you see Marvel basically has a history of capitalizeing on current events. DC for awhile too, but Marvel mostly. e.g. cap america was all about how bad the nazi's and the commies were and how he would single handedly stop them in thier tracks. the xmen was creted to mirror the civil rights struggle in the 50's and 60's and yep you can replace the word mutant with race. spidey was created so that average teens could have a hero of thier own to look up to. stan lee even used to seize the opportunity to tackle drug issues..like spidey would end up at some highschool where some jock was taking steroids, and broke out into roid rage, and he would have to put him down, then a fun loving self righteous PSA about how drugs are for losers would ensue. the even did that in the late 60's when goblin's son was addicted to pills, spidey swooped in and saved the day.
the point is all comics were campy for a while, but different companies do diff. things. eg b4 the crisis DC was all about alien adventures. every single issue of JLA, JSA was about them thwarting some invading race. then on an individual basis, you had big top notch uber powerful heroes battling bank robbers, would be world takeover-ers and mafiosi. when i read comics that were published 30-40 years ago, i lost count how many times ive seen superman or captain marvel return a stolen armored car to the police station......with the bad guys still in it! but that all changed after they revamped.
ever since the early 90's marvel has just been trying to keep up with the Jones's. with awesome kick ass stories like Zero Hour Crisis, marvel had nothing like that at the time. instead they reworked, and re-ordered thier canon so many times its not even funny. like in the late 80's they had magento has the interim leader of the x-men and the new mutants but by 90-93 the re-did the continuity and he was thier most hated enemy again. then by 94-95 he was such a major threat that all the govts. on earth enacted what they called the "magneto protocols" where every major govt. on EARTH held one piece of a massive doomsday weapon to shoot his asteroid out of the sky. then by the late 90's the canon was reordered yet again...and the whole space based genosha thing never happened. he's been killed and resurrected about 2 times since then, and im sure now that he's dead its only a matter of time before he's back. (oh wait he already is)
dont get me wrong Marvel doesnt suck or anything. far from it but, nowadays DC has got the nod. eg. take a look at how they handled identity crisis. stories have been leading up to IDC since late 2003, then IDC led up to a whole bunch of other plot twists that led into countdown to infinte crsis....which led to 4 awesome stories....which will lead to the actual infinte crsis. all having been carried in all different comics. when have you seen marvel devote that much time and effort in one story? crossing over into to other heroes mythos and leading up to a giant conclusion....hardly ever! thats when. dc does that so you look forward to the next issue, whereas even if the comic that a story is continued in is not your fave it wouldnt matter becuase it would be just one giant story thats in someone elses book. the last time i can remeber marvel doing something remotley simialr is Hulk. it ran vol. 1-7, but vol.8 was carried over in the Marvel Knights, but it got canceled, not becuase it sucked or anything but becuase they wanted to start the whole freaking story all over again.
thats what marvel ususally does. they come out with a story, then by the 3rd arc they have a new writer, then each writer brings new ideas and mess with the original concept. then before you know it its sooooooo boring that they have no choice but to do one of those leave everybody hanging kinda stories so that they can start a-fresh
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Some good points indeed, I agree with a reat deal of it, however not all the JLA was about Space adventures at this point trust me on this, your thinking more of the 50's and 60's than the 70's
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herd behavior is a comical thing - Thanks Silver Spider
GREAT POST MANJARO.....took the words right outta my mouth....
Marvel's writing has sucked since 1991. They started to get good again
around 1998 or 1999 when they restarted all their books back to #1.
Now they're getting crappy and inconsistent again.
DC writes great stories involving their characters.
Marvel is becoming a cult of personality. They're plots and stories
are simply becoming vehicles for the characters.
(for example, instead of wolverine using his skills and brains to
overcome impossible odds.....let's just make him hulk-like....
....his fans will LOVE it!!!)
This has infested Marvel Comics since 1991 and I see no end in sight.
Perhaps it's time for Joe Quesada to step down as Editor In Chief....
When you update SPIDERman to communicate with spiders
and OTHER INSECTS????.........it's time to step down.
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I used to love Marvel aboot the time Marvel vs. DC came out in germany (probably 1-2 years later than in the US) but then I slowly shifted to DC thanks to Batman who's storylines where just awesome (I started with the Gotham Virus one and they were great ever since (although the Drawings weren't always that great at that time) and now I am a DC fanboy...sure the Ultimate Universe got me reading some Marvel again but I stopped that now too (excêpt for USM). Sadly we almost get no Flah or GL here who are my favorites after Batsy....but since Superman isn't even in the Top Five anyore they might change that.
We've all been psycho-analyzing this, but I think something might be a bit more obvious here.
Superman and Batman are STILL the two most recognized comic characters (they are, even Spidey is a 3rd to them). But Marvel seems to dominate comics more than DC, both on this forum and in general.
Many of us are in our 20's, and some are even older. There's nothing wrong with that, but the majority of comic readers in any generation are in their teens. And teens right now have only been exposed to comic characters and influenced by them for the past...maybe 10 years. The orginal DC Crisis was being written while they were in the womb.
And what have the major comic influences been in the past 10 years that would drive these kids to Marvel?? Movies, video games, cartoons, etc. And what are the most popular comic movies and video games about? Right now, Spider-Man, X-Men, Daredevil, Blade, etc. More recently Batman, but its influence hasn't been felt yet. The original Batman film (Keaton, not Adam West) was in '89. Superman hasn't seen a film in much longer than that. The vast majority of comic readers today haven't been influenced by those, so naturally DC's sales would fall below Marvel. Perhaps the next 10 years will be different, as Batman and Superman (and possibly others like Flash, WW, Justice League cartoons, etc.) are being re-introduced to readers.
But for now, Marvel rode various other mediums to become a leader, and while many arguments about the varying merits of the two companies' comics might be completely valid, if a 13-year-old's friends are talking about the latest Spider-Man film, or video game, or cartoon, or (fill in you own tie-in), then by God that's what he'll purchase. I have a 5-year-old cousin who has watched the SM film ump-teen times, has a SM lunchbox, and feels like he knows Peter Parker personally. That's all the indication I need of who's winning in comics right now.
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Aug 23rd, 2005 01:52 PM
