stevelabny said:
i own over 15,000 comics (mostly marvel and dc, but other stuff too)
heres the difference:
the DC Universe was created first in happy mindless land. All the well-known heroes were super-good and super-powerful and got along peachy keen.
Marvel came along and created flawed characters who weren't overpowered and had personalities.
DC adjusted to this new trend in the 60s with mixed results.
So Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman still suck, but most of the other characters are decent.
steve
This is really a load of tripe. DC was not created in "happy mindless land." All of the heroes were not initially "super-good and super-powerful and got along peachy keen." Batman and Superman both routinely killed or crippled adversaries, many of whom were very sinister if not down-right evil. Many of the characters didn't even interact until the mid to late 40s.
As for Marvel, "flawed characters" do not necessarily constitute great story-telling or great characters. There were and continue to be quite a few Marvel characters that are extremely powerful and, despite their "flaws" are almost "perfect" in their behavior and overall conceptualization (Captain America, for all his grit, is essentially the perfect actualization of the perfect American soldier). And, aside from the occasional rumbles between The Thing and The Hulk, many of the larger intra-universal conflicts between Marvel characters didn't have a tremendous impact until the early 80s.
Finally, many of the super-hero comics considered to have a dramatic impact on the industry and significant critical acclaim beyond just fanboys have, interestingly enough, come out of DC and not Marvel (
The Dark Knight Returns, The Watchmen, Kingdom Come, etc.). This does not suggest that Marvel has not had great stories (much of the 80's X-Men, quite a few Spiderman, and the recent Punisher series to name a few), fantastic art, and great characters, just that the nature of their characters don't seem to have the same resonating, mythological impact that many of the DC characters have.
As for sales, yes, Marvel has been consistently beating DC. Marvel also publishes a lot more comics than DC. And, Marvel, being the younger of the two companies, doesn't have the weight of continuity strapped to its back (or the lack thereof) like DC. Finally, Marvel, if I recall correctly, went backrupt recently. They need to publish as much as possible in order to recuperate. I'm sure their recent movie deals (and the relative success of said movies) are also driving new and old fans to Marvel in greater numbers. DC had a tremendous surge in popularity during the late 80s and early 90s with The Batman franchise and nearly split the market on a number of occassions (if Wizard is to be trusted... something I question).
At any rate, as I said earlier, I don't think there are really fair comparisons between the two leading comic book publishers and the current, well-known fantasty rpg publishers. Furthermore, a lot of what I've read so far is really based upon fan-boy preferences with little to no attempt at objectivity. Rather than bashing FR and DC or Marvel and the plethora of lesser known rpg publishers/campaign settings out there, wouldn't it be better to try to find the common ground on what has worked (bearing in mind that this sort of discourse can't happen with "fans" of one particular company/setting over another)?
