prove that they're a badass planet filled with power gods? DC should spend more time on these guys. Yuga Khan is still trapped in the Source Wall. Heck, the Promethian Giants are suppose to be DC's answer to the Celestials and yet they spend most of their time stuck to the Source Wall.

Furthermore, DC heroes wear ugly costumes and aren't memorable. They all lead boring lives. And Superman shouldn't be saving the world/universe all the time. He shouldn't even be beating Darkseid.

thats a little one-sided imo because i used to think that...until i looked up at the dc wall and saw like 4 different JLA comics and 3 different types of solo comics from three different characters

remember wolvies anniversary year was 2004, its no surprise that he appears in almost every comic....i guess every day is an anniversary for batman and superman...hell, for all of the dc universe

all the xmen characters dont have their own solo comics, now think of JLA...theres probably 4 solo comics for each member of the JLA, and regular appearances by side-characters like robin or batgirl in every other comic

not too long ago in superman/batman, superman grabbed darkseid and simply went to the end of the universe and put him on some wall (i guess its the source wall)

awwww...no one wants to comment on this anymore?

this is an interesting topic

I remember when I was first introduced to comics by my friends, they use to lament on how "lame" characters such as Superman and Batman were and how fascinating characters such as Spiderman were in comparison. At the time, I was actually more intrigued by Love and Rockets, but many others were caught up on the Marvel hype as well for these possible comments.

I didn't truly jump on the Marvel bandwagon (I did have a small collection of X-Men and Avenger comics, but was not serious) until the introduction of the New Universe team DP-7. I remember everyone raving about this being a huge collectible, but I guess it never did work out.

yeah, i remember those times

im mostly just a little ticked off on peoples comment of xmen having like 6 different titles while DC has just as much (probably more) and has about 2 to 3 solo comics on one character

In those days I mentioned, there was only one X-Men (Uncanny) and X-Factor was just forming, unless you count those Hero for Hope or that Obnoxio the clown comic.

If you think historically however, some DC characters were also inflated with their number of spinoffs. Superman had Action Comics and Superman, Superboy, and other branches following Lois and his pal Jimmy. There was one I believe for all those super animals too (i.e. dog, monkey).

When Image came out, that started a lot of hype also, since the pages were somewhat more polished than we were use to, but I missed when this line went nearly extinct.

One thing that did annoy me when I got into a mainstream comic line like Marvel was for all the many crossovers that existed, which required me to buy a comic from a different page to continue on the story. With something like Love and Rockets, Dinosaurs and Cadillacs, or even Fone Bone, I didn't have to worry as much. Currently in my collection and my friend's that I occasionally look through, there are many gaps in the story that I'm still trying to figure out.

30 DC guys ok, here it goes

1 Superman

2 Batman

3 Wonder Woman

4 Flash

5 GL

6 Augaman(I know I miss sell it)

7 Hawkgirl

8 Robin

9 Batgirl 1

10 Batgirl 2

11 Man Hunter

12 Cybord

13 Joker

14 Two Face

15 Riddler

16 Penguin

17 Scarecrow

18 Scar face.

19 Night Wing

20 Raven

21Gordan.

22 Mr Freeze

23 Mam Bat

24 Darkside

25 Hawkman

26 The Spoiler(Decease)

27 Catwoman

28 Bullock

29 Maytonota

30. Lex

Man, it must have take you a couple of days to come up with that list

i never doubted you could joker, but ask the average run of the mill comic reader... i think he'd have difficulty...

there are about 15 x-men titles out at the moment. Thats WAY too much

true, you only need one, maybe two max...

Is that you PR??? Your real face???

Well I sure the average comic reader would have problems with 30 Marvel guys to.

I think it goes with taste instand of DC vs MArvel.

DC is doing good, right now its on the shoulders of Batman and Supes(But than again they have been on there Shoulders for over 40 years)

Marvel as Spiderman and X-Men, They are on there Shoulders.

how yeah, no it did not take me 2 days, About 6 min at the most to come up with names. 15 min, to write the names and see if I did not list some one 2 times.

marvel also has the hulk, iron man is huge. i love dc, ive been reading supes and bats as long as ive been reading comics, but you can make up 30 marvels from the x-men, avengers, fantastic four and whoevers left.

maybe it is more up to taste, i'm just going by personal experience.

my real face?

YEs the person in your Avtor,

I been reading DC since I was a kid, I can come up with about 7 X-Men(Maybe) Dont know who is on the Avengers, OF couse the FF will fill up four slots.

But I conisder Spiderman and X-Men the big money sellers for Marvel.

With out these 2 there will be a BIG money Gap. Maybe Hulk could fill it, but I dont think so.

If Supes and Bats were gone, Than I am Sure DC will sink, Than again 2nd rate heros like Flash and Wonder Woman could hold them up??(2nd rate heros not on skills, but on who has the most fans.)

oh, no, thats marvin gaye...

suppose its more down to personal experience then. i've always been a big flash fan but without bats and supes dc would as you said die.

MArvel and DC, is more like Rep or or Demc(Not getting into poitics, Just saying your either read more DC comics, or more Marvel comics.)

My freinds are big DC people, and though them I read DC comics.

The only 2 Marvel Comics I read(Sometimes) are Spiderman and X-Men.

Thats it.

My big 3 are Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, I big on collection these 3 heros because hey. Bats and Supes are tops for Dc.(And the Joker shows up in Batman, but even than, I collect Bat comics with out the Joker.

And Wonder Woman is great, and She has many great comic storys to read(Imo)

i'm a neutral then. when i was 6 i'd go to the comic store once a month and the essentials would be bats, supes, x-men and maybe silver surfer. i have almost equal love for them, my top 4 chars in order being cyclops, supes/batman(tied), colossus. guess i'm one of the few...

i used to read exclusively x-men, then i read exclusively marvel, and now i prefer DC, but collect various comics from both dc and marvel

You don't seem to know much about Superman. The creators of Superman did not make him to be as powerful as he is now, and certainly not as powerful as Pre-Crisis Superman. Jerry Seigal and Joe Shuster granted Superman powers like the ability the leap 1/8th of a mile in one jump, with the strength to lift a car or two, and only enough speed to outrun a bullet, along with his heat and x-ray vision. Their vision of the original Superman has been warped greatly. And if you didn't know, Jim Lee's run on Superman is currently the best-selling comic on the market, including anything Marvel has(I think Ultimate Spiderman is #2).



Right...and ordinary strength men in Marvel don't do the exact same thing. Again, Batman's original creator, Bob Kane, intended him only to be a detective, not what he is now. With superheroes becoming the norm, they had to make him special somehow. And Batman never actually beat Spawn, it was a draw the first time, because he had some special gauntlets, and the second time Spawn lost his powers, and it was still a draw.




Somehow you just seem to ignore that strength isn't everything, and just throw away the fact that Batman is one of the most intelligent characters in DC. Sure, you can call him weak, but that doesn't mean too much when he has an i.q. of over 250.




I just kinda toss the nuclear blast thing to the side, most of the Venom: Run series was pretty ****ing ridiculous. As for taking Hulk's blows and still standing...I hate those comics.

Along with all of this, you must understand, THEY'RE COMIC BOOKS.

please, there are 3 or 4 long running ones and a few mini-series, but im talking about with the main xmen, to do spin off's like new xmen is just obvious seeing as the main teams arent the only mutants in the school

im focusing on comics, not characters in comics....of course theres gonna be alot of bad guys in a comic thats been around since before my time, especially hundreds of wierd ones on odd-ball issues

wanna talk about over-exposure? comics featuring superman, not as cameo's but as an important character(some are just current mini-series'):action comics, superman, JLA, JL:unlimited, superman:strength, superman:unconventional warfare, adventures of superman, JLA:classified, and superman/batman

.....no need in pointing fingers, more series means more of a chance for people to buy alot of their comics, everyone does it, dc and marvel just do it with their big name titles, i dont even wanna get into batman-featured titles

you should read articles, marvel always beats dc in sales come the end of the year


i toss the nuclear thing to the side also....as for wolvie having his first comic appearance fighting the hulk, what better way to introduce a character with a healing factor, indestructible metal grafted to his bones, and part of the most elite organization in the world....when i first saw that comic it added so much to the hulk comics IMO, what a character to introduce fighting hulk, no better way to piss off fanboys while throwing in a cool mysterious character

punisher is PRETTY down to earth compared to other marvel or dc "human" characters, a guy with a gun, military experience, and a bad temper...theres obviously more to him but thats just a quick analysis heheh

i thought batman making a weapon that could fight against a man created by hell was just completely f*cking rediculous (about as far as that word could go, considering they're comic characters), i throw that aside along with the nuclear blast thing lol.....not to mention them being gauntlets, dont remember if they had range, but i do recall spawn used magic in his comics....i guess that idea was scrapped against batman, anyway, it was mcfarlanes ticket and he had to suffer his character for popularity i guess

i just cant imagine how far they'll take batman in comics, winning against spawn, taking a punch from darkseid.....what next


by the way this is the guy who made the topic, he was just trying to get to his point which imo is a good one

sorry for the multiple posts

X-men
Astonashing X-Men
New X-Men : Acadamy
Uncanny X-men
Ultimate X-men
Xcalibur
X-Force
X-Men:the end
ROgue
Gambit
Wolverine
Jubilee
Sabertooth
Starjammers
Madrox
Wolverine:the end
Nightcrawler
X-23
NYX
What if (magneto created the x-men)
Age of Apocolypse (out later this year)

new xmen = spin off, maybe you should read it heheh

nyx = spin off, maybe you should read that one too

what if....its a what if

wolverine: the end, you mean the two xmen who arent even from the original team in that quick cameo in the last issue, dont make me bring up brief cameos with dc comics

jubilee = solo comic.....remember the xmen are a team, composed of different characters, oh yeah...its also a mini-series

x-23 = yet another spin off

nightcrawler = much deserved solo comic

starjammers = a completely different team

gambit, wolverine, sabretooth = solo comics...one isnt even part of the xmen, but he's an enemy

im talking of comics with the actual team in it, its not an xmen comic if one character is in it and no one else, 4 long running xmen comics are xmen, astonishing xmen, uncanny xmen, and ultimate xmen, age of apocalypse is a mini-series and so is xmen: the end

its still too many comics with x-men in them

definately, and the basta*ds used to start a story ark in one comic and end it in a different comic altogether...

alot of them are solo's, one is an enemy, starjammers has very close to nothing to do with the xmen (although they do have their ties)

the x-mansion is a school, spin-offs should rightfully be made and solo comics of some of the characters should by all means be taken head on which leads back to my point, marvel hasnt shot the sheriff any more times than dc has....but marvel has been accused of it

can anyone say war games??? the batman maxi-series that stretched through about 7 different comics and thats just off the top of my head

its both companies of course, i'm just pissed that they do story arcs across different comics...

yeah, both companies will always do that, its all for sales....at least they throw in the odd 25 cent comic every now and again heheh

Batman does that a lot. No Man's Land being the other glaring example. I don't like it either, but the advantage, of course, is that you can tell in three or so months a story that would take years to tell if you kept it in one comic.

I never said they didn't. I said Superman is the best selling comic currently on the market. How did you get "DC beats Marvel in sales every year" from that? DC lately(the last year or two) has been hogging the #1 and occasionally the #2 spot, while Marvel fills out basically the rest of the top 10. 8 titles to 1-2 is a blow out. Marvel definitely sells more comics, but the title of Best Selling Comic keeps eluding them. DC still has some juice left in them.



When Wolverine was still a mysterious character, that was acceptable. Because he was mysterious. He isn't mysterious anymore, we know his limit, and it sure as hell isn't as high as taking a full-blown beat down from the Hulk. Hulk rips apart 70 ton tanks regularly, and he can't put Wolverine down? Even for an hour? Utter bullshit.

completely true, its amazing what some writers will do...

plus:
Xmen/f4
Exiles
Alpha Flight
X-men Unlimited
District X
Emma Frost
Cable/Deadpool
Mystique
Phoenix:Endsong

i wasnt taking it like that, im just saying although superman may be the best selling comics, marvel always beats them in sales...so that kinda told dc something about their star player...PUT HIM EVERYWHERE!!!


dude, wolvie was made in the frikkin 70's, people complain about him not being mysterious anymore? its been 30 years guys, if he was still mysterious not only would people lose interest in him, but others will complain about him being too mysterious, theres no way to satisfy the majority of comic book fans, they'll always find one thing to complain about one way or the other, so they made origin, and jim lee's old weapon x run, it was amazing stuff and im glad they're exposing wolvies past, its been too damn long

xmen/f4 = mini-series, district x isnt even centered around xmen but around mutants, cable/deadpool had a brief cameo of the xmen, mystique is mystique, phoenix: endsong is another mini-series

i think youre talking so much about XMEN, that youre differing from the actual xmen, i dont think you'd like to know of major cameo's done by batman, superman, and wonderwoman....there is yet to be a great batman TPB that doesnt have a big superman (or any other justice league member) cameo in them, from the dark knight returns to the dark knight strikes back to hush, thats only the ones i feel are the most famous, then with batmans extended cameo in the recent superman comics, and wonder womans cameo in the same comic

your point is understood, but again, marvel is doing the sameshit dc's doing(IMO dc does it to a HUGE extent compared to marvel), the only problem is that marvel gets the burn for it and no one stands up to mention all of dc's many many many comics revolving around the same 3 characters alone (batman, wonder woman, superman) and this is my point of view where i just started reading comics like superman and batman, if i were to delve into other titles i could only imagine the crap i'd find

i think batman, superman, and wonder woman having multiple solo titles alone proves my point

oh yeah, and the huge cameo appearances happening in green lantern: rebirth, i forgot about those!

parallax is back yet again, thats no big deal, but who's joining the fight? none other than the JLA, the JSA....AND the teen titans!!! cameo-licious! its not even single character cameos but three different teams (one which are composed of who? yet again, Batman, Superman, and WonderWoman).......they had to boost sales somehow right?

The answer to this question is easy. Marvel makes movies about their charactrs and kids who dont know anybetter go out and buy Marvel comics.

I think it's just the fact that the characters have a generic element to them. Marvel is afforded so many great characters, many coming from the Lee/Kirby prolific period.

what about catwoman, the upcoming batman begins and the eventually coming superman movie, then rumors of wonder woman and the flash......oh yeah and not to mention DC starting the ball with the 3 old superman movies and the 4 old batman movies...its been happening for a long time both by dc and marvel

Superman and Batman are household names. Everyone knows who they are. Dardevil, Blade, Elektra, Punisher, and alot of the X-men most people who dont read comics dont know who they are. 10 year old kids see the movies and are like wow those guys are cool I am gonna go get some comics. I think Jugg74s view is fairly accurate.

its not like they tell the kids to pick up their comics.....first of all, the kids who watch the movies dont go pick up the comics, they pick up the toys and games, which is understandable seeing as they like it and they want one

batman and superman wouldnt be household names without sales obviously, so at one point kids were doing the same thing "wow, i wanna get superman and batman toys!!" not to mention the billions of toys for their cartoons, JLA, the batman, and teen titans

DC isnt some magical company that gives things out for free, they do the exact same sh*t marvel does, so theres no point in saying "marvel makes advertisements to sell things!!!" of course they do, EVERYTHING DOES

did the hellboy movie do good? yes, did it boost their comic book rating? not by much, did they sell toys like crazy? yes

people wanna make those movies because they're interested in those characters or stories, no one makes a movie out of characters they dont want or a story they absolutely hate

so of course jugg74's point is accurate, but not only for marvel, for the entire business industry

i think marvel has more fresh and likable characters.

For 2004, on the list of top 100 selling comics, Marvel had 68 of them, DC had 31, and Darkhorse had 1 (with Conan! YES!). While DC had I like 6 spots in the top 10 (including number 1 and 2, I believe), Marvel overall raped them.

thats because dc's 2,000 other comics suck badly heheh

YES! conan deserves a spot there